For those who think there are no gender neutral people or that there is no reason to change gender

Probably a 35 old female Dutch writer who follows her own path and seems to forget that other people also want to follow their own path which should not have to run like her path.

She doesn’t care what we or others want to tell her. She hates mainstream media, but also the sheep of this world, as well as the rich of this world, but she hates most of all people.

For her

its time to feel weird about everything we can think of. {There is no gender neutral}

and in one of her blogarticles she writes

We want respect for many things, but we do not get respect for many things. {There is no gender neutral}

She perhaps forgets that for receiving respect one also has to give respect. We can understand that there are things in her life that disturb her. But some of those things could perhaps disturb her because she does not understand them or does not know about other matters. It is clear that she has no idea about gender, and therefore asks

First how can you change your gender? Second how can you born gender neutral?

Biological its not possible to born gender neutral, and Biological it can not change during your life from men to woman or vice versa. {There is no gender neutral}

What we note there is a problem that also arises in conservative Christian circles, where it is assumed that in nature nothing can go wrong and that God created man and woman in His likeness and should therefore be “complete”. She seems to forget that there are human beings who are born without a body full of specific male or female elements. Though she seems to understand, some children may not feel happy with their own bodies, we think she still overlooks those who are born with half a male half a female body.  She writes

Children yes some children are uncomfortable in their own body because they are born boy, but are acting like girls. It is even possible to change them! {There is no gender neutral}

But for her, there is no reason for people to change their gender.

i find that heavy shit, and in sort of way i can not accept that. {There is no gender neutral}

For her it seems to be clear that there can be “no in-between”.

You are or boy, or girl, not both or gender neutral. {There is no gender neutral}

If life were that simple, it would also be very easy. But life is not always so black and white. Not every boy feels like a boy or wants to be a boy, the same as every girl in a girl’s body does not always want to be that girl she sees in the mirror. It is very difficult to be both, though it can always also be that one feels a sort of sympathy for both sexes.

If you find yourself happier as a woman, then you have my respect go for it! But you can not change definitions of genders, you are boy or girl, so you dress like a girl but you are still a boy. {There is no gender neutral}

She does not go in into the aspect of changing sex. Because why should a boy who feels he is a girl born in a boy’s body should not be allowed to have this bodily position corrected? And why should a girl who is confronted with her male body not be allowed to have that body reshaped in a female person?

Now these days we have gender neutrality, come on why do we make this word so freaking difficult?

People can not even begin to understand what the definition is of being naked or porno. All lessons by adults to children about sexuality is taboo! We make it for them now days very difficult to understand things. This world is so freaking crazy, that we are far away from being normal. {There is no gender neutral}

It is just making it so difficult for children when neutral nouns are introduced and when people may not be called for what they are and for what they feel. The world would be so much easier if we just could name the things as they are.

In an other blog she writes

In my point of view, children are most important so we have to learn them realistic thoughts, not fairy tails. {8: Children}

Therefore we should not be afraid to speak to children about different feelings human beings can have. And we should not push stereotypes on those children, having girls be in pink and playing with dolls and boys having to be strong and playing with cars.

She agrees we must

Stop over protecting children if you not even can protect your own citizens. {8: Children}

By not showing the world how it is and by telling ‘fairy tales’ about boys and girls in this world, we do not help the child to develop properly. We must have our ears and eyes open to the child and help it in the way how that child wants to develop, even if it is not like we would have preferred it. As such in case a girl talks about her will to become a boy, we should listen to her and talk about that matter. We should give it full serious thought.

She writes

Stop pressure children to perform, stop to steal there youth. Do see lot of over protecting that will not help children in the future, it will be a disaster for the future if you continue lying to your children. Children want to change gender? Then something must be wrong with your kid, you can not change your gender. Its unhappy because this world demands so much off them. The problem is not gender but this world, this capitalistic system. Children can only be happy if you free them form this capitalistic system. Children are not stupid and most of the time smarter then you. {8: Children}

But the inner feeling of a human being has nothing to do with capitalism. We totally would agree that in this world a lot goes wrong because of capitalism, but that is not the cause that boy or girls would want to change gender.

It is a pity that the female blogger looks at people who believe in religion as deeply indoctrinated people. According to her, religious people are living with an unrealistic image that makes their future more difficult than it really is. Though it are religious people who open their mind to those who are different than the mainstream. Real Christians, for example, also do not turn their head away from people who are feeling differently than they or than what society expects from those people. As such they are empathic with those who are confronted with the difficult situation of being born in the wrong body.

The blogwriter says

Generations of people are victims of a story that has circulated on Earth for thousands of years, and it is they who keep the story alive. {Manifest}

But believers in the Elohim Hashem Jehovah are not at all victims, and we even wonder if other religious groups, be they Hindu, Muslim or Jew would be victims. In many religious groups, there are many stories that may have circulated for thousands of years, but that does not make those stories not true nor not valid to build up a secure life. There are enough reasons why to keep stories alive, the same as there are enough reasons why to keep beautiful constructions or monuments preserved for the future.

The lady who hates so much, has a manifest against religion, sexuality, capitalism, communism, the destroying of capitalism, destroying of media, and probably looks forward to the destroying of religion in total, that we only can think she must be very frustrated. She writes

People must understand that religion is the cause of the biggest problems on earth, they must realize that this is serious! Who not accept will be terminated who do accept can learn others to accept. Lets say pure atheism itself will be teaches at schools and everywhere where you can learn. Religion in total forbidden, by all laws international Israel will be disband and prosecuted against crimes to humanity. All former presidents and military of Israel that has killed others will be sent to the death penalty. {Manifest}

She continues her manifesto

In socialism and in communism we share, we share so we can be all the same, we can help always each other with no better human logo then other humans. If we share we have everything we need and everyone can have this. Education, health care, must be free for everyone on this earth no matter the color, no matter the cost, all the same rights. {Manifest}

Totally forgetting that in communism is requested to have respect for each human being, no matter how it looks or feels like. If a person is born without a leg, arm, penis or vagina, in communism that boy or girl should not be excluded and should have the same rights as another person having all those things one expects a boy or girl to have. In communism there is a place for each human being, be it a man, woman or transgender or homo to develop properly and to be a partner in a system to build up together in respect to all other human beings, animals and plants. The female blogwriter seems to forget the important law of equality in communism.

Because her blog does not provide a space to reply to her writings, we thought this matter of equality, gender and religiousness too important to let go of and to have it not responded.

By writing

All people on earth deserve good education and health care no doubts about that! Only non religious people deserve this because religious people they have their God that will heal them. {Manifest}

shows how she misunderstands religion and does not know the God of the Bible at all. She forgets that the God of Israel has given the world in the hands of man, who has now to prove he can tackle it. Clearly, with her writing on the media, she claims to detest, she herself tries to indoctrinate people, like she accused others of indoctrinating through the media.

She then ends her discours:

Children want to change gender? Then something must be wrong with your kid, you can not change your gender. Its unhappy because this world demands so much off them. The problem is not gender but this world, this capitalistic system. Children can only be happy if you free them form this capitalistic system. Children are not stupid and most of the time smarter then you. {Manifest}

The child can effectively be unhappy with ‘its’ body because our society demands too much of it. By not using gender nouns we are not going to solve the problems children may have, because by it we are even going to confuse it more.

Our society must learn to face the fact that not everything can always turn out the way one would like, nor is there a god or God involved when things go wrong. It is people themselves who seek war. It is people themselves who expect patterns from others, in which they are then disgusted when they see those expectations unfulfilled. No form of government is going to bring relief to that anytime soon. It is people who need to change their mindset and be open to the diversity in society, as well as the differences between the sexes of human beings.

It is by not wanting to listen to a child that feels unhappy in its body, one shows the selfishness and the restriction of freedom for a child to go its own way in a world it can feel happy as how she feels and want to go through the world. Denying that right for a child to choose one’s own orientation makes that person who does not grant that child that right an “inhuman” and “callous person”.

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Preceding

Gender, genderless, androgyny, bisexuality, cisgender and transgender

Study says highlighting gender leads to stereotypes

Do the concepts of male and female need to have a formal official definition

Trans extremism, trans ideology, genderless a.o. categories and TERFs

The dilemma of gender neutrality

She/Her – They/Them – Person

The Concept of Gender Neutrality and You

The World of ‘Men’?

Gender Neutrality

J.B Mackinnon’s The Day the World Stops Shopping: Book Review

A very good question is to wonder if we have to buy things or to exchange things, and what would happen if we come to a society where nobody shall have to shop.
For sure in this capitalist world there is too much individualism and greed for having personal things, no matter what it might cost to others or to nature, to have those things in personal possession.

Sabbaths or Sundays used to be days when everybody took time for themselves and/or for God, not being bounded to work or material goods. Many, in the past, considered that one day of the week as a ‘holy’ day, in which there was no place for material gain, but all the more for spiritual gain. There was that one day in the week that people stopped, relaxed, and recharged for the week ahead, and stopped consuming for the day.

But in the capitalist world, such time for oneself is considered damaging the economic world and our society, which has continued to thrive on the expenditure of money. Money has become the modern god. Most people have come to worship Mammon, the god of money, and feel bad if they become limited or restricted in their game of gaining more and more personal stuff.

People should come to understand that the way of consumerism like it has gone with a bullet train since the 1980ies has to be stopped. Demarketing, the concept of using marketing to dissuade people from consuming, or encouraging them to consume less, offers a solution that marketing could provide to the problem of climate change and overconsumption.

 

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Preceding

P5 The Empire we’re in: Individualism & Consumerism

Summer holiday time to knock and ask, and time to share

Watch out

What climate activists can learn from Sunday School leaders

Less… is still enough

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Additional reading

1. A look at materialism
2. Capitalism and economic policy and Christian survey (Our World) = Capitalism and economic policy and Christian survey (Some View on the World)
3. Gang Fascism: How Capital Weaponizes the Social Ills It Creates
4. Daily thought for July the 8th and the Summer months
5. Today’s thought “Fools despise wisdom and instruction” (March 23)
6. A way to prepare for the Kingdom
7. Utopism has not ended
8. Entering 2022 still Aiming for a society without exploitation or oppression

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Related

1. When Will Enough Be Enough? Our Society Has a Serious Obsession with Growth.
2. Overconsumption
3. Overconsumption is what happens when an ecosystem can no longer sustain the use of its resources
4. Overconsumption: uncovering the dark side of economic growth
5. On overconsumption and Christmas shopping
6. A Reality Check and A Challenge 
7. The Unedited Truth About Why Americans Are So Unhappy In Life
8. “I Don’t Want to Know”
9. Column: Overconsumption has no place in the holidays
10. overconsumption and the dulling of the senses
11. The Occupiers Claim: Working for A Living is Slavery
12. The case against consumerism: Part 1 – The real cost of our everyday purchases
13. P5 The Empire we’re in: Individualism & Consumerism
14. Consumerism’s Effect on Creating an Addictive Society – Pt. 3
15. Buying more stuff won’t make you happy
16. 11.11 sales are a symptom of the greater disease of mindless consumerism
17. Green Consumerism: Who Cares About The Environment?
18. “…Drop your weapons of greed and gluttony …for when you do, peace will return to society….”
19. Sustainable Fashion: Less is More
20. Explaining Fast Fashion
21. The Curse of Fast Fashion
22. Supply line panic
23. There is no green growth
24. Hunger Cycle
25. From Sustainable Development to Developing Sustainability
26. Overcoming Overconsumption
27. Choosing a time to listen to God

Melissa in her Twenties

What if the world stopped shopping? J. B. Mackinnon shines a light on the damaging effects of overconsumption on the planet and our health, wellbeing and happiness.

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P5 The Empire we’re in: Individualism & Consumerism

In the previous weeks, the government had made sure that the anti-vaxxers had no reason to demonstrate and/or smash things up.

12-storey floor of retail area inside of Berjaya Times Square shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Mainstream churches have also opened their doors to the general public, but as before, the Corona Crisis, the huge shopping centra are and remain the main ‘worship temples’. There, in those shopping malls, people feel most at ease and satisfied that they can buy anything they want to own again.
For them, the big shopping mall is a sacred place to pay homage to their god (Mammon), money.

Consumerism has gone so far that lots of people when they buy something are even not interested in what the ecological footprint might be of what they buy.

Even though most people have become slaves to money, and therefore slaves to their employers, it is up to the Church to make those people realise how they have gone off the rails with their way of life and money-making.

It is up to the believer in the One True God to show people that there are much better ways than the worship of money, by which people are chained.

After the war in the Middle East seemed to have come to an end there was again a new war, the Russians invading Ukraine, we can see that Gog stood up and tries to go south to enlarge its world to get back a Great Russia or USSR. Others wonder who or what that “One World Government” seeking world domination might be.

Many do not want to know about God and His commandments and laugh at the idea of one world government or theocracy. The idea of living in the last days seems for many ridiculous whilst others think we can clearly see the signs indicating we are close to the times of the return of Christ, of experiencing the end of the world, there was something dramatic, inspiring, exciting about it all.

