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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The story here from MSN.

In their final meeting, the January 6th committee decided to recommend that the Justice Department take over and bring criminal charges against Trump.

Republicans either quickly rallied behind the former President or stayed silent on the matter.

After the criminal referral was announced, Republicans either came out in support of Trump, offered weak defenses, or didn’t say anything at all.

As we’ve all seen to our horror, congressional Republicans will do or say anything, regardless of how blatantly dishonest, in order to stay in office–and allegiance to Donald Trump is still very much a part of this miasma.

One hopes that the alignment of the GOP with respect to prosecuting Trump makes no difference whatsoever in the Justice Department’s decision to indict the former president on insurrection, obstruction, defrauding the U.S, and perhaps half a dozen other felonies.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The tale at left is a reminder that we live in a world where kindness is “trending,” to use the popular term.  This became apparent, to me at least, with the imperative to commit “random acts of kindness” concept of perhaps 20 years ago.

Kindness is a profoundly important ingredient in a time in human history in which stories of hate and selfishness tend to make the headlines.

Anyone struggling to find hope for our future should take solace in the fact that intelligent and kind folks outnumber mean and stupid people by a huge margin.

Further, the “mean and stupid” contingent in our society is under great legal pressure and are in the process of finding themselves destitute.   Take Alex Jones and Fox News, not to mention Donald Trump and his associates.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

If you can relate to the meme here, and you’re willing to “surrender to the mystery,” you’ll love the composition of American singer-songwriter Iris Dement, below.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I found this meme from a reader quite interesting.

Personally, I will call 2023 a good year to the degree it represents an overall improved quality of life for the world’s people.  That means:

• Full restoration of American democracy and justice for those who tried to overthrow it

• Russia out of Ukraine, Saudi Arabia out of Yemen, etc.

• Progress in climate change mitigation, which means decarbonizing energy and transportation, and better land use

• A return to fair taxation of the rich, enabling the development of social programs like quality education and universal healthcare

• Progress for every country in both the freedom index and the happiness ranking

If there is a common theme here, it’s that the world’s people begin to think as one in terms of achieving sustainability for all life forms on our home planet.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I don’t know about you, but I go back and forth on stuff like this…and I don’t use words like “imaginal.”

From her bio:

Dr. Jude Currivan is a cosmologist, planetary healer, futurist, author, previously one of the most senior business women in the UK and co-founder of WholeWorld-View. Having grown up as the daughter of a coal miner in the north of England, she has since journeyed to more than eighty countries around the world and for the last twenty -five years has lived in the sacred landscape of Avebury. She has experienced multidimensional realities since early childhood and worked with the wisdom keepers both incarnate and discarnate of many traditions. Jude integrates leading edge science, research into consciousness and universal wisdom teachings into a wholistic world-view.

I’m not so sure on the “leading edge science.”

From here, what this civilization seems to be facing is not one crisis, but a series of crises.  I think I’d be happier to confront our issues, rather than be told we’re experiencing a “metamorphosis.”

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The fact that Trump avoided paying taxes using every means legal should surprise no one; it’s a tactic available to everyone, and the wealthier one is, the more latitude one has to play these tricks.

To most observers, however, there is criminality here, in the form of placing a corrupt IRS commissioner who agreed not to perform his duty re: auditing each tax return of a sitting president.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

If, on top of this, you add corporate control of the media that Americans are force-fed, you have 98+% of the U.S. electorate that are truly powerless to control their financial condition, let alone reproductive rights, etc.

We have the illusion of choice, but beneath that, there is no real substance whatsoever.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

This from British scientist and conservationist Charlie Gardner. It really is astonishing how little humankind is doing to prevent environmental collapse and other forms of societal decay.

An important factor at play here is that the vast majority of the world’s people live under great financial duress.  Whether that means the poor or the working-class, stressed-out people don’t have resources to become activists, and organize against a societal structure that is in the process of driving us into extinction, or at best, a hellish existence.

As 20th Century American author Upton Sinclair wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

The response to all this from the top 1% is truly appalling: We have no interest whatsoever in making changes to a system that is making us even richer by the day, regardless of the irreparable damage that our current life modalities are having on this planet.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

Every once in a while I write a short post extolling the virtue of planting trees as a tool in climate change mitigation.

Normally, these are inspired by the works of an artist I follow, Italy’s Maurizio Rega. I simply adore his piece here.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Perhaps the single most telling aspect of the moral demise of the Republican Party is its failure to criticize its congresspeople for things like entertaining racists at the White House and running election campaigns based on pure lies.

Can’t someone stand up and say, “Er, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this?”

If I were a PR guy advising them on their desperate need to regain the trust of the American voters, I’d say, “Boys, you can’t openly embrace some of the most unethical behavior imaginable.  Your voters are stupid but there is (I believe at least) a limit.”

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