A Message to American Oligarchs

Hi all – thought you should hear from the rest of us out here – not the angry ones, just the here ones living their normal-ish lives  every day, working, raising kids, vacationing, having ideas and dreams and starting small businesses or working with  nonprofits to help make this a better place, planning for kids’ colleges and weddings, getting older and making those finances and livings work out as we do, and celebrating with our families and friends, striving to take care of the sick and impaired and working to make healthy environments for the future.  We plan, plant and grow, produce and build, offer services, live our lives and contribute to our communities.

We do not hate you. 

We do not hate you for being incredibly and unimaginably rich, or powerful. We are absolutely fine with that. Be as rich as you are comfortable and happy being. Be powerful. Be the financial backbone to parts of our economy, politics and prosperity. We are grateful for what you do and for your power and presence in the many worlds of America. You are necessary to all of us, and we appreciate your providence as you prosper.

Remember

Do not forget where you came from! Remember the beginnings of your prosperity. The opportunity and environment that allowed you to prosper, build wealth and create your vast holdings and spheres of influence. Remember the hard work of all those who helped you build – the laborers, the office and financial people, the people whose work provided the basis for your success. Investors, yes, but their funds rested upon the backs of those who physically perform the work as well.

Remember that what brings growth, which is ultimately what fuels prosperity and wealth, is work. The grinding work of the every day person getting up in the morning to their alarm clock and looking forward to their Dunkins or Starbucks. When you get so layered away from them, you believe that your work is to tend to your money – to feed it, invest it and make more money for investors and yourselves. All that money rests on the back of the entire economy of everyone working. Money is indicative of labor and production. The more productive we are, the more you thrive. Money is the final tiered result of human production and activity.

Do the Math

Thus – and this is simple math – to increase wealth increasing productivity is essential– managing costs flows in harmony with increasing productivity. These two must always be balanced. If cutting costs hurts the worker it hurts productivity, which is the cornerstone of wealth.

Our message? Evey decision needs to be made with the bottom of the line contributor, not the top-of-the-line profiteer, in mind. Why? When your workforce can live the quality of life they are working for, production increases. When they go home at night to a secure home with food, water and heat that is satisfying for them, when they can afford to take care of and educate their children and plan for vacations and retirement, envision building their own wealth and prosperity, they work better and more. “Without a vision, the people perish.”  When people have a vision and the opportunity of personal prosperity and security, you, the wealthy, prosper.

When the rich squeeze out the living of the many productive working people, cut their benefits and freeze or reduce the incomes that give them the quality of life they are seeking by over focusing on cost cutting, the economic system is out of balance, and you the very rich, lose wealth. Yur returns diminsh. While your objective is to grow your wealth in cutting costs, raising prices and getting rid of taxes and benefits, your returns will not experience the rate of growth expected and then you will want to cut more because you are focused on the bottom line, the money, instead of the producers. The oligarchy of suppressive and oppressive cultures will never be as rich and powerful as those of the free, supportive nations. Supportive cultures offer freedom of expression, choice, lifestyles and supporitve work benefits to those who produce as well as services for those who are needy and sick. They offer the opportunity for individual dreams and passions. And boy does that environment produce when the field is open for everyone, and anything is possible. When dreams can be dreamed and pursued, greatness is made. Just like you made yours.

Make America Great

That is what made America great and will continue to make it a great place for you and for the rest of us. The sea of economy must float all the boats – small and very, very grand.  No matter how removed you feel, perhaps insulated by your wealth, we are still all in this together. You, the rich and powerful, will prosper in direct relation to how your policies and politics treat us, the small and powerfully prolific producers. Thank you.

 

 

Defile, Destroy, and Die

Voice of the Prophet

We just had a gunman/executioner mark his bullets with Deny, Delay and Depose, awakening a massive conversation around the state of health care today. There are many who sympathize with his frustration, hate, and resistance even while condemning his act. Often it takes something large and startling to get our conversation going.

Unfortunately, we are not as aware of nature signaling its deep distress and messages, because in our society, we consider that nature has no voice.

And yet, for a supposedly Christian country, the bible itself heralds nature as a huge force of communication, explanation, and revelation if we have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.