 

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Preceding

Material gain to honour God

Your position about materialistic desires having conquered the world

Looking for the consummation of presents

The Proper Place of Excess

Earth’s pandemic and T-shirts for young people

The meaning of life – Finding purpose

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Additional reading

1. Looking at an era of international “youth culture”
2. Looking on what is going on and not being of it
3. Not everything has to be reciprocated with money
4. An other trait for faith in Jesus and his God
5. Good to make sure that you haven’t lost the things money can’t buy
6. Hamas the modern Philistines
7. The post-Christian world
8. Today’s Thought “Flee these things” (May 24)
9. Today’s Thought “Keep your life free from … ” (June 06)
10. Today’s thought “Flee these things. Pursue …” (November 23)
11. Mark 10 – The Nazarene’s Commentary: Mark 10:23-31 – The Difficulty of Money
12. Not created to be on our own (Our world) = Not created to be on our own (Some View on the World)
13. Missionary action paradigm for all endeavours of the church
14. True riches
15. Count your blessings
16. Sign of the Times and the Last Days #1 The Son of man revealing
17. Sign of the Times and the Last Days #2 Wars, natural disasters, famine and false Messiahs
18. Last days and destruction of the flesh
19. Hope For, But Not In, Evangelicalism

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Related

1. P1 This might not be the End, but it sure feels like it / A.J. Hendry
2. What Does Larry Cohen’s THE STUFF Say About How Easily We Are Manipulated and Our Weaknesses Exploited?
3. America’s Shopping Addiction
4. The case against consumerism: Part 1 – The real cost of our everyday purchases
5. Extreme individualism is on the rise
6. Individualism and Individuation
7. Individualism in the Age of Social Media
8. Covid Evidence: Supply Vs Demand Shock
9. Community or Consumption: Social Ecology in Greater Manchester
10. Consumerism’s Effect on Creating an Addictive Society – Pt. 3
11. Time for a radical farewell to overconsumption
12. Is sustainable consumption fundamentally an issue of inequality?
13. The Money Problem
14. The control of money is where the true power lies – but only because of the way we think
15. On conspiracies, apocalyptic Christian nationalism, and how bad eschatology is ruining the world / Michael Frost
16. Tightened Covid curbs spark protests, riots across Europe
17. Be prepared – last-days spiritual warfare is intense
18. Is this how the End of the World begins?
19. What Shall Be The Sign Of Thy Coming? And Of The End Of The World?
20. Food For Thought
21. A Gate out of hell
22. In the Miso Soup
23. Quote of the day (20-Apr-2022)
24. Make more pies
25. Which attitude is better for our society?
26. The importance of the individual and the individual vs the group
27. Relationships help with resilience, not individualism
28. 4/1/22 – Individually Individual
29. Buying Stuff for Stuff
30. Dang, I shopped.
31. The Free Gift!!
32. Green Consumerism: Who Cares About The Environment?
33. faith in Christ for each other
34. A Saviour for the world, the Samaritans, and our individualistic selves (Growing Deeper with John 4:27-42)
35. Saved from what? (And For what?) [Sermon]
36. Breaking free
37. How to Buy Less and Buy Better with the Less But Better Method
38. J.B Mackinnon’s The Day the World Stops Shopping: Book Review

When Lambs Are Silent

This is part 5 in a series where we will be exploring and imagining how faith communities, and our community in general, may need to evolve in order to adapt to our changing times. You can find part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here.

In our last piece we discussed how our society, though regarded as secular, is very much shaped by its own God’s that demand allegiance and require our worship and sacrifice. We named these as Individualism, Consumerism and White Supremacy. In our last piece we dealt with the latter, in this article we will be talking about the former two.

Throughout the lockdown there has been calls to open various shopping centres, lament’s that we have not been free to shop, to browse and buy. And in Auckland last week, as Covid restrictions began to ease, the great Temples of this age…

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To save, or not to save: that is the question.

The big problem for today’s youth is that governments do everything they can to pamper the big landowners and owners of international chains and companies and give them as many financial benefits as possible, while the citizens are taxed very heavily and do not get paid for their work as it should be, while goods become more and more expensive (even the necessities of life such as shelter, water and energy).

Yet they will have to know and learn that it is best to put some money aside for later, because to lay something for a rainy day is now more necessary than ever. If they do not provide for their old age now, they could end up very poor when they retire.

The Curmudgeon in the Cottage

It has been a long time since I last posted. I had a piece nearly ready to go and then Austria’s political crisis and resignation of the Generation Y Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, rendered it all out of date without a significant rewrite. And I will concede that the last couple of months have been a struggle in terms of sitting down to write a blog. But I am back.

Yesterday saw me visit my bank branch for the first time in 18 months: there hadn’t been any need to do so, and even yesterday’s visit would not have been classed as being an essential one. I did however come close to going into a bank with my neighbour, who wanted to give the first lockdown the finger, in April 2020 by collecting her pension in person until I managed to dissuade her. All my payments have long been made…

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State capitalism and climate emergency

A continued look at {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

Continuation of

Capitalism and relevance to climate change

Capitalism and The environmental record of the communist world

In his article “Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it” Gezwin Stanley confirms that the climate emergency couldn’t have happened without fossil fuel driven industrialisation. But there is more:

human technology plus the very human inclination towards short termism tends to result in environmental degradation. It isn’t just capitalism that caused the climate crisis. But it is clear that capitalism, or rather the different varieties of capitalism, meaning any system where the few both control and benefit from the engines of wealth creation, the very same productive forces that can damage the environment, while also being best able to use their position to shield themselves against any environmental side effects, did and will dramatically exacerbate environmental damage. And, comparing state capitalism with private capitalism, it isn’t markets or consumerism that appeared to make the difference: the West had those in abundance, but the Communist world did not, and the outcomes were similar: critical environmental crises. The implication is that mass-scale industrial technology, combined with the control of that economy by a few who are compelled to strive for growth at all costs and to disregard, even deliberately hide, all externalities, is sufficient to cause environmental collapse, even if consumerism and insufficiently democratically regulated markets really don’t help. {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

We must remember that important pressures contributing to current and future ecological collapse include habitat loss, habitat degradation, and habitat fragmentation, monocultures, overgrazing, overexploitation of ecosystems by humans, human industrial growth and overpopulation. The Soviet Union sinned against the respectful use of the earth by the practice of growing the same crop each year on a given acreage. The Soviet government found out, to its shame, that their large-scale plan of mass production or to produce huge quantities of cereals, vegetables and fruit, impoverished the country and did not produce good harvests. This because nonlegume crops usually exhaust the nitrogen in the soil, with a resulting reduction in yields. When they wanted to make the fertility level of the soil higher, they introduced fertilisers that poisoned the soil. The idea of greater flexibility in planning the system to meet year to year changes in the need for various crops, failed dramatically with food shortages and starvation as a result.

That environmental damage will be even more extreme if the masters of the economy, under private or state capitalism, are actively competing with each other whether for profit or to hit targets mandated by some dictator’s latest five year plan. {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

writes Gezwin Stanley, admitting that

 the vital experiment, of a technologically advanced society that combines political and economic democracy, hasn’t as yet really been tried, perhaps because it is so offensive to the powerful and power-hungry.

Would such a society be able to better balance environmental and economic concerns? It certainly seems likely in theory, but in practice all we have to go on are smaller scale examples, often embattled and created despite huge challenges, such as the Zapatistas in Mexico or Rojava in Kurdistan. While environmentalism is a core thread of the ideology of both these movements (see for example: “What the Zapatistas can teach us about the climate crisis” or “Rojava is trying to build a green society”), how that would play out in the long term, in more stable conditions and at scale, has still to be determined. Though social democracy may be precarious, because the super-rich often buy politicians, parties and media influence, the historically more thorough-going social democracies may offer a clue as to what would be possible environmentally if economic control was more democratic, with (again according to the World Bank figures here: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC) per capita carbon dioxide emissions in 2018 for Denmark being 5.8 tonnes, for Norway 7.0 tonnes and for Sweden 3.5 tonnes, compared to the USA at 15.2 tonnes, though the Nordic countries are at a similar level of technological advancement and average prosperity and overall have a colder climate. The same figure for the Russian Federation is 11.2 tonnes per capita and for considerably poorer China 7.4 tonnes. It may also be worth contrasting how Scandinavia confronted the problem of acid rain from the 1970s with how the former Soviet Union attempted to “bury” its multiple environmental crises. {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

For him, it is no wonder that the state-capitalist communist countries of the past or the present were the cause of environmental calamities.

There have been more human generated greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 than in the rest of history (see this excerpt from “The Uninhabitable Earth”, published in 2019). Nor should we ever forget the whole corporate funded global disinformation campaign of climate change denial , and now “greenwashing”. For example, Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, but it funded climate change denial for 27 more years. None of this is surprising as the richest have an incentive to care least about climate change, because they can most easily escape its effects, from basing themselves in less affected countries, through being able to afford air conditioning, coastal defences and other protections to participating in the growing market for elite bunkers and safe havens (see “‘Billionaire bunkers’ that could shelter the superrich during an apocalypse”).

If the economies of at least the most technologically advanced and richest nations had been run along lines of distributed economic power, of economic democracy as described here: https://gezwinstanley.wordpress.com/what-is-economic-justice-and-how-can-we-create-it/ , then there would most likely still have been a climate crisis. We are not angels. But without hugely powerful billionaires willing to conspire to deny climate change, and able to rig the political debate in many countries such as the USA, we would have acted a decade or two, possibly three, sooner. For example, the climate change deniers’ “Climategate” conspiracy in 2009 sabotaged the Copenhagen COP15 Conference and alone may have set back progress a decade, while none of the conspirators or those enlisted to help with the subsequent public relations have ever been brought to book. All that lost time could prove to have been crucial.

To resolve this conflict of interest we need to place everyone in control of the things they need to live and make a living. Then no one can disproportionately reap the economic benefits while disproportionately avoiding the environmental costs. That ensures everyone has an incentive to co-operate to create environmental regulations, pricing, taxes and subsidies, that avoid collective catastrophe, because no one can rig the deadly serious economic “game” of balancing economic output against environmental costs by largely reaping the economic benefits while passing most of the environmental impact onto someone else. {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

 

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Related

1. The Tale of Truth and Lie
2. What is said by the People Who don’t care About The Planet
3. Debunking rightwing myths: Qanon
4. The Melting Iceberg and other Problems Caused by Climate Change
5. PM can’t see the emissions truth for the trees
6. Now Can We Believe in Climate Change?
7. Thought for Today: Climate Science Denial
8. Advertising and Climate Breakdown are interlinked
9. Net-zero emissions is a great goal for companies to set — but really hard to reach. Here’s why
10. Eat it
11. Its not about sustainable plastic- but the system embedded around the product
12. What is Greenwashing and how to avoid falling victim to it
13. Gaslight, Gatekeep, Greenwash!
14. Let’s talk about ‘Greenwashing’
15. Greenwashing | Fashion Industry’s Dirty Little Secret
16. Greenwashing and the UK Electric Vehicle Industry
17. Aussie companies jumping on ESG reporting wave cautioned against “greenwashing”
18. Is Singapore Truly Sustainable?: Greenwashing in the ‘City in a Garden

Capitalism and relevance to climate change

Gezwin Stanley (if that is the name of the writer of the WordPress site gezwinstanley) does a small attempt to hold back the dark and summon the dawn, and seems to tackle some interesting points,though sometimes wanders off too far and presents too long articles, which better would have been divided in chapters or sub-articles.

For us today his article “Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it.” receives our interest and has some points we find interesting to share.

He looks at the relevance to climate change which is (according to him) likely already obvious. He writes:

Insane as it may be, even if collectively it threatens the extinction of human civilisation, singly, as individuals, organisations, businesses and countries, it might make sense for each not to worry too much about climate change. {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

Such an attitude of ignoring what is happening in nature does not show much compassion for other living beings in nature. He then poses some questions, as:

Why, for example, pay for a more expensive carbon-neutral energy supply when a fossil fuel one is cheaper?
Why not let others make the sacrifice, allowing us to be richer? {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

For him

It is therefore clear that the “sinks” for our carbon emissions, the atmosphere and the oceans, are really just another “commons” liable to “tragedy”, and that we are all trapped in a giant “prisoner’s dilemma” but one where, if we take the selfish course, we end up not with a custodial sentence, but a sentence of death. {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

He continues:

This is why addressing the issue cannot be left to individual action. Action cannot be entirely voluntary, because then the selfish will just try and freeload on the altruistic. Collective action is essential, from subjecting entities that don’t change their ways to peer pressure or “socialised sanctions” such as boycotts, through public measures such as regulations, carbon pricing and green subsidies, to directly taking control of key industries in order to force rapid decarbonisation. {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

We can agree with the fact that:

Coordinated efforts are needed all the way up to the global level: carbon dioxide is no respecter of borders. Individual actions alone won’t work, and the extremity of the emergency means that only the more rigorous measures towards the end of the preceding list are likely to be effective enough quickly enough to avoid catastrophe. {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

He looks at the tonnes per capita of carbon dioxide emissions and notes:

The 2020 Oxfam “Confronting Carbon Inequality” report estimates that “from 1990 to 2015, a critical period in which annual emissions grew 60% and cumulative emissions doubled… the richest 10% of the world’s population (c.630 million people) were responsible for 52% of the cumulative carbon emissions – depleting the global carbon budget by nearly a third (31%) in those 25 years alone,” while “the richest 1% (c.63 million people) alone were responsible for 15% of cumulative emissions, and 9% of the carbon budget – twice as much as the poorest half of the world’s population.” {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

And remarks:

This shades into another discussion. If greenhouse gas emissions are associated with inequality, especially when the rich get even richer, because wealth begets wealth, and then end up consuming more and more, and if capitalism exacerbates inequality, and ruthlessly strives for economic growth, to what extent is capitalism itself responsible for climate change? Or is the crisis just an inevitable consequence of human technological development, coupled with easily accessible, energy-rich fossil fuels and an understandable desire for a better life, especially during the prolonged period when the full import of greenhouse gas emissions was unknown, and with a large helping of human short termism added into the mix to make matters even worse? {Why capitalism massively intensified the climate crisis, and why only collective action can solve it}

That question brings us to another chapter, facing capitalism versus communism and Marxism.

