Empathy
As shown here, we live in a society that glorifies the very worst traits of the human animal and seems to be on a rocket ride to its own destruction.
Cashing in on Ignorance
Ignorance has terrific value to the billionaire class. If you’re filthy rich, you really don’t want a nation full of people learning that pure market capitalism is, by its very nature, exploitative, or that the consumption of fossil fuels is destroying our planet’s capacity to support life.
We Have Plenty of Problems that Actually DO Exist
The Trump administration and congressional Republicans are exceptionally good at focusing the MAGA base on problems that don’t exist.
What bathrooms should trans people use? Well, before we work ourselves into a frenzy, let’s ask ourselves if this is an issue that is really harming the good people of this nation.
Keep in mind that 60% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck and are struggling to afford groceries.
How Did This Happen?
The simple answer to the question here is that we’ve become a nation many of whose people think, “I got mine. Go die.”
Now, how did this happen? That’s more complicated, but I suggest that, as I’ve believed since I was in my teens, we’re living through the endgame of free market capitalism.
The rich have gotten richer and have taken an ownership position in our lawmaking processes, so as to take them from millionaires to billionaires. At the same time, the rest of the U.S citizenry has become so poorly educated and desperate that they’ll believe that the people who harvest our fruits and vegetables are stealing our jobs and driving up the cost of housing.
Just a generation ago, Americans were proud that their country led the world in promoting democracy and moral fortitude. Now, we stand for racial hate, greed, cruelty, and war criminality.
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Shaking Our Heads
Trump is elated that Republicans swept the Arizona Republican primaries.
That’s the level of intelligence we’re dealing with.
The Next U.S. President
I would say that the meme here is “semi-true.”
It’s certainly true that he/she will be repairing broken relationships with our historical allies, but I don’t think that will be too terribly difficult. The rest of the world will be popping champagne corks the second Trump’s gone.
Harry Truman on Socialism
As shown at left, Republicans have been slandering the idea of socialism for quite a while.
Now, of course, it’s risen to a fevered pitch, as about 30% of American voters will believe anything.
A Message to All
If the question at left were posed to me, I would respond: love one another.
Below is the seal of the school I attended as a boy. The motto in ancient Greek, close to the bottom, is pronounced “fuh-LAY-ta a-LAY-loose,” and translates into English as exactly that–love one another.
This concept sits at the basis of Quakerism, the religion upon which the Willliam Penn Charter School (“PC”) in Philadelphia was founded in 1689. We are all equal. We all share “personhood.”
To most PC graduates, it’s weird when we hear, for instance, that the Serbs and the Croats or that the Sunnis and the Shiites “don’t get along.” Can’t we just knock off this mean and childish behavior? Our common humanity sits right in front of our noses.
The cave drawings at Lascaux that were made 40,000 years ago reveal to us something very important. We today are no different from the people living at that time in any way that is fundamental or basic. We all love our children, we all do our work, and we gaze at the sky, contemplating the wonders of the universe.
Harming each other is repellant to our minds.
Huge Corporations Are Slapping Their Customers in the Face
What do you notice about the shopping bag in the photo?
It has no handles.
That’s right, Albertson’s, with annual revenues of more than $83 billion, has decided to inconvenience its customers, forcing them to wrap both of their arms around their grocery bags to get them into and out of their shopping carts, into and out of their cars, and finally into their homes.
The savings? From what I can learn from AI, the answer is somewhere around $0.12 each. If you’re interested, you can Google: “cost per 1000000 paper grocery bags.”
I understand that grocery stores operate on low margins, but if it were my decision to make, I wouldn’t be deliberately pissing off my customers, many of them elderly, who are spending $100 for a bag of my groceries in order to save 12 cents.
Yet the Albertson’s example isn’t unique; in fact, it’s everywhere you go. Look at your cell phone bill and your streaming services. Corporate greed is grinding you into the pavement while it relishes in your misery.
The Course Toward Authoritarianism
What Krishnamurti says at left reminds us of the direction that essentially everything takes in human civilization. What once was pure eventually becomes adulterated and ultimately monetized.
The most egregious example of this is how the wealthiest human beings on Earth have decided to ruin the planet with carbon emissions–simply so they can make even more money.