The whale swallowed Jonah, the floods wiped out civilization, and in the end times of Revelation the forces of nature come together in a frightening crescendo of destruction. Nature is constantly used in the bible to inform us of our state in relationship to the divine. Wars and pestilence, famine and drought, earthquakes, volcanoes, the blotting out of the stars, moon, and sun, and it all begins with a rider on a white horse who came conquering and to conquer. Someone who looks very shining but is only the beginning of the destruction of the end, followed by natural disasters, wars, famines, and pestilences.

Now let’s take a few minutes to look at Donald’s last trip through the White House (horse?) as it culminated in 2019);

Defilement:  April 15, 2019 - Notre Dame burned in an amazing conflagration that held the attention of the entire world in a dreaded fascination. How could this happen, we asked ourselves?

Who is Notre Dame – Our Lady. And she burned – her regal spire of beauty toppled and her roof of protection incinerated. This Iconic representation of Lady, the sacredness of her essence, was defiled and burned, and the entire world was horrified. In America today, the defilement of the female is in full swing, and the earth pealed that warning out in fire on April 15, 2019, the third year of the reign of our lord and savior, Donald J Trump. The disrespectful treatment of women in this country spawned by his watch is unprecedented in democratic countries the world over and has continued to grow like an ugly cancer in America since then. Not one democracy treats its women with the lack of respect and equality that we currently do and continue to grow in our doing, here. Attacks upon the rights, freedoms and safety of our ladies will continue under his watch. Our Lady has suffered, and will continue to suffer, in America since the reign of Donald, Defiler of Women, began.

Destruction: Between September 2019 and March 2020, 12.6 million hectares, about 31 million acres, of forest and bushland burned in Australia causing environmental repercussions the world over. About 3 billion animals were impacted and 1700 species of plants animals and eco communities are now threatened with extinction. Again, the world watched in horror as Australia burned. The temperatures leading up to this global disaster, whose ashes were felt across the globe, were record breaking highs. Fire rose up to speak to us next about the destruction of our planet. Our lack of care and the total ignorance of environmental danger are hallmark traits of the reign of DJT. The earth is assured he will continue his campaign of denial and destruction against her as he goes.

Death: March 2020 - And as the fires burned down, another was revving up. A pestilence came upon the land and the people died. By March as the land fires died in Australia, here in America the pestilence of the vile attitudes we have toward our land, our women and each other reached new heights in unrestrained death, despair, anger and division in the form of Covid 19. We lost around 7 million overall as recorded in Covid figures with the estimated global death to be somewhere more, around 18 million, as many countries were not adequately able to record statistics. Here in America a staggering 103 million cases were reported and 1.2 million deaths recorded. Nations have suffered since then, struggling economically and politically, and in our own, the struggle with violence, hate and the unacknowledged role of declining mental and emotional health has led to almost daily acts of depravity, mindlessness, distrust and despair. We drive ourselves into walls, kill the innocent and embrace the guilty.

 Donald’s advent is the incarnation of a trilogy of defilement, destruction, and death.

And still we have not heard or read the signs around us. Still, we are not paying attention to the screaming of the globe and its inhabitants through signs and natural disaster, and even worse, we have attributed savior status to the one who carries the curse. Once more we have installed the golden crowned conqueror, the shiny hopeful thing full of lies and deceit and unfulfilled, inept promises who robs from the poor and gives to the rich.

For the past 4 years DJT has continued to assault our democracy, deride our government and foment hatred and unrest. Be assured he held meetings with the war mongers in Russia and Israel to keep the destruction and death alive to build his palace upon. They willingly agreed but will not bend the knee to peace at his bequest no matter what. He has unleashed uncontrollable forces of evil upon the land and the people, fomenting wars for his own benefit. His regime will not be blessed, but it will continue to be a beacon of world warning as it continues to rob and deceive the people it has purported it will help.

Watch over these next few years and see what the earth coughs up to help us see as dictators and wars rise, economies and people suffer, and who knows what further outbursts of natural unrest and upheaval continue while Donald cannot make peace or prosperity happen. Listen to nature, look, record and remember.

Remember in the days of the bible how the prophets spoke, the earth shook, and the people did not listen.