Continue reading:  Capitalism and The environmental record of the communist world

+++

Related

1. Review: “The Red Feds: Revolutionary Industrial Unionism and the New Zealand Federation of Labour, 1908-1914” – Erik Olssen
2. E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class, Industrial Capitalism, and the Climate Emergency
3. Notes on “The Grundrisse” (1939/1993) by Karl Marx (4)
4. Why Carl Schmitt Matters to China | The Hedgehog Review #realpolitik #carlschmitt #law #imperialism #capitalism #democracy #dictatorship #china
5. What is Surplus? The Commencement of Trade
6. Accelerating the End of Capitalism and Radical Social Change
7. The Capitalist Curse
8. What Would You Make If You Had Everything You Need?
9. Influence of ” Free Trade ” on the Economy of the Colonies
10. Josh Shapiro Breaks With Gov. Tom Wolf Over Strategy On Climate Change
11. Nova Scotia bill sets climate change targets, aims to end coal fired power by 2030

Death to the GOP! Or not.

Most Americans consider everything that smells social as socialist and/or communist and something to avoid or the Left being inherently self-destructive, wherever they might get this from. Probably they think so because of them blinded by several dictatorial states which preached they were so-called communist, though went totally against the spirit of the communist flag.

Some of them look at those left countries in the same way as they think the Grand Old Party (GOP) would be the same as the present Republican party, which during the 20th and 21st centuries became a more selfish directed party, to be associated with laissez-faire capitalism, low taxes, and conservative social policies.

What we still can see today is the selfish attitude of those Americans who only want to think of themselves first and who do not want to contribute or pay for others, nor for the general wellbeing of the whole state. It is still strongly committed to protectionism and is very supportive of free trade no matter at what cost, not interested in which damage pollution may cause for example.

In Europe, we mainly see those white Americans, who would prefer not having coloured people around them, though they call themselves evangelical Christians, they do not worship the God of Christ nor witness the peace Jesus Christ wanted all his followers to spread all over the world.

In the U.S.A. we also see that in many other capitalist countries there is a time of overcorrection, trying to do away with history. To remove the bust of the Confederate cavalry commander in the American Civil War (1861–65), Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Tennessee State Capitol is making it possible that this most controversial figures from the Civil War era will after some years be forgotten, instead of being spoken about, what he did wrong. It allows also that this figure, who joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1867 (two years after its founding) and was elected its first Grand Wizard,  in certain groups shall be honoured sacredly or in private as their mistaken hero.

Look Away...

Governor Lee’s recent vote to remove the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Tennessee State Capitol is yet more proof of the old adage that there is a not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties. I for one contend that this is true in part because the two parties are representative of the split personality of Old New England.

Both parties and other mutually supporting institutions certainly did appear to circle the wagons against Trump from 2016 on, and this is noteworthy considering how the GOP has been considered over the course of my lifetime the Conservative party and also considering how passionately so many Conservatives support Trump.

In fact the parties, Establishment, or Deep State do not hate that New York City Yankee just because he is flamboyant, brash, arrogant or just plain rude. They hate him because they first and foremost hate…

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It’ s not me. It’s the monster

Globalization and neoliberalism. They’ve become the explanations du jour for the decimation of industries and the devastation of lives, for falling wages and slashed public spending. And there is, of course, truth to the claim. But capitalism was chewing up and spitting out its victims long before the market was globalised or liberalism became neo’d.

One of the great novels of the Great Depression, of the wretchedness of poverty in 1930s America, was written half a century before those words were invented. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.  It tells the story of one family, the Joads, tenant farmers from Oklahoma, who are forced off their land by the banks, pushed into migrating to the promised land of California, and the even greater wretchedness they find in their Utopia. It is a story of the pitilessness of capitalism, the dignity of work, the horrors of migration, the disintegration of a family. It is in turns angry and tender, polemical and poetic, allegorical and melodramatic. Steinbeck does not ignore the history of the land and how it was acquired (‘Grampa took up the land, and he had to kill the Indians and drive them away’), but he unquestioningly stands with the farmers in their bewilderments and in their battles. There are times, especially in the second half of the book, where the anger seems to overwhelm the writing. But, given the subject, and given what Steinbeck set out to do – to ‘rip a reader’s nerves to rags ‘, as he himself put it – that is, perhaps, both inevitable and necessary.

– Kenan Malik

This is an extract from Chapter 5, that tells of how those responsible for evicting the farmers justified their actions. ‘We have to do it. We don’t like to do it. But the monster’s sick. Something’s happened to the monster’. A passage and a book that feels as meaningful and vital today as it did when first published almost a century ago.

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From The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck,
Chapter 5

The owners of the land came onto the land, or more often a spokesman for the owners came. They came in closed cars, and they felt the dry earth with their fingers, and sometimes they drove big earth augers into the ground for soil tests. The tenants, from their sun-beaten dooryards, watched uneasily when the closed cars drove along the fields. And at last the owner men drove into the dooryards and sat in their cars to talk out of the windows. The tenant men stood beside the cars for a while, and then squatted on their hams and found sticks with which to mark the dust.

In the open doors the women stood looking out, and behind them the children – corn-headed children, with wide eyes, one bare foot on top of the other bare foot, and the toes working. The women and the children watched their men talking to the owner men. They were silent.

Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling. If a bank or a finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank – or the Company – needs – wants – insists – must have – as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time. Some of the owner men were a little proud to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. The owner men sat in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You’ve scrabbled at it long enough, God knows.

The squatting tenant men nodded and wondered and drew figures in the dust, and yes, they knew, God knows. If the dust only wouldn’t fly. If the top would only stay on the soil, it might not be so bad.

The owner men went on leading to their point: You know the land’s getting poorer. You know what cotton does to the land; robs it, sucks all the blood out of it.

The squatters nodded – they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crops they might pump blood back into the land.

Well, it’s too late. And the owner men explained the workings and the thinkings of the monster that was stronger than they were. A man can hold land if he can just eat and pay taxes; he can do that.

Yes, he can do that until his crops fail one day and he has to borrow money from the bank.

But – you see, a bank or a company can’t do that, because those creatures don’t breathe air, don’t eat side-meat. They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don’t get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat. It is a sad thing, but it is so. It is just so.

The squatting men raised their eyes to understand. Can’t we just hang on? Maybe the next year will be a good year. God knows how much cotton next year. And with all the wars – God knows what price cotton will bring. Don’t they make explosives out of cotton? And uniforms? Get enough wars and cotton’ll hit the ceiling. Next year, maybe. They looked up questioningly.

We can’t depend on it. The bank – the monster has to have profits all the time. It can’t wait. It’ll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can’t stay one size.

Soft fingers began to tap the sill of the car window, and hard fingers tightened on the restless drawing sticks. In the doorways of the sun-beaten tenant houses, women sighed and then shifted feet so that the one that had been down was now on top, and the toes working. Dogs came sniffing near the owner cars and wetted on all four tires one after another. And chickens lay in the sunny dust and fluffed their feathers to get the cleansing dust down to the skin. In the little sties the pigs grunted inquiringly over the muddy remnants of the slops.

The squatting men looked down again. What do you want us to do? We can’t take less share of the crop – we’re half starved now. The kids are hungry all the time. We got no clothes, torn an’ ragged. If all the neighbors weren’t the same, we’d be ashamed to go to meeting.

And at last the owner men came to the point. The tenant system won’t work any more. One man on a tractor can take the place of twelve or fourteen families. Pay him a wage and take all the crop. We have to do it. We don’t like to do it. But the monster’s sick. Something’s happened to the monster.

But you’ll kill the land with cotton.

We know. We’ve got to take cotton quick before the land dies. Then we’ll sell the land. Lots of families in the East would like to own a piece of land.

The tenant men looked up alarmed. But what’ll happen to us? How’ll we eat?

You’ll have to get off the land. The plows’ll go through the dooryard.

And now the squatting men stood up angrily. Grampa took up the land, and he had to kill the Indians and drive them away. And Pa was born here, and he killed weeds and snakes. Then a bad year came and he had to borrow a little money. An’ we was born here. There in the door – our children born here. And Pa had to borrow money. The bank owned the land then, but we stayed and we got a little bit of what we raised.

We know that – all that. It’s not us, it’s the bank. A bank isn’t like a man. Or an owner with fifty thousand acres, he isn’t like a man either. That’s the monster.

Sure, cried the tenant men, but it’s our land. We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it’s no good, it’s still ours. That’s what makes it ours – being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.

We’re sorry. It’s not us. It’s the monster. The bank isn’t like a man.

Yes, but the bank is only made of men.

No, you’re wrong there – quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.

The tenants cried, Grampa killed Indians, Pa killed snakes for the land. Maybe we can kill banks – they’re worse than Indians and snakes. Maybe we got to fight to keep our land, like Pa and Grampa did.

And now the owner men grew angry. You’ll have to go.

But it’s ours, the tenant men cried. We –

No. The bank, the monster owns it. You’ll have to go.

We’ll get our guns, like Grampa when the Indians came. What then?

Well – first the sheriff, and then the troops. You’ll be stealing if you try to stay, you’ll be murderers if you kill to stay. The monster isn’t men, but it can make men do what it wants.

But if we go, where’ll we go? How’ll we go? We got no money.

We’re sorry, said the owner men. The bank, the fifty-thousand-acre owner can’t be responsible. You’re on land that isn’t yours. Once over the line maybe you can pick cotton in the fall. Maybe you can go on relief. Why don’t you go on west to California? There’s work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange. Why, there’s always some kind of crop to work in. Why don’t you go there? And the owner men started their cars and rolled away.

The tenant men squatted down on their hams again to mark the dust with a stick, to figure, to wonder. Their sunburned faces were dark, and their sun-whipped eyes were light. The women moved cautiously out of the doorways toward their men, and the children crept behind the women, cautiously, ready to run. The bigger boys squatted beside their fathers, because that made them men. After a time the women asked, What did he want?

And the men looked up for a second, and the smolder of pain was in their eyes. We got to get off. A tractor and a superintendent. Like factories.

Where’ll we go? the women asked.

We don’t know. We don’t know.

And the women went quickly, quietly back into the houses and herded the children ahead of them. They knew that a man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even on people he loves. They left the men alone to figure and to wonder in the dust.

After a time perhaps the tenant man looked about – at the pump put in ten years ago, with a goose-neck handle and iron flowers on the spout, at the chopping block where a thousand chickens had been killed, at the hand plow lying in the shed, and the patent crib hanging in the rafters over it.

The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do, Ma? Where we going to go?

The women said, We don’t know, yet. Go out and play. But don’t go near your father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work, but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust – perplexed and figuring.

The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar.

Snubnosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses.

The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it – straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractors, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him – goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was nothing. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor.

He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor – its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with blades – not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And pulled behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders – twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gears, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

At noon the tractor driver stopped sometimes near a tenant house and opened his lunch: sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, white bread, pickle, cheese, Spam, a piece of pie branded like an engine part. He ate without relish. And tenants not yet moved away came out to see him, looked curiously while the goggles were taken off, and the rubber dust mask, leaving white circles around the eyes and a large white circle around nose and mouth. The exhaust of the tractor puttered on, for fuel is so cheap it is more efficient to leave the engine running than to heat the Diesel nose for a new start. Curious children crowded close, ragged children who ate their fried dough as they watched. They watched hungrily the unwrapping of the sandwiches, and their hunger- sharpened noses smelled the pickle, cheese, and Spam. They didn’t speak to the driver. They watched his hand as it carried food to his mouth. They did not watch him chewing; their eyes followed the hand that held the sandwich. After a while the tenant who could not leave the place came out and squatted in the shade beside the tractor.

‘Why, you’re Joe Davis’s boy!’

‘Sure’, the driver said.

‘Well, what you doing this kind of work for – against your own people?’

‘Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner – and not getting it. I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day.’

‘That’s right,’ the tenant said. ‘But for your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty families can’t eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go out and wander on the roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?’

And the driver said, ‘Can’t think of that. Got to think of my own kids. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day. Times are changing, mister, don’t you know? Can’t make a living on the land unless you’ve got two, five, ten thousand acres and a tractor. Crop land isn’t for little guys like us any more. You don’t kick up a howl because you can’t make Fords, or because you’re not the telephone company. Well, crops are like that now. Nothing to do about it. You try to get three dollars a day someplace. That’s the only way.’

The tenant pondered. ‘Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is him, it’s part of him, and it’s like him. If he owns property only so he can walk on it and handle it and be sad when it isn’t doing well, and feel fine when the rain falls on it, that property is him, and some way he’s bigger because he owns it. Even if he isn’t successful he’s big with his property. That is so.’

And the tenant pondered more. ‘But let a man get property he doesn’t see, or can’t take time to get his fingers in, or can’t be there to walk on it – why, then the property is the man. He can’t do what he wants, he can’t think what he wants. The property is the man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big—and he’s the servant of his property. That is so, too.’

The driver munched the branded pie and threw the crust away. ‘Times are changed, don’t you know? Thinking about stuff like that don’t feed the kids. Get your three dollars a day, feed your kids. You got no call to worry about anybody’s kids but your own. You get a reputation for talking like that, and you’ll never get three dollars a day. Big shots won’t give you three dollars a day if you worry about anything but your three dollars a day.’

‘Nearly a hundred people on the road for your three dollars. Where will we go?’

‘And that reminds me’, the driver said, ‘you better get out soon. I’m going through the dooryard after dinner.’

‘You filled in the well this morning.’

‘I know. Had to keep the line straight. But I’m going through the dooryard after dinner. Got to keep the lines straight. And – well, you know Joe Davis, my old man, so I’ll tell you this. I got orders wherever there’s a family not moved out – if I have an accident – you know, get too close and cave the house in a little – well, I might get a couple of dollars. And my youngest kid never had no shoes yet.’

‘I built it with my hands. Straightened old nails to put the sheathing on. Rafters are wired to the stringers with baling wire. It’s mine. I built it. You bump it down—I’ll be in the window with a rifle. You even come too close and I’ll pot you like a rabbit.’

‘It’s not me. There’s nothing I can do. I’ll lose my job if I don’t do it. And look – suppose you kill me? They’ll just hang you, but long before you’re hung there’ll be another guy on the tractor, and he’ll bump the house down. You’re not killing the right guy.’

‘That’s so’, the tenant said. ‘Who gave you orders? I’ll go after him. He’s the one to kill.’

‘You’re wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The bank told him, ‘Clear those people out or it’s your job.’

‘Well, there’s a president of the bank. There’s a board of directors. I’ll fill up the magazine of the rifle and go into the bank.’

The driver said, ‘Fellow was telling me the bank gets orders from the East. The orders were, ‘Make the land show profit or we’ll close you up.’‘

‘But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don’t aim to starve to death before I kill the man that’s starving me.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe there’s nobody to shoot. Maybe the thing isn’t men at all. Maybe like you said, the property’s doing it. Anyway I told you my orders.’

‘I got to figure’, the tenant said. ‘We all got to figure. There’s some way to stop this. It’s not like lightning or earthquakes. We’ve got a bad thing made by men, and by God that’s something we can change.’ The tenant sat in his doorway, and the driver thundered his engine and started off, tracks falling and curving, harrows combing, and the phalli of the seeder slipping into the ground. Across the dooryard the tractor cut, and the hard, foot-beaten ground was seeded field, and the tractor cut through again; the uncut space was ten feet wide. And back he came. The iron guard bit into the house-corner, crumbled the wall, and wrenched the little house from its foundation so that it fell sideways, crushed like a bug. And the driver was goggled and a rubber mask covered his nose and mouth. The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air and the ground vibrated with its thunder. The tenant man stared after it, his rifle in his hand. His wife was beside him, and the quiet children behind. And all of them stared after the tractor.

The images are all paintings and etchings from, and of, the Great Depression in America. They are from top down, Maynard Dixon, ‘Shapes of Fear’ (1930-32); Alexandre Hogue, ‘The Crucified Land’ (1939); Clyfford Still, ‘Gleaners’ (1936);  James Allen Lane, ‘Prayer for Rain’ (1938); Georgia O’Keefe, ‘Red Hills and Bones’ (1941); Mervin Jules, ‘Dispossessed’ (1938); Clare Leighton, ‘Bread Line’, (1932).

The image of The Grapes of Wrath is of the first edition in 1939.

Francis Fukuyama and ‘The End of History?’

American political scientist, political economist, and author Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama in 2015

The American writer and political theorist Francis Fukuyama wrote

“Human beings never existed in a pre-­social state. The idea that human beings at one time existed as isolated individuals is not correct.”

In his seminal 1989 essay ‘The End of History?’ he also wrote

‘What we may be witnessing is the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.’

Fukuyama trying to convey silent messages through stories about the evolution of democratic societies he continued

‘With the fall of the Soviet Union the struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one’s life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands.’

The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book by Francis Fukuyama, expanding on his 1989 essay “The End of History?”, published in the international affairs journal The National Interest.

Fukuyama did not suggest that the end of history meant the end of wars or conflicts, but rather that capitalism and Western-style liberal democracy were the culmination of human political development and would not, and could not, be transcended. He beliefs that the triumph of liberal democracy at the end of the Cold War marked the last ideological stage in the progression of human history. The initial political challenge having to escape beyond tribalism and the “tyranny of cousins”.

For Fukuyama, tribal organisation responds to structural imperatives in social evolution but also blocks the path to further development. The early account of the origins of state-like forms relies heavily on Lawrence Keeley’s military-focused argument in War Before Civilisation (1996) and does not consider the evidence assembled by Keith Otterbein in How War Began (2004): that warfare greatly declined in importance following the hunting to extinction of the larger mammals. Keeley himself grants that early settlement cultures, such as the Natufian,

“furnish no indication of warfare at all”. {Robin Blackburn– The Origins of Political Order: From Pre-Human Times to the French Revolution, By Francis Fukuyama}

We can see that in the West the majority prefers a capitalist system and in several industrialised countries people are a lot afraid of what smells social or communist. Fukuyama thinks that all states are going to adopt a form of capitalist liberal democracy. It was an argument contested from almost the moment he finished writing his essay.
The rise of Islamism, the unleashing of ethnic conflicts, the challenge posed by China – a myriad developments, his critics suggested, questioned the presumption of an end of history.

Donald Trump’s Presidential victory was one of the signs how politicians would easily be able to lure people in false ideas, by their words. The last few years we have seen a seemingly unstoppable rise of populist forces throughout Europe.

Many will probably see how in the quarter of a century since Fukuyama wrote his essay, politics, particularly in the West, has indeed shifted away from ‘ideological struggle’ towards

‘the endless solving of technical problems’.

The broad ideological divides that characterized politics for much of the past two hundred years have been eroded. Politics has become less about competing visions of the kinds of society people want than a debate about how best to manage the existing political system, a question more of technocratic management rather than of social transformation.

What might more come to an end is the believe of people in political systems and in politicians. Lots of people are convinced that politicians are not listening to them and are mostly just working for themselves and trying to get the best paid job.
The majority of politicians have lost connection with the ordinary people who want to feel as if they are justly recognised and that their voice can be heard. The last few years they feel more they are mocked at, nobody taking their voice seriously. Politicians should come to know that this desire to experience both personal and collective recognition is inescapable to the modern human condition.

Liberal democratic states that Fukuyama so vigorously defended in “The End of History” have not responded well to the challenges of pluralism.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, few believed in an alternative to capitalism, not seeing that the Soviet Union was not really the best representative of communism, because it had more dictators than real communist leaders. Communist parties crumbled, while social democratic parties remade themselves, cutting ties to their traditional working class constituencies while reorienting themselves as technocratic parties. Trade unions weakened and social justice campaigns eroded.

It seemed that not only in Europe social movements and political organizations eroded,  and the far-right movements gained space. Local people wanted to become recognised and wanted to look upon social change through the lens of their own cultures, identities, goals and ideals.

Many sections of the working class have found themselves politically voiceless at the very time their lives have become more precarious, as jobs have declined, public services savaged, austerity imposed, and inequality risen. Many also came to see all those immigrants as a danger for their own position, their jobs and income as well as being afraid of loosing their culture.

Having their world coming to an end.

Lots of people in charge of the working of society did not see the discontent many their votes expressed.

Prominent alt-rightists were instrumental in organising the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017. Here, rally participants carry Confederate battle flags, Gadsden flags and a Nazi flag.

In Europe and America, people have become disaffected with the old order and felt more attraction for those who promised heaven on earth and for them “a great nation” again. Many of the opposition movements that give voice to that disaffection of the labourers, are shaped not by progressive ideals but by sectarian politics, and rooted in religious or ethnic identity. The Islamist AKP in Turkey or the Hindu nationalist BJP in India are the equivalents of the Front National in France or the alt right, far-right, white supremacist, white nationalist, white separatist, anti-immigration and antisemitic movement in America and Europe.

Those growing right-wing and far- or extreme-right-wing groups should make us aware of the severity of the present political situation. We are witnessing a globally disinformation movement which is creating more hatred and racism as well setting up people against others for wrong reasons.

The current tumult is the result of struggles for recognition that remain unshaped by progressive movements, of ideological struggles in a post-ideological world.

Demand for recognition of one’s identity is a master concept that unifies much of what is going on in world politics today. In his new book: Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment Francis Fukuyama looks at the new layers of meaning of the voters or citizen’s identity.

Fukuyama believes that the focus on self separates people from their communities. The demand for identity cannot be transcended and therefore people must begin to shape identity in a way that supports rather than undermines democracy.
When coming to know the self one can not ignore the connection with religious feelings. One aspect of wisdom is recognizing your need for The One Being outside man.

Christianity succeeds in diminishing family ties when the Church takes a strong stand against practices which enhanced the power of lineages such as cousin marriage, divorce, adoption and marriage to the widows of dead relatives. The looser family pattern favoured by the practices of Latin Christianity have the effect of channelling assets to the Church itself (eg through widows’ bequests). Fukuyama further urges that “contrary to Marx, capitalism was the consequence rather than the cause of a change in social relationships”. Yet he soon acknowledges that

“the most convincing argument for the shift has been given by the social anthropologist Jack Goody“,

an authority whose work could be seen as a distinctive fruit of Cambridge Marxism. {Robin Blackburn– The Origins of Political Order: From Pre-Human Times to the French Revolution, By Francis Fukuyama}

Fukuyama has the idea that the individualistic sense of identity comes to the fore during periods of modernisation in which people fled from rural areas into the cities and were confronted with a mass of different dialects or languages, religions and cultures and were aware of a sense of the difference between where they were and where they are now. Today in some way many people seem to be lost or are so much afraid of such confrontation they do hope their politicians can solve that problem of difference between the inhabitants of their villages, cities and countries.

Fukuyama notes the ways in which questions of identity politics have come to be regarded as synonymous with the right. Donald Trump supporters are animated around the removal of Confederate statues and the president’s lack of defence to political correctness is a significant mobilising force on the right.

Intimidation and efforts to control people have become the present day norm for many politicians, who gain a lot of popularity because many fall for their lies. That virus threatening democracy has not only infected the United States but also the European Union. As such we may see that identity politics has become the political form of cultural fragmentation of these days, and is corrosive of some features of an effective democracy – social cohesion, talking with strangers and working across the aisle.

According to me the politicians do have to give an identity to the people again and have to show them that we all have more in common with each other than what divides us.

It is a “we” who are the same, and not a “we” who are strangers dwelling together despite our differences. {Jeff Rich – Identity Crisis – some theses on identity politics}

History shall continue and show how man tries to find different political solutions and ways to govern a country. Man shall have to find a way to make it that by the globalisation more and more people would be going to see the richness of a multicultural society, instead of fearing it.

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Read also

1. Our political systems and juggling with human laws
2. Declaration of war against Islam and Christianity
3. Declining commitment to democracy : What’s going on around the world ?
4. Collision course of socialist and capitalist worlds
5. Subcutaneous power for humanity 2 1950-2010 Post war generations
6. The Free Market (and all that) did not bring down the Berlin Wall
7. Common Goods, people and the Market
8. Pushing people in a corner danger for indoctrination and loss of democratic values
9. Populism endangering democracy
10. An European alliance or a populist alliance
11. British Parliament hostage its citizens for even more months
12. American social perception, classes and fear mongering
13. United in an open society relying not on command and control but on freedom
14. Capitalism and economic policy and Christian survey

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Further related

1. The Origins of Political Order: From Pre-Human Times to the French Revolution, By Francis Fukuyama
2. What Do We Mean When We Say Something Is Political? — Recommended Readings
3. The Sisyphean Task at the Core of Identity Politics
4. The origins of political order by Francis Fukuyama
5. Fukuyama has a new book on identity
6. Little Theories
7. The Decline of Liberalism
8. Identity
9. Identity Crisis – some theses on identity politics
10. We’re in This Together Now 
11. Two Books by Francis Fukuyama
12. What Fukuyama got right.
13. From ‘End Of History’ To ‘End Of Democracy’ – Why Fukuyama Now Likes China
14. “Echoing Margaret Thatcher’s dictum that ‘there is no alternative’ …
15. Global Battleground: A World between Geopolitics and Globalization
16. Social Psychology and Religious Behavior
17. Francis Fukuyama and technology
18. Eurasianism: The Struggle For The Multi-Polar World
19. The trouble with liberalism
20. The End of the End of History?

Modern Slavery

Too many people close their eyes for products which are so cheap they could not be produced under normal conditions. But there are also companies which do not mind to sell their products at a very high price, but had them made in cheap labour countries.

In this capitalist system there is too much slavery going on and not enough people reacting against it.
The capitalist system has made many working people into slaves of a company, and more and more workers have to work for less income, whilst a a minor group of happy few can make themselves very rich by (mis)using all those ‘poor folks’.

Lots of multi-billion dollar companies which make money from our hard work even do not have to pay taxes whilst the workers have to pay a lot of taxes and can only dream of having a better world.