Shark Tank

 

Back in 2020 I offered an Animal Tarot card reading on the post election energies. To my dismay, Shark came up as the final outcome card. Not knowing what time-frame my reading was encompassing, I have waited and watched. I think perhaps the time is now. 

The message of Shark is that it is death and destruction, but it is not personal. A shark has no personal connection. It just sees prey, food, and is ultimately equipped to eat it, ravenously. It never looks at you when it does. Its lack-life eyes roll back in its head so it can devour you without ever seeing you. 

The antidote to Shark, the Destroyer, in the message, was to stay out of its path. Shark will destroy everything in its path with no thought or care. Just beware and watch out for it.The deal is to stay out of its way.

Once again, Shark has swum into our home waters. This poem came through and I offer it here as the vision appeared as I was writing it:

The Shark Tank

 

It’s a feeding frenzy on the American Economy.

Watch as the sharks circle waiting to close in on Washington

The gleam in their emotionless eyes

Is the reflection of their supporters’ surprise

As they find themselves the prize

Meal on the table

 

The crumbs of our meager fortunes

Are their meat and bones

To be crunched and imbibed

Benefits and freedoms denied

As we cough up our innards and strive to survive

 

The sharks are circling in glutenous greed

The vampire’s meal, with jubilation, to feed

On America’s flesh and blood, sweetened with sweat.

We are the entrée – the scent of our death drives them mad

 

We squeeze up all we have into the giant never satisfied maw

Delighting the deceivers who lured us

Into the shallows of thoughtlessness

Tempting us with more

When we are it – all they were hoping for.

HOPE

The dust is settling

The political fires are over

Some lost hope

Some are rolling in clover….

Another election has gone by, and I have post-election thoughts to share. I have resurrected my Google blog as this is where I feel comfortable posting about things of politics, beliefs, and hope.

Right now, 51% of our country is rolling in hope and joy. They have felt dis-inherited from their own country and have threatened violence in their deep angers and bitterness. Now they have their hero coming into place. Their hopes are high.

Forty-eight percent of the country is in despair, holding their breath, making contingency plans and hunkering down for a long - hopefully only 4 - years.

There is hope for all.

Now is the time for all of us - the 51 and the 48 - to come together to hold our newly elected leader accountable for his words both vague and clear, unpromised or dimly promised promises, and his actions. Fifty-one percent are expectant. Let them be fulfilled and joyous – may their times of hoped-for prosperity come to fruition. May inflation go down, wars end, small farmers flourish, and the rural working people prosper. May they receive the more affordable living they hope for, may they receive good health care for their daughters and themselves, be able to care for their elders, earn good wages and enjoy happy retirement. May they live in freedom and may the values of family living and integrity be preserved. May they feel safe and heard and may America be regarded as a great and good influence upon the world. May the national debt go down and our economy thrive.

And may the 48 percent be present to highlight these expected accomplishments, or the lack of them.

What can we, the disappointed, do?

Now is the time to watch, observe and comment. As things fail to live up to our countrymates expectations, we must be the patient and kind vocal commentators that help to keep the dreams alive. When the economy gets worse instead of better, when our allies do not view us as friends and our supporters are those who oppress, we need to raise a voice of comment to our 51 percent family and friends, calmly and lovingly pointing out where words, actions and results do not match or produce the desired and expected effects.

When their and our daughters suffer and die from preventable reproductive issues and the infant and maternal mortality rates rise as they have been, we need to talk about it. When costs are higher, not lower, when tax breaks and sweet favors flow to the very rich while the working people suffer, we need to talk about it with our families and friends. When health care becomes hard to get and does not cover what is needed, we need to talk about it – not accusingly, but commentatively. When small farmers see their lands and livelihood suffer and disappear, we need to talk about it. When internment camps and ethnic and gender group persecutions disrupt the flow of daily American life and when federal disaster response is a disaster, we need to talk about it. When prices rise due to tariffs, when higher education is unaffordable and public education puts our children behind the economic world curve, we need to converse around the supper table, in the grocery store, at the mall, in the parents’ meetings.

We are all in this together, 

for better or for worse. Let us ride the times with gentleness but with clarity and compassionate courage and speak, speak, speak in kindness with our neighbors.

These may not be the times we hoped for, but they will present the opportunities we need to bring our country’s people together. And that is the true source of hope.