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To remember

Slavery =  practice or system of owning slaves” + evolved to be a part of social norms.

slavery to a job, slavery to society, female domestic slavery, child slavery, slavery to live, slavery to abide by law, slavery to family and many many more.

live in a society > merely puppets with strings

age of retirement in UK = 66 for women and men. By 2026 = 67 or more.

exploit > work to make others richer

YesRickyThings

So this is a series of blog post that I have been meaning to start for a while now. I will be uploading content about controversial topics from different ends of the spectrum. I am merely trying to express my thoughts on certain topics looking at things from all different angles. In this aspect I hope to create a discussion to see what people think. This goes along with my interest of psychology and trying to understand how different people think and what their cognitive processes are.

This post is about modern day slavery. I would like all readers to read this with an open mind and be open for discussion. First, we must define what is slavery. There are many definitions for it however I will be taking oxford dictionary as a base definition. Slavery is defined as “the practice or system of owning slaves”. Now, when you ask…

View original post 654 more words

To the Freeworlders

With pleasure we want to let you know that we have been busy with building a place where people want to share with each other. For more than 27 years Marcus Ampe tried to bring the idea of sharing into our capitalist society. In 1995 he got a computer and started writing on the internet under different pen names, to spout his ideas and to ventilate his criticism on our squandering society. In the 1990ies, with some political activists it was tried to get some ideas in the Belgian political and economical system (further presented by Roland Duchâtelet his political movement Vivant), like a standard income for every adult citizen and to bring more awareness about ecological matters. On that part he continued in the lines of the “Kabouters” (the Gnomes), the political green-party of the 1960ies of which he was an active member in the late 1960ies early 1970ies, and which promoted already the idea of sharing goods with each other to lessen the waste of consumption goods [long before Agalev – founded in 1979 and transformed into Groen (Green) in 2003].

A famous and controversial 1971 election poster, reading “Disarming”, giving a good impression for what the movements of which Marcus Ampe was involved with stood for and why their actions in the conservative Roman Catholic country got them and Marcus Ampe so much in trouble.

Because of his ideas of people having to share with each other and helping each other to build a peaceful multicultural society in an ecological respected environment, Mr. Ampe, as a flower-power person or hippie, was many times attacked and considered to be a communist, though he always claimed to promote the ways of Christ and considering his expressing disagreement with the principles and particular outcomes of capitalism plus considering himself more as utopist or by some called Utopian socialist. Because of his non-violence attitude, e.g. on animal rights, some considered him as pacifist,  a “politically homeless“, as progressive liberal (charismatic) Christian having contacts and friends with leftwing socialists, orthodox Marxists, anti-Stalinist Trotskyists, left communists, liberal pacifists and some anarchists, to be a weak and to naive stargazer to avoid. Mr. Ampe was clearly very much influenced by one of his favourite thinkers, Charles Fourier, and reformers as Robert Owen, going for utopian socialism, even when he got so much adverse wind of socialists, drawing from early communist and socialist ideas.

Today he is still convinced that our current systems of monetary, social, ideological and border divisions are not working and endangering our species. Having come aware that too many of his ideals are perhaps not for this world he still keeps to many of his old ideals and hopes once there may come a new generation again prepared to oppose our war-machine and consumer society. He is still looking at mankind as people allowed (by the Most High Power) to live on this planet as attenders who have to come to show their mutual respect for each other and our planetary home.

For him it must not be that every single one of us, rich or poor, born into life-long slavery and bondage from which there would be no escape under the current system. There is still to do a lot of work to have more people come to see that we can liberate ourselves. Most of us may know that the system we are born into does not serve humanity, but very few of us know what to do to change it or are even willing to look for some change which brings more peace in the hearts of the people.

We can no longer sit idly, watching the destruction of our people, our communities, our countries, and our human potential, by greedy corporations supported by governments with no remorse for their actions, or accountability to the people they are supposed to serve. It should not be allowed that certain people earn 300% more than those who do the dirty job.

Along all sites there are certain groups and movements trying to bring fear and restriction of liberty, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. If we are not careful a lot fro what so many fought in the previous centuries will be lost again soon.

We can no longer sit silently, hoping that someone will do something to stop the assault on our liberties and future prosperity. It has fallen on the shoulders of the common people, to unite and create a new way … a new system … a future filled with abundance and prosperity for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren. The individualist centralist ego has to be silenced.

We should go for creating a totally new system free from economic slavery … where we turn competition into collaboration …  a new social structure where we all benefit from our collective efforts and individual talents …  a new world where people are put before profits, and the resources & materials are used to enrich all our lives.

Every single one of us is born in the image of the Divine Creator with valuable and unique gifts and talents and should be happy that he or she can have such talents.  Tat what we received for nothing we also should share with others and should use it for those who do not have such talents. When each individual uses his own talents to improve the lives of everyone around them, these gifts would not be wasted in mundane week-long positions of servitude making profits for those wealthier than ourselves.

Everything you see around you are things which came into being by people who used their hands and brains, and should all be articles created by people for people. Therefore it can not be that there are many who have so little.

The people are the gifts, the people are the power, the genius, the brilliance, and the vision that has created everything we see around us. Without the workers no factory can produce. So why should the society receive most of the gains, the bricks do not need the money.

We are told all the problems facing us are inevitable, that war, hunger and poverty are symptoms of the human condition and we need governments to protect us from ourselves. As many of us now realize, this is simply a lie to disempower us! All the decay, hunger, fear, and lack surrounding us are the direct results of the parasites profiteering off of us, which includes the governments we are told are there to serve us, but just do not come to protect and help the citizens of their country.

Mr. Ampe says.

In the meantime all over the world we could find like-minded figures willing to promote the sharing of knowledge and materials.

In 2014 Robert Chatwin (robito) founded Wake Up World Education (WUWE) trying to collaborate with the world’s biggest global movements for change to help bring solutions into everyone’s life.  WUWE is contributing to this global movement for positive change by switching people on (or waking people up) to this solutions-focused reality so they feel energised, inspired and excited about the world we live in. They take Solutions Education into schools, workplaces, homes and communities, as well as providing a Free online course and offering the world’s biggest solutions to meet-up via their Weekly Circle.

The author of F-Day: The Second Dawn Of Man, a fictional account of humanity’s evolution into a society beyond money, and several video’s on YouTube, created a few years ago a Free World Charter, a social reform initiative that proposes 10 founding principles on which to grow an alternative moneyless society that is fair and sustainable, which Marcus Ampe also endorsed.

Colin Turner his work also includes the Freeworlder Free Sharing Network and HonorPay, a moneyless public awards system for expressing appreciation and gratitude. Many of the underlying concepts of his charter were originally inspired by Jacque Fresco’s Venus Project and Peter Joseph’s Zeitgeist film series – visionaries who, no doubt, would attribute their inspiration to many other historical influences too.

Freewolder Founder Colin Turner states:

“Imagine the power of billions of acts of unconditional free-sharing and the positive effect that could have both on our society and the environment. Imagine how much more peaceful and abundant our world could be without the limitations and injustices of trade.”

Freeworlder: the world’s first truly free sharing network! No exchange. No credits. No barter. Just everyone sharing their excess items and skills!

Can you imagine the power of free, unconditional sharing, mulitplied by millions and billions of people? What kind of world would that be?

Can you imagine the problems we could solve if we didn’t need to trade in order to survive?

Can you imagine if the only thing that governed people’s behaviour was not the money they had nor the laws they obeyed, but rather the knowledge, respect and appreciation they had for each other and their environment?

This is why we built Freeworlder.com – to facilitate online what we all do every day – except to bring that trust outside our immediate circles, friends and family and around the world.

We are changing the world in baby steps. Today, we can share our small excess items, skills and knowledge easily. Soon we will build enough trust and confidence in the idea of unconditional sharing, that we can begin to truly re-organise our society for the mutual benefit of all.

“The Freeworlder Network” will go online this coming May. (We’ll let you know when the site is ready)

Welcome to the world’s first free-sharing network!

Please join. Please support. Please share.

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Find also to read

1. The Free World
2. Freeworlder – Free Sharing Network
3. The Free World Charter – A New Story
4. Our World Is Free
5. Ubuntu contrubitonism
6. Pulling The Gum Out Of The Rug
7. Free The Economy
8. Universal Basic Serfdom – Freeworlder.com
9. The Free World Charter: Let’s make everything free
10. The Freeworlder Wall – see who’s here!
11. Life In The Open Economy – Freeworlder.com
12. The Flower of Life
13. Access to a New Dream
14. The mindful approach to animal connection
15. Socialentrepreneurialism project. Collaborators wanted
16. WUWE, can be contacted by email or signed up here to get involved and stay informed.
17. Blogging In The Free World
18. A Call to Calm, A Call to Reset
19. 21 Day Challenge – Complaint Free
20. Leaders of the Free World
21. The “American Dream” …
22. What in the “Free” world….?
23. Fear of Truth (Reprise)
24. Dreamland!
25. Virtual Brownie Sharing Circle
26. one.
27. sharing
28. Just Sharing!!
29. Sharing is Caring
30. Free From Modern Capitalism

    

Seeds to be planted soon

Last month was perhaps cold for many, but when we look at the calendar to plant things we can see that it is a great time to start planning what vegetable varieties will be grown in the garden. Having the flue now I am remembered of those who should have planted them end of January. Loving lots of green and colours in the garden I also know that now is a great time to get your spring flowers germinating and ready for spring! There are many different varieties of annuals and perennials with different grow times, which need your attention to grow times so that your flowers are ready to be planted after last frost. Below are some good varieties to start in January for a last frost in March and April!

• Annuals: Zinnas, Marigolds, Geraniums
• Perennials: Rudbeckias, Daisies, Poppies, Coneflowers

For those who want to plant vegetables February is the month, though the cold does not seem to invite us to come outdoors.

Beans at the CIAT gene bank in Colombia, which has just sent its latest consignments of seeds for conservation at the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When we choose our seeds or plants it is important that we look at them not being ‘festered’ with. Man has come to love to play for god and to create all new sorts of plants. Genetically manipulated plants are something we should avoid at all cost.

When people muddle with the plants we can see the disastrous consequences.  Last Summer the harvest did show her grim face in Dunklin County where conveyor belts teem with peaches inside the packing facility at Bader Farms, where fruit is prepared for shipment from its Bootheel source to stores across a nearly 500-mile radius were seriously worried.

Of the 900 acres of peach trees that fill Bill Bader his orchards, some have limbs that are almost entirely defoliated, while countless others have tufts of leaves that are crinkled and yellow, or remain green but are full of holes.

“That’s why you come out here and look at them early in the morning, ’cause you don’t wanna think about them at night,”

Bader said, surveying a field of peach trees.

Bill Bader surveys his peach trees for damage he says is from illegal use of the herbicide dicamba. Bader, who runs Missouri’s largest peach farm, says he may end up losing half of his 900 acres of peach trees. – Photo by Bryce Gray/Lee Enterprises

Investigators from the state Department of Agriculture came to look at the matter.

We believe we should be much more aware of drift or spreading of chemical, taken in the wind but also by ground waters.  Dicamba, a drift-prone herbicide suspected of causing widespread damage to crops in south-eastern Missouri and beyond can be the cause of many problems.

Bader had to face the farm’s typical harvest of 5 million to 6 million pounds being reduced by 40 percent in 2016, as trees with withered or missing leaves have borne smaller fruit. Bader reports that almost 10,000 other trees mustered only walnut-sized peaches not even worth picking. He says the shortfall will amount to a loss of produce of $1.5 million to $2 million. He is not alone, there where more than 100 complaints of drift.

Autumn Red peach. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And this gets me back to my flue. Man manipulating nature and using chemicals which should not be in nature bring so much damage and often forget that it spreads like a virus. Infections by pesticide and pollution do not stop at the borders of a field. The borders of a piece of land are crossed like nothing. Before we know it many areas are infected.

These infections we have their seed in the greed of man to produce more and more, bigger and bigger, no matter of taste made him scrupulous and not thinking of next generations. Man has man has ruined his surroundings and has inflicted the environment terrible damage.

But not only there. The seeds several parents sowed by the kids are not the ones our society can be proud of. Many seeds lacked the manure of faith and without the good fertile soul and compost they could not grow properly. Many youngsters became infested by the capitalist society where there is no place for the Divine Creator and where not many can find an eye for that creation of the Most High. Many of the seeds parents, educators, preachers, ministers and priest sowed did not come into the good soil.

Today we can see that lots of soil has become very hard, without any love for the other. The soil of many youngsters is a stone of a heart which has become hard and gives the impression to be unworkable. Politicians may try to make the hearts even more hard and closed for others who have much more difficulties than we, but we should know that the hearts of those the politicians try to blind can be softened.

The same sun that hardens clay softens butter.

Coming in a period that we are going to prepare the garden and that agricultures are doing the preparation work for the harvest, we too should come to do our preparation work for the Most High. We have to start to select the good seeds and to look for the good soil and/or to prepare the less good soil to become productive.

Like we do have to take more care over our environment, mother earth, we also should start taking more care of our spiritual surroundings.

The Winter of mankind has to come to an end. We have to look forward to be ready for the Spring of man and to be strong enough for the big storms which shall come unto our way.

Like seeds take longer to germinate and plants grow more slowly when air and soil temperatures are cool we have to take care that we create a good atmosphere and a good temperature to talk about God and to show people the Way to God.

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Preceding

Seeds of promise

A bird’s eye and reflecting from within

Commemorating the escape from slavery

You’re Lighter Than Air~

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Additional reading

1. World Agenda for Sustainability
2. Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 4
3. Necessity of a revelation of creation 5 Getting understanding by Word of God 3
4. Engaging the culture without losing the gospel
5. Picking Stones
6. Testify of the things heard
7. Chemical warsite and Pushing king of the South

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Further reading

1. Missouri Peach Farmers Threatened by Pesticide Drift
2. Dicamba may threaten Missouri peach farm
3. When to Start Your Seeds
4. Seed calendar – What to plant now
5. Seeds… how do they grow?
6. Vegetable Gardening Know-How : Germination Temperatures & Times
7. How to grow heirloom tomatoes from seed
8. The Secret of germination That No One is Talking
9. AboutGermination shelf
10. Germination table coming together
11. Inventory of WIP seeds
12. Efficient planting, or notEffects of plant growth regulators and NaCl on early developmental stages of Striga hermonthica -IJAAR
    Don’t bother washing the hatPerfect Partners: Oaks & SquirrelsTime to Bloom!
13. Beautiful yellow daffodils
14. Hoping against hope
15. Lightness of being
16. The perfect soil!
17. Good Soil (by Gail Ramesh)
18. Good Soil (by Table Field Farm)
19. Good soil (by Tokyo Purple girl)
20. Good Ground, Bad Ground
21. The Forty-Second Letter: The Basil Metaphor
22. Success
23. The Little Things
24. sometimes the seed falls into good soil…
25. Ungrateful Me
26. Organic Fruit: Sermon for June 26, 2016
27. Produce a Huge Harvest
28. Sowed on Good Soil—Parable of the Sower
29. Thorny ground
30. Die to sin and grow: Analogy between you and a seed
31. Longing to Stay Thirsty
32. Women are important to Jesus

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Related articles

• Monsanto is Being Sued by Missouri’s Largest Peach Grower
• Herbs and Vegetables can Improve Treatment of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
• Sahiwal coal-fired power plant connected to grid, will generate 1,320mw by June
• Corbyn Refuses Five Times to Say If He Supports New Copeland Nuclear Power Plant
• Termites vs. plants: Mystery of desert “fairy circles” solved
• Courgette crisis: consumers tweet pictures of empty supermarket shelves as vegetable catastrophe sweeps nation
• Variety of flowers help attract butterflies to the garden
• How to go meatless
• Gardening events 2017
• How to Raise Your Kids to Eat Well and Not Be Picky Eaters

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The Sensual World – Mission & Vision

Though humankind is daily confronted with people around each other, man often does not manage to communicate. In this world were everything has to go so fast and where every one expects to receive something for something, real communication does not always go so fluently and easy as it should be.
Our capitalist system made it that sharing ideas, knowledge and wisdom are not real goals of many. What is shared on social media is not really of consistent value and not many are really willing to show their own ideas.

To have people sharing ideas and helping each other to know more proves not so easy. On the lifestyle magazine From Guestwriters we promote a peaceful world where people will love to share with each other.

Since 2014, when we started the site we are looking for different writers in different fields to share their knowledge and to build up a positive thought lifestyle magazine.
I must confess this does not goes easily. Not many acted positively on our call. Most of the people contacted wanted to get paid, something we cannot afford. (In case many would contribute and make something successful of it it could become lucrative. But that demands energy and patience.)

We can only hope many pore people would come to see that not always money should be given in return to bring something positive to the world and to the benefit of future generations.

Hopefully there are enough positivists and world loving people who can see that with the advent of Capitalism, the human spirit of mutual sharing began its slow decline and erosion, but that when we fight against it there is still hope for a better world.

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Preceding article

People of different cultures, beliefs and political convictions fraternal together

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Related

1. Communication, Technology and Existential Crises
2. Love Those “Defining The Relationship” Convos
3. Online Interaction and Collaboration
4. Mlm Recruiting Secrets:How To Communicate Effectively – Dereco Cherry
5. What a horse taught me today about conflict resolution, communication, and relationships
6. Striving for Simplicity
7. Teaching Children Across Cultures
8. Racial Inequality: It is Real, and It Needs to be Stopped
9. Engagement or just plain meddling?
10. Chopra Center: How to Communicate Your Opinion Peacefully.

The Truth About the Illuminati: Escaping Slavery

To remember:

• Unveiled capitalism + money distraction:
• 

  footing large bill of illuminati oil barons, war machine financers, home mortgage lenders, federal reserve, banks credit cards > America pretty upset with large debt + looking to transition their area out.

• stuck with large bill = large bankruptcy not been seen
• those who cannot get out = in danger
• moneyless, currencyless interaction world = not only good for us, but something they can’t latch onto.

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Preceding articles:

Selfishness can become our biggest ally for the Money Free Movement

It’s time to build a new system

A charter for a truly free world and why we need it

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Additional reading:

1. Inequality, Injustice, Sustainability and the Free World Charter
2. Not everything has to be reciprocated with money

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Related articles

• Bank of America Credit Card Offers: Applications & Reviews
• Buying home while paying student loans is hard
• The Austerity Beatings of Greece Will Continue Until Its Morale Improves
• If you think comfortable families don’t get sucked into poverty, think again
• How Austerity Measures, Budget Cuts Affect CUNY Students and Faculty
• Greece to seek emergency European meeting on bailout
• Loans, Credit Cards, Grants? Funding a Business Without Investors
• A Step-by-Step Guide to Financing Options for Your Small Business, Part Two
• Still no deal. Greek government on the brink of ‘disaster’ again!
• Mint Success: Going From Carrying Debt to Paying it Off

A Global Organic Mindset

Hi guys!

Unveiled has been a lot of the truths about how capitalism really happened, and what it’s guilty of in the past. That money head is really a harmful force to us, which gives me concern about other areas and even planets, and thinking of relationships and a better way to be! If you notice on the end of my last post, I unveiled who the folks are who were the master of money distraction:

  Those who don’t get out of money are not going to be all gung-ho illuminati, they going to be left footing a large bill of the illuminati oil barons, war machine financers, home mortgage lenders, federal reserve, and banks credit cards.

America at this time can be pretty upset with the large debt and probably looking to transition their area out. That Sun beat down every day, and meanwhile the moneyless option may…

View original post 234 more words

Solstice, Saturnalia and Christmas-stress

Today lots of people tend to treat things such as Christmas trees and holiday gift giving as if they’ve been with us forever. While these are old traditions, they were once far more localized. In this world of media everywhere, we tend to forget that customs were once far more specific to the area. Lots of people also have lost the connection of those festivals and have transposed it to their group of people, believers or non-believers in Jesus Christ or in God.

From the Saxon days there was Yule for mid-winter and in the regions of West Europe the autumn storm brought many ideas alive to think about gods who controlled everything in nature. The days becoming darker demanded for and still demand for some more light bringing into it. In the old times to honour the gods it was custom to put all sorts of things in the trees as an offering to the gods. On December the 25th it was the day of the goddess of light. Time was taken to celebrate her.

Traditional Christmas card with holly and mistletoe. Circa 1880s

Druids, Celts, and even the Romans used evergreen branches made into wreaths in winter solstice celebrations. Because so many things lost colour and seemed to have died people looked up for those elements in nature which could be so strong that they stayed green. Pagan symbols as holly and ivy remained green and were taken as a promise of life to return in dead of winter. Holly – prized for its ability to bear fruit in winter and its healing uses – were the blessings people hoped they could have in the house and share with each other. Healing elements were very important to get through Winter.

While the Romans were holding the feast for the god Saturn — which occurred about the time of the winter solstice — they decked the outsides of their houses with holly. At the same time the Christians were quietly celebrating the birth of Christ, and to avoid detection they outwardly followed the custom of their heathen neighbours and decked their houses with holly as well. In this way holly came to be connected with Christmas customs. The plant was also regarded as a symbol of the Resurrection.

The missionaries coming in these regions quickly understood how the pagan traditions were so strong and how people would not like to give them up. This we still see today happening. As Christians should come to know more about traditions and about usages all over the world, plus having the Holy Scriptures to find what they could or could not do, we see that those who call themselves Christian still do not like to give up those pagan traditions and pagan festivals.

The Roman Catholic Church had already given in to Constantine the Great allowing the false teaching of the trinity be part of the Catholic Faith, so it was a further small step to adapt the Western Celtic and Saxon traditions to the Roman Faith. In 336 CE, during the time of this so called  first Christian Roman Emperor for the first time on December 25th “Christmas” was being celebrated.

A very early Christian tradition said that March 25^th was the day when Mary was told she’d give birth to Jesus (called the Annunciation). And nine months later, of course, would be December 25^th. But the Bible doesn’t mention the exact days of that annunciation, nor of the birth of Jesus, though from all the secular writings we do know when the cencus took place, when the falling star appeared and that it was in October that Mary and Joseph went to fulfil their duties. We can take it was in 4BCE on October the 17th that rabbi Jeshua from the tribe of King David was born. For those who would love to celebrate his birthday it is strange that they than not do this around the period Jesus was rally born.

An image from the necropolis under the Vatican in which Jesus = Mithras (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is true that in many cultures we can find a festival of lights, also the Jews have such a festival of lights. Germans and Scandinavians had their yule festival. Celtic legends connected the solstice with Balder, the Scandinavian sun god or Norse god of light, son of the chief god Odin and his wife Frigg, who was struck down by a mistletoe arrow from the blind god Hödur (or Höd). At the pagan festival of Saturnalia, Romans feasted and gave gifts to the poor. Drinking was closely connected with these pagan feasts.

The Babylonian sun-god and god of agriculture and flocks, Tammuz, lover of Ishtar, born on the winter solstice according to legend was also celebrated on December the 25th and by the Roman Catholic Church his symbol was taken as the symbol for Jesus (the sign of Tammuz or the cross), placing Jesus as the bringer of light and god of light.

The leaders of the instituted organisation of clergy who accepted the trinity, agreed to adopted the saturnalia day of the ‘day of birth’ or ‘day of new life’ as a remembrance day of the new life Jesus has given to all mankind. For them it was easier to get more converts by keeping the folks from indulging in the old pagan festivals as part of the pagan culture, now transformed or redressed in a Roman Catholic dressing.

Branches that had thorns became to be the thorns Christ wore on the crucifix (sign of Tammuz) and the berries were stained red by his drops of blood. From the Norse and the Druids, the Mistletoe you may find growing here everywhere and at that time was considered special because of it found growing on the sacred oaks, was featured in several old myths and held to be sacred and associated with fertility, which led to kissing boughs.

Also today at the Christmas markets we can find the gangway where there is the kissing bough custom one holds that a woman who refuses the kiss shall have bad luck, and that those who kiss underneath it shall be having a blessed and fruitful year.

Not all the following years Christmas was part of Christian life. During Cromwell’s rule, Christmas was even banned. Charles II restored the holiday in England. However, the Parliament of Scotland officially abolished the observance of Christmas in 1640, to purge the church “of all superstitious observation of days”, and it was not restored as a public holiday in Scotland until 1958.

Julbocken, by John Bauer (1912)

From the 4th to the 19th century the tradition of the Northern people their celebration for their chief god and the father of Thor, (Thunor, or Thonar), Balder, and Tiw, Woden or Wotan became more and more also liked by the people from Holland and Belgium and the man with a long white beard who rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn became their Sint Niklaas (Sinterklaas) or Sint Nicholas  (saint Nicholas) and in the Anglo Saxon countries Father Christmas or Santa Claus/Sancta Claus.

1881 illustration by Thomas Nast who, along with Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, helped to create the modern image of Santa Claus

From the 20th century onward that Father Christmas started gaining more popularity and the presents became more and more the focus of the people for that season were the darkness seemed to have darkened their Christian sight. Lots of Christians enjoyed decorating the ‘Christmas tree‘ and telling their children the Saint from Spain had brought presents for all those who had behaved well the previous year. Later in the month it was the Santa who once more brought presents in the house.

History illustrates the awesome outworking of initial events from when the Divine Creator has declared

Zephaniah 1:17-18 The Scriptures 1998+  (17)  “And I shall bring distress on men, and they shall walk like blind men – because they have sinned against יהוה  {Jehovah}, and their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung.”  (18)  Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of יהוה  {Jehovah}. And by the fire of His jealousy all the earth shall be consumed, for He makes a sudden end of all those who dwell in the earth.

This comes from the Christadelphian bible reading for December 15 when we started reading this short and somewhat overlooked prophecy of Zephaniah. He would have been one of the prophets Peter referred to, as we read the final chapter of his second letter of the same day-reading, he told them they should remember

2 Peter 3:2 The Scriptures 1998+  (2)  the words previously spoken by the set-apart prophets, and of the command of the Master and Saviour, spoken by your emissaries,

Today we may find lots of people who have stress about the coming days when they have to present nice meals and many presents and have to fulfil many family visits and social obligations. Their eyes are closed for the real issue in life. Not a Santa shall bring salvation and he from the North has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus Christ. When we look at the many Christmas markets we even do not see much what reminds us of the Saviour who was sent by God to this earth.

Ages ago holy prophets told about the eyes of people which would become blinded. Today we

“should remember their predictions”

Folk tale depiction of Father Christmas riding on a goat. Perhaps an evolved version of the Swedish Tomte. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We also should remember that they also warned for the time that scoffers were going to come and would lead people following their own sinful desires. About the promised one who was born, lived for a very short time here on earth, died, was resurrected from the dead and showed that he was not a spirit, but the one brought back alive by his heavenly Father, that master teacher is not remembered much these days and many do not think about his return or even do not believe in it.

Yes many laugh at us and say,

“Where is the promise of his coming?”

Many children have to promise their parents that they will be good next year. Then they also will get some present. But not many children learn about that man who died for our sins. Not many take time in this ‘Time of the year’ to read the Bible and to meditate on what God and his son Jesus had to say.

Today lots of people are concentrating on their self and do see all those refugees coming in our regions as a possible threat to what they can enjoy. Many are afraid they shall have to share with those poor people who travelled thousands of miles to find their luck in our Western world where money seems to flow like moulted butter.

Many people do not see what is really going on and how those set apart men of God had warned for certain situations we can see today. Also Jesus told about the signs of those days we have today. That time Jesus spoke about, may be much closer than many think. Many are blinded by the money this world is offering. Lots of people think everything can be said with presents and with the value of money. The real value for life they often do not see. Capitalism has put sand in their eyes.

The ways of godless thinking and living will be seen for all the foolishness they are; and we must never forget, there are only 2 ways: the broad way and the narrow way. Those on the narrow way are

2 Peter 3:12-15 The Scriptures 1998+  (12)  looking for and hastening the coming of the day of Elohim, through which the heavens shall be destroyed, being set on fire, and the elements melt with intense heat!  (13)  But according to His promise we wait for a renewed heavens and a renewed earth in which righteousness dwells.  (14)  So then, beloved ones, looking forward to this, do your utmost to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,  (15)  and reckon the patience of our Master as deliverance, as also our beloved brother Sha’ul wrote to you, according to the wisdom given to him,

“waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace” (verses 13,14).

Included in what they (we) are waiting for, is what Job perceived and that we read today. He declared,

“I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” (19:25-27).

He believed in resurrection!

That final comment is most thought provoking. Our hearts will be in danger of fainting within us for multiple reasons, when God “bring(s) distress” – the experience will be awesome for believers! But how imminent then will be the time when they will “see God” through seeing his Son, marvelling in anticipation of the ultimate time when

“God himself will be with them as their God … for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:3,4).

Let us anticipate in faith the things that “our eyes shall behold” to carry us through the coming time of “distress”.

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Additional reading

1. Holidays, holy days and traditions
2. Christmas customs – Are They Christian?
3. Christmas, Saturnalia and the birth of Jesus
4. Irminsul, dies natalis solis invicti, birthday of light, Christmas and Saturnalia
5. Focus on outward appearances
6. Jesus begotten Son of God #1 Christmas and Christians
7. Christmas in Ancient Rome (AKA Saturnalia)
8. Christmas trees
9. Actions to be a reflection of openness of heart
10. With child and righteousness greater than the law
11. Objects around the birth and death of Jesus
12. Politics and power first priority #3 Elevation of Mary and the Holy Spirit
13. The imaginational war against Christmas
14. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 1: Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet
15. Manna from Sint Nicholas
16. Traditionalists Vow to Fight Charges of Racism in Netherlands
17. Ignorance of Today’s Youth (and Adults)
18. Sancta Claus is not God
19. Brits believe Santa present at Jesus’ birth, new poll reveals
20. Wishing lanterns and Christmas

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Further reading

1. Winter Solstice and Yule
2. Yule is upon us!
3. Dickens’ Christmas Story as an Intertexteme in Leskov’s Yule Short Story
4. Winter Solstice 2015: Shortest Day Of The Year Celebrated As Pagan Yule
5. Commercialmas
6. Yule 2015 #15 performing magic
7. Yule 2015#16
8. A radiant vision of splendour
9. Yule prep
10. Yule Wreath and Garland
11. 13 Trolls
12. War Against Christmas?
13. Holiday King of the Hill
14. SGC Admin: From our inbox to you from: Patti Wigington: Paganism/Wicca Expert
15. Yule – Wicca subject of the week
16. Happy Yule 2015
17. How to bring some real Christmas spirits into your Yule-tide
18. 10 Ways to Celebrate Yule
19. Santa Claus, Krampus,The Wild Hunt and Me.
20. Vigil
21. Use Yule Bells For Positive Energy
22. Irish Christmas
23. Christmas, the Weridest Holiday of the Year; Part one
24. Holly Tree
25. Holly, Plant of Saturn and Mars
26. Symbol of Yule: Holly Mistletoe and Bayberry Candles
27. Memories of Yuletide
28. A Little history on the holly tree
29. Let It Be Done Unto Me
30. Annunciation
31. Annunciation: a reflection for Advent
32. This Annunciation
33. The Annunciation, according to Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich
34. Tuesday 15th December
35. Wednesday Writings – Annunciation
36. Mary’s Heart
37. Angels & Advent: In His Shadow – a sermon podcast
38. And the virgin’s name was Mary
39. Angels of Advent: Encountering the Annunciation
40. Somersaults /Wednesday, December 9, 2015
41. Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
42. Mary and a “Yes” to God’s Request
43. Joseph’s Pregnant Advent
44. The Overshadowing of Mary –Pentecost
45. Christmas
46. Saturnalia
47. From Sukkot to Saturnalia: The Attack on Christmas in Sixteenth-Century..
48. Togas, Laurels, Chariots and Some Roast Lambs’ Testicles
49. Countdown to Christmas 17: Saturnalia
50. Saturnalia Is a Fleadh by Another Name. Just Don’t Tell Jerry Buttimer
51. By Jove! It’s Christmas: Did the First Christian Roman Emperor Appropriate..
52. War On Christmas Memes: Saturnalia
53. War On Christmas Memes: The Yule Tree
54. Christmas: it’s all about money, not messiahs.
55. Geranium Lake Properties, Saturn and Sol
56. Advent Calendar Day 15: Christmas: The Perfect Excuse For A Fight? by Lucy Brazier
57. Pig Washing 1, “Christmas”
58. Christmas is Pagan!
59. Christmas — Who gives a rip HOW we came up with the date we use?!?
60. Christmas is Tammuz’s Birthday?

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Related articles

• Santa preparing sleigh for ride through Nipomo
• Which Christian sect is the only true Christian church?
• 25 Orthodox rabbis issued a statement on Christianity
• Objects around the birth and death of Jesus
• Updating the Roman Catholic Church…
• Why Are Catholics Unable To Admit That, Yes, They Do Pray To Mary?

The Proper Place of Excess

The Word of God given to us in the Bible or Holy Scriptures tells us to know Who we should worship and what we should not worship. Idolatry of money has crept into the soul of mankind and has poisoned their hearts.

The wisdom teacher of Ecclesiastes says, there is a time for all things under the sun, no to agree with the excess man loves so much, but as a warning how to behave and how and to what to focus.

For those who want to celebrate Christmas for whatever reason they want to give, Christians should remember that it is originally a pagan festival and should better abstain from it. But we do agree in Wintertime it is ideal to socialise at the dark hours and it may be lovely to exchange presents around the turn of the year.

When we provide presents for others they should be given with joy and when it brings such a stress like we hear many tell on television, than there is certainly something wrong.

In so called Christian countries, we also see lots of Christmas markets, but at those ‘great events’ there is not much to see about what they call would be the “reason of the season”. At most Christmas markets there are not many stall about the nativity of the Nazarene Jew nor about that man’s ransom offering. Jesus Christ his birth they often call the reason for the season, but we can not see him much in that season or in people’s homes. Also the attitude of those people gathering at those markets does not speak of such an attitude that master teacher asked from his followers. Most people strolling around at those markets are more concerned about the food and drink opportunities and in buying (ridiculous) gadgets and not to expensive presents.

So many feel obliged just to find an other gadget or an other extra surprise and do hope they themselves also will receive many presents.

In this society where excess has become a way of life, for many it might well be also a way of understanding the world, a way of being and interacting in the world, but for sure many chapters in the bible warn for such an attitude and ask us to focus on the more important immaterial things.

Those who call themselves Christian should wonder where they fall in the consumer trap of the capitalist society and why they do not keep to the festivals ordained by the Most High? the festival for the goddess of light and a celebration for a Santa Claus for sure are no part of those.

*

To remember

Thanksgiving here + gone > too much to eat + drink = Excess = regular part of natural order

Excess > consequences = plays important role in survival process

Survival of the fittest + the fertilized

Northern Hemisphere winter = season of rest + recuperation

ancestral winter seasons > forebears rejoiced in gathered harvest, savored freshly slaughtered meat, + delighted in new beer + wine.

Northern Hemisphere ancestors celebrated = winter solstice = December 21 = marking the rebirth of the sun = traditionally been associated with feasts + festivals replete with excesses => secular Christmastime holiday = direct descendant of these revelries.

Roman Saturnalia + misrule, centered on feasting + gift-giving > societal role reversals where servants + peasants became lords + ladies for a day or short season => usually steady tables of fortune turned for a moment

misrule (common in European societies and colonial America) individuals of low socioeconomic status demanded wealthier neighbors + patrons treat them – the servants + peons of society – as if they were the wealthy + deserving

Puritans of Massachusetts infamously outlawing Christmas in late 1600s =/= legendary anniversary of the Savior’s birth > simultaneous misrule celebrations that exalted excesses, some acceptable + others decidedly distasteful.

1800s, misrule evolved > new type of social inversion > persisted to our own day => Christmas made for children

children = miniature adults = occupied bottom rung of social hierarchy along with peasants + servants

Modern secular Christmas – family celebration – created at this time with children becoming focus of charity + goodwill

starting with Black Friday Eve (used to be called Thanksgiving) + continuing through New Year’s Day celebrations = unmatched devotion to consumerism, materialism, consumption, waste, and over-indulgence.

+

Preceding

The Culture of Excesses- Losing Humanity

Learning that stuff is just stuff

Material wealth, Submission and Heaven on earth

Looking for the consummation of presents

One can buy a lot in the supermarket, but not hope

 

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Additional reading

1. A time for everything
2. The truth is very plain to see and God can be clearly seen
3. Irminsul, dies natalis solis invicti, birthday of light, Christmas and Saturnalia
4. Holidays, holy days and traditions
5. A new year with hopes and challenges
6. Opportunity!
7. A season of gifts
8. How to Find the Meaning of Life and Reach a State of Peace
9. Material wealth, Submission and Heaven on earth

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Further reading

1. Presents, Presents, and more Presents.
2. Christmas Stress
3. Buying All the Gifts
4. Christmas time!
5. The spirit of Christmas
6. Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts. ~J.L.W. Brooks
7. It’s the Thought that Counts?
8. 30 Ways to Have Yourself a Thrifty Little Christmas
9. 17 Things Only Girls Who Hate Shopping Understand
10. How The Garden Grinch Saved Your Christmas
11. 2015 Holiday Gift Guide
12. My Christmas Gift Guide 2015
13. 15 ways to get into the Christmas Spirit
14. A Special Package
15. The Gift & the Giver
16. Baby Jesus Brings the gifts
17. Blogmas Day 14: Christmas Gift Guide 2015
18. On the 14th day of Christmas…
19. Dear Santa
20. Secret Santa!
21. Why we don’t do Santa
22. Nativity?
23. Christmas Blogging Challenge Day 2 – My Favourite Christmas Tradition
24. The Gift That Keeps on Giving
25. The Holiday Gifting Struggle
26. Do you search? BlogMas
27. Finding God
28. Why Not Do Something Different This Christmas

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Related articles

• Autumnal Equinox
• Autumn Serenade: The Fall Music Puzzler
• What Exactly Is the Autumn Equinox?
• Watch: Man surprises girlfriend by proposing to her on roller coaster
• Christmas Traditions around the World
• Christmas comes earlier for Toronto Bay shoppers
• This Day in History: September 21st- There is a Santa Claus
• Sneak Peek: Do You Hear Jingle Bells?

The T. Carlos Blog

Thanksgiving, once again, is here and gone. I know I had too much to eat and drink. How about you?

Excess is a regular part of the natural order. Our bodies turn excess calories into fat cells – technically, stored energy for later use. Most excess weight, however, is simply lugged around serving unwittingly as a contributing factor to health problems. Alcohol, on the other hand, is eliminated by the body. But a morning-after dehydration headache, caused by excessive drinking, lets you know you overdid it. Long-term excessive drinking, of course, will kill you.

Excess has its consequences.

Excess, nevertheless, plays an important role in the survival process. You and I are here thanks to an excessive amount of spermatozoa, from which emerged one little victor to join forces with an ovum. Survival of the fittest and the fertilized! And not only that, some of the plants which provide food, oxygen, and beauty upon the earth produce seeds for their own reproduction numbering in excess of hundreds…

View original post 687 more words

Are Christianity and Capitalism Compatible?

In regards to scale, the civil war in Syria is a tragedy that’s reminiscent of the earth-moving conflicts of the early 20th Century. So far, a quarter of a million people have been killed, with millions of others displaced.

After the turbulence of two world wars Europe has managed to create a zone were no battles are fought with weapons, but with words. But it might well be that we are on the bring of a turning point were radical groups of Christians and Muslims may like to throw spanner in the works.

National socialists, neo-nazis, but also several people who call themselves ‘Christian‘ want the rest of the population in their country to believe the refugees are a danger for their economic striving society and for their democratic and their ‘religious’ life.

So many Christians have forgotten the teachings of Christ Jesus and better should take up the Messianic writings again, and especially the gospels, to out again what Christianity is all about.

It is also not bad to look at different writings of people who called themselves Christian and see how they think we should cope with others around us, but also with our wealth we can enjoy. Because when you hear many talking today lots of people are more concerned with the financial consequences of those entering their community and with the minor radical lunatics who want to frighten our society and seem to succeed in their task, because so many give in to that unjustified fear.

*

To remember

In an age when Christianity is comfortably entwined with consumer capitalism, the early Christians’ passion for social and economic justice can come as a shock.

• From 1st days of Christianity > duty to care for poor and marginalized = at center of gospel
• Jesus preached way of life free of possessions
• 1st church in Jerusalem abolished private property + early apostles > warned of privilege and wealth.
• 3 centuries later Christendom becoming official religion of Roman Empire > economics remained communitarian
• Church fathers such as Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, + Augustine of Hippo preached
• give your wealth free passage everywhere
• let your wealth run through many conduits to the homes of the poor
• Money kept standing idle = worthless > moving + changing hands = benefitting community => brings increase…
• money in your vaults belongs to the destitute
• injustice to every man whom you could help but do not.
• God grants you gifts.

 

• alms, prayers, protection of the injured and the like = genuine work
• what we possess is not personal property; it belongs to all.
• God generously gives all things that are much more necessary than money > air, water, fire, sun … All these things to be distributed equally to all.
• “Mine” and “thine” = chilling words > introduce innumerable wars into the world => should be eliminated from the church
• All things = in common.
• When you possess superfluity = you possess what belongs to others
• God gives the world to the poor as well as to the rich.
• abstain from the possessions of private property – or from the love of it, if we cannot abstain from possession – and let us make room for the Lord.

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Find also:

Responses to Radical Muslims and Radical Christians

Listening for the Language of Peace

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Read also and watch the video: Refugee crisis, terrorist attacks and created fear

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Further readings:

1. Europe and the Joke of Reverse Colonialism
2. Editorial: Against Authority, Against Terror
3. Capitalism
4. Capitalism – Access to capital = Slavery
5. Capitalism: incentivising sensationalism, taking advantage of our biases and damaging our mental health | Plymouth Herald journalist in breach of ethics?
6. Eleutherios or A Hatred of Capitalism: The ascetic philosophy of Mick
7. Next Generation Favors Socialism over Capitalism
8. Coalitions against Impunity: Why the UN fails to maintain peace.
9. Anti-Christ Anti-Scientist
10. Should We Be Scared?
11. Who is the Consummate Capitalist?
12. Coal lights the way
13. Stop the whole system wrecking the planet: this means revolution!
14. Offended by the Lord’s Prayer? You should be!
15. What Prince Charles gets wrong – and right – about climate change and conflict in Syria
16. Quote for the day – November 19
17. Quote for the day – November 22
18. American Christianity: I Can’t “Unsee”
19. A Sense of Proportion
20. Politicians Talk a Lot, do Nothing, and Simply don’t Care
21. In The Blink of a Kalashnikov
22. The Psychopathy of Greed
23. The Post-Capitalist Society is Already Emerging in Denmark
24. Capitalism and the Dalai Lama
25. Preliminary Materials on Collective Liberation and the New Material Reality

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Related articles

• Christian Morality and Civil Disobedience
• Is It Ever Good To Be Impulsive?
• Holy Dream Team? The Most Notorious Catholic Saints
• My Good Read of the Day (09/20/15)
• The Rule of Love
• Behind Russia’s ultra-nationalist crackdown
• Video Shows Muslim Horde Vandalizing Christian Site In Europe
• A Perfect Inheritance
• Have we forgotten the plight of Middle Eastern Christians?
• Reflective Moment ‘The Greatest Gift Is Free’

LiveWithoutLovingMoney

What Did the Early Church Say About Economic Justice?

(Thanks to Plough publishing for sharing this).

St. Augustine, John Chrysostom, and Basil the Great

 

In an age when Christianity is comfortably entwined with consumer capitalism, the early Christians’ passion for social and economic justice can come as a shock. From the first days of Christianity, the duty to care for the poor and marginalized was at the center of the gospel. Jesus preached a way of life free of possessions, the first church in Jerusalem abolished private property, and the early apostles warned of privilege and wealth.

Remarkably, three centuries later – when Christianity was well on its way to becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire – the church’s version of economics remained as communitarian as ever. Church fathers such as Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, and Augustine of Hippo preached in a way that…

View original post 841 more words

Still Hope though Power generating long train of abuses

In modern times we also had times when people were oppressed and victims of totalitarian regimes. Even today many states did not learn from the past ans still try to seek to control all aspects of life.

By the years governments tried to have the adults running nicely in line. Sometimes they forgot the younger citizens but also at other times they tried to use them to get to know more about the parents or as a stick behind the door for the parents.

Some did not take in mind that it is crucial to form the next generation, to make sure that the parents guide their children the right way. Having children in their teen years off on the right track is a must to have stability in the later years.

The Allied Offensive in Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia (August 1944 – May 1945). Borders of 1948 (after the 1947 Treaty of Paris), before the creation of GDR and FRG. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There have been times, and perhaps they are returning, that parents gave a lot of consideration to what kind of father or mother they wanted to be to their children. At certain times the parents also wanted to protect their offspring and did not let them hear too much of their political thinking. At all times parents thought about their children how to make it better for them and how they best could raise and unleash them on this world.

Many forms of and many books on bringing up children saw the day light. From one end, having severe discipline to letting everything free has been tried. Some found it also better to make their children dependant on them others did everything to get them independent.

Europe has seen countries where it had become custom to tell lies, to spy on others, and to use everything from the state as theirs. In the East of Europe people even got the disruptive and burdensome attitude that anyone who did not steal from the state was stealing from their own family, eventually became commonplace.

There were many aspects of a person’s day-to-day life that were not recognized during totalitarian times as directly caused by the failures of the state, but which certainly were failures of the state, and are failures that are easily repeated wherever a state sees it best to control an economy.

As Allan Stevo writes in Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution: 25 Years Later:

Today, even in the most free-market Western countries, governments participate in massive economic intervention, as if they have learned none of the poignant lessons offered by Soviet-style controlled economies. Government intervention is praised in the West by those who do not have an understanding of markets and tend to confuse the concept of a free market with crony capitalism.

With medical care, pharmaceuticals, and education, for example, the West insists on hindering itself by undermining the market. In doing so, it almost certainly punishes the weakest members of society. Just as the central planners of Czechoslovakia in the last century claimed to act on behalf of “the people” while acting to their detriment, the social democrats of the West in this century follow in those footsteps.

In contrast, personal computing, telecom, the Internet, and burgeoning technologies are areas where technology has moved with such dramatic creativity that governments have been nearly incapable of restraining the markets.

Every year, the government-regulated industries become less efficient and more expensive while the market-regulated industries become ever more efficient and less expensive.

Because of the states wanting to regulate everything and always demanding more taxes and more sacrifice pay for more work, the citizens become more dissatisfied and disappoint with the system. You can call it no wonder that there has come such a distrust in the political system of the ex-communist countries as well as the capitalist countries. They have come from families which have felt the difficulties when the government took everything in their hands. There have been too many unpleasant attempts at using government and economics to control the people.

In Central Europe there is some scepticism toward any political and economic system.  Many look back at 1989 critically and wonder if the right decisions were made during the transitions.

Some even look at the time before that with rose-colored glasses and long for what was. Some prospered in the old system and miss it. While the old system promised comfort to some, it was not a system of individual freedom. {Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution: 25 Years Later}

The world could witness a dramatic meltdown of communist countries: Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia, while the Soviet regime, supportive of these systems since the end of the Second World War, sat by helplessly and watched. Leaders made vague statements about the need for peaceful transitions and elections, while the people on the ground completely ignored them.

Monument to the student manifestations of November 17th in Prague, repressed by the police, they led to the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What can clearly be seen is that caused the uprising of the people was their frustration with the system. The core of the problem, it appears, relates to civil liberties and the very old-fashioned conviction that the country is ruled by a tyrant who must go. But years before the governing party was not looked at as a tyrant, though often it also wanted in previous time to be the sole ruler. the biggest problem, I think, is that the expectations where not filled in by the system and the system failed the people who had greats hope in change. Often people resisted favouritism and thought to find a system which would consider all people equal and finding it that all should share the common goods. But then they saw that it perhaps was even worse than in the system before and party members chose all the country’s elites based solely on personal loyalty to themselves.

In many cases it took a very long time before the citizens came to realize that they outnumber the government and that they when they unite can do much more than those few in government trying to rule them. This fundamental reality that the world too often forgets, is at the core of the relationship between any government and any people, in all times and all places. The people far outnumber the government, and for that reason — and even when the government is heavily armed — every government must depend on some degree of consent to continue its rule. If the whole of a people rise up and say no, the bureaucrats and even the police are powerless. This is the great secret of government that is mostly ignored until revolution day arrives.

When there is no transparency in the system there shall be no standing credibility for the citizens and they will loose interest and their belief in the governing establishment. then there are the misconceptions and people getting wrong ideas because there is no open and fair communication between governing persons, the state, and its inhabitants. when the citizens start feeling they are left out and that there is no account taken of them or that they are no part any more of the public and political debate, they shall rise up against the system.

When Doomthinking starts taking over than the state should come to see that there is a real problem. Often it is more a matter of not having a good relationship any more between the governing people and the members of the state who start feeling to be left in the cold by those who got their vote or who have taken the power without consult of what the people wanted.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.rightly remarks:

The difficulty for the state comes when its will to power generates what Thomas Jefferson called “a long train of abuses” that create a burning desire within people to rise up and demand freedom. Because, after all, it is the right of a people — is it not? — to alter and abolish the form of government under which they are forced to live.

Parents do want to see their children able to live in a world where they can expand their dreams. They want so much more for their  children than a culture of entitlement and a single-minded obsession with self-esteem. When parents are getting terrified of not providing the perfect environment for their children’s future success, states should start worrying, because than the state comes at risk.

Good parents will strive to create an environment where their children are allowed the critical landmarks of growth that come from making mistakes and getting into danger every once in a while. As Victoria Dougherty writes:

The kind of danger that comes from being permitted to ride their bikes unsupervised or watch a horror movie or settle a dispute without adult intervention. We don’t always succeed. {On Making a Man}

Though her people, she finds to be

salty. Playful but intense, eccentric.We thrive on poetic double meanings, and can be as dark as we are passionate and sentimental. We believe in curses and we believe in that tiny, niggling feeling – the kind that prophecies are made of.  The soul’s equivalent of that barely detectable scratch in your throat just before a debilitating bout with the flu. {When Pigs Fly: Thoughts on Slavs, Santa, and eating the family pet}

She also tells when communism fell, the restitution process didn’t have much to offer to he old families.

Restitution, for those of you who might be scratching your heads, is a lot like it sounds. It’s a process by which the Czech government returned properties stolen by the communists to their original owners. {A Little Something to Get the Holiday Season Started}

In the past several people found that their country had betrayed them and now again the danger is looming that people will feel the same way. In the past they saw a country filled with a people weak and corrupt, and run by a government to be bankrupt in every possible sense of the word.

What is most important is, is to know when people their hopes are shattered they shall fall down in a deep well trying to do everything not to drown. Parents even in bad times tried to give their kids a shade of light in the darkness. They want their kids to believe that from the depth of the valleys, in the deserts of despair, there is hope

… as there is the unquenchable oasis, the immense breadth and depth of the human spirit… always.

Let us be careful that we always shall be able to give hope to this but also to the following generations.

“Hope is the anchor of the soul.”“Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success; but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.”– Vaclav Havel (former President of Czechoslovakia and playwright)

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Additional reading:

1. Capitalism
2. Doomthinking or a real problem for Europe
3. Transparency is the key to credibility for the EU
4. Citizens to be put at the heart of the public debate
5. Citizen University and the difference between Citizenship and Activism
6. Migrants to the West #2
7. Migrants to the West #8 Welbeing
8. Poignant Imagine
9. Private: Faith Over Fear
10. Left behind for economical emigration
11. This Week Twenty-Five Years Ago: The Velvet Revolution Succeeds, December 1989
12. Many present American citizens do not want to recognise their Land of hope and glory
13. The Free Market (and all that) did not bring down the Berlin Wall

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Extra reading:

1. Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution: 25 Years Later
2. A People’s Uprising Against the Empire
3. The Limits of Globalization
4. Imperial Globalization – The Presence of the Past and the Crucible of Empire
5. Ceausescu’s Rumania: Stalinism with an Iron Fist
6. Report from Romania: Ceausescu’s Legacies
7. History Carnival #140
8. Prelude to Bandung: The Interwar Origins of Anti-Colonialism
9. Culture Makes All The Difference: Reclaiming the Culture of Economics

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  Monday’s celebrations included protests against the country’s current political leadership under President Milos Zeman, whom some believe to be overly pro-Russian.
• Are Czechs giving up on moral responsibility? (triblive.com)

  Havel emphasized the importance of morality in politics and economics and said that we should base our actions on “responsibility to something higher than my family, country, my firm, my success.”

  That sense of moral responsibility for others led Havel, until his death in 2011, to be one of the world’s leading advocates for human rights. He believed that people such as himself, who had experienced Communist totalitarianism firsthand, had a special responsibility to warn the affluent West about the dangers of appeasement. And he felt that a “politics where economic interests are put above basic political values are not only immoral, they are suicidal.” In his last years, he applied this thinking especially to Russia and China.

• Revolutions of 1989: how the old regime was torn down (socialistworker.co.uk)
  “All that is solid melts into air,” wrote Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto of 