The Appalling Loss of Political Ethics

 

Well, the rats are finally and slowly beginning to leave the sinking ship.

Over the past almost 4 years we have seen a handful of ethical Republican leaders stand by the principles of honesty and accountability that we have a voted right to expect in all our public SERVANTS.

They braved the castrating effects of caustic, repulsive bullying, defamation, and personal attack from a verbal weapon-wielding presidential poser, his scathing rebuke and retribution, and held their ground.

During all of this, many of us have been wondering – where are the Republican leaders? Where have they been? Why are they silent in the face of this massive and preposterous attack on the Republic for Which They Stand? Their silence has been deafening, mystifying, horrifying and sad. Worse yet, the tacit support indicated by their silence has been frightening. Our hearts have been broken, our hopes deflated, our trust badly battered, and our sense of democracy threatened.

Now, as the skies darken over this administration, with no hope of pulling any publicly approved millions-of-voter hoax over the American people’s eyes congealing into undeniable fact, the hangers on, the coat-tailers, the helping-themselves-at-the-table satellites circling around the horn of plenty of handouts for those who flatter me, or at least shut up – because shutting up is complicity – are sensing the sinking of their golden goose ship of power and plenty and leaving the table. They are jumping off by disagreeing with an illogical, unfactual, unskilled, unmanageable, demagogic, presumptive, unqualified impostor. They are speaking the truth, facing the facts, and publicly acknowledging them to what may be left of their voters. Whew. Finally. Some real reality.

But may we watch and count and remember with our eyes open. These late-leavers are those who sold their political souls for personal gain. If they did it once, they will do it again. It is in the nature and grain of their political persona, hidden beneath the surface, showing in actions and screaming in silence. No personal gain at the political table, they leave and go looking for crumbs of approval from the voters who put them there in the first place. Did they do their job standing up for the welfare of those whom they were charged to serve as they gobbled at the table of Trump plenty of power for a few, maybe for you if you are loyal? You decide. You are the voter. But remember what they did not say, what they did not do, as they sat at the table with a wanna be dictator. Remember.

We can shine the light of the failure of political ethics clearly on Republicans in this instance, but in truth what is at stake here is political ethics in all arenas, in all parties, in all individuals seeking to take on the role of SERVING the people of this country. And one thing we may have lost in this muck is the personal ethics we bring to the process of choosing and voting for our servant leaders. If we can be led to vote for someone with no appropriate life experience and qualifications perhaps we are not as familiar with the qualifications of the job position that needs to be filled. Perhaps we are voting with unhealed emotions of anger, fear, pain and revenge. These origins will never lead us to healthy leadership. We, as a people, have personal healing and self-examination to do so that we have clear eyes minds and hearts to vote with. Ethics and self-honesty begins in each person and becomes a communal expression as we choose our leaders. Ethics begins with us, the voters, and ends in Washington DC.

Farewell

 

Well folks, the show is almost over.

After January 20^th people can go home and begin to watch the re-runs.

It’s been a good four-year season for a “reality” TV show packed with hype, hyperbole, and shockingly exciting autocracy. Featuring rip-roaring conflict, hidden drama, blatant manipulation, comedic conspiracies, subtle violence, unacknowledged repression, a demagogic main character, sad humor, and magnificent mismanagement, the longest running season of The Apprentice is over.

Trump has kept his audience well entertained, with exciting new episodes occurring almost weekly and daily twitter promotions that kept his followers on the edges of their chairs with delight.

We bid adieu to a fantasy run. The one where everyone wants to be in the seat of power and tell others what to do and where to get off. The private dreams of control and revenge acted out through a surrogate playing to his best accolades.

The show is over folks.

Go Home

Watch the re-runs.

Law and Order - for Some or All?

 

Of course, we must have law and order. The basis of any society is organization and cooperation for the benefit of all. Laws and order are essential to our communal survival and prosperity. And in America so are the freedoms, equality and self-government contained and guaranteed for all within our constitution.

Society is constructed to give greater power and survival to its members through shared communal resources, skills and talents. They must be for the benefit of all for a society to survive successfully, otherwise it will topple. The big, huge vision of a Democracy is to do just that. Provide a society in which all can flourish together. This society, with its attendant rules and structures, law and order, exists for the benefit and welfare of all its members. None of our societal institutions were meant to treat one segment of the population differently than others. 

The operation of Law and Order today we are told by Black, Indigenous, LBGTQ and People of Color, is doing just that. It is, they say, the work of Bias and Prejudice, built-in preference and privileges expressed in so many, many facets in our society that we white, straight folk are not aware of because we are used to current conditions we consider "normal" and "just fine." Right down to religious values that support our views. We will use everything we have to make ourselves right.  

While Law and Order were purported to be the instrument of a perfect society to preserve and defend freedoms for all, they were actually created to protect and defend white people against all possibly threatening others. Research it. Our white ideals have been subverted, often with very clear intention by some, but for most of us, completely without our knowing, realizing or understanding. The problems of racial and sexual persecution and suppression are couched in the ignorance of our minds and the hardness of our hearts.

And that is what all the fuss is about today as we stand polarized over is there a race problem or is there not in America. We are not a perfect people and we do not therefore create perfect societal structures. The United States is a people in process, moving toward an ideal with a set of values that embraces life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all within its borders. This ideal naturally and logically excludes the concept of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness for one segment of its population at the expense of other segments of its population. When, as a people, we become aware of these kinds of inequities in our country it is our duty as citizens of these United States to examine the issues and make every attempt to correct our course and keep us on the mark set by our struggling forbearers who gave up so much in pursuit of this ideal; they sacrificed everything for it to create a place of freedom and safety for future generations. That is the purpose of the democratic government they created for us, and the charge they have handed down to Americans through the generations. Do we take it or leave it? To leave it is to leave Democracy and drift into autocracy....

We must always be on guard for the subtle slips and sidewinders that distract us from our path as a country and very slowly change the operation of our systems to different outcomes. They are the result of our personal griefs and angers, fears and hates that influence and determine our choices and our votes, our actions and our speech. We are each responsible for holding the values and vision entrusted to us by preceding generations. That means we are each charged with examining the values instilled by our parents and theirs before them, to the values expressed in our Constitution. We are each charged with allowing that Constitutional vision to expand and grow with each new generation and every global situation we face in our life journeys. 

We cannot, as Americans, blindly trust in the proper application of our national values by agencies and institutions set up to do so, but must continually re-visit these institutions, holding them and ourselves accountable for making conscious choices to apply the founding values we profess in the ever-changing landscape of human existence and interaction within our borders.  We, the people, are responsible for the slow gentle twisting of our national values and vision, through whatever life incidents have shaped them, to support unrecognized biases. We are responsible. Our institutions reflect the choices we make and carry out our wishes. Not only is Law and Order not exactly what we think it is, many of our core assumptions about the equality of  social opportunities and benefits reflect these same discrepancies. Today is one of those times of shining an uncomfortable light on places that need change.

Law and order of the people, by the people and for the people, is a big inheritance and huge responsibility to embrace and grow with the changes needed to serve all ethnicities and cultures citizened within our borders. This is the charge of our Constitution. And let's not forget that our founding vision and the economics of what was really happening in America, a land discovered and exploited by European countries for economic gain and world power through colonization and imperialism, differ greatly. Our real history and our story are not congruous. Teaching a realistic view of the forces that actually shaped our country, one that includes this disparity between our intentions and our origins and actions, will help provide a solid basis for making informed decisions. 

To deny and repress voices of dissent crying for a review of our systems by labeling them as vicious and un-American by exaggerating negative impressions and mis-reporting or mis-interpreting reports, is to ignore the process of democracy instilled within our fabric that pays attention to the voices of all members of society and to repress the only process (that of assessing and revising to extend our vision and values more clearly to all) that keeps us truly free and American. Let’s welcome those who do not feel law and order are being applied justly and equally to all into the discussion tables with those who feel there is not enough law and order. Let's invite them into the legislative halls and the future planning of America. It is the very same cry our visionary founders are shouting to us through the centuries. Are we open enough to listen or will we drown them out with protestations of our rightness under a set of invoked laws and beliefs? Law and order equally for all to ensure the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness without repression and persecution of one group by another only occurs through listening to the voices of all. That is a truly Great America. Let’s work on it – together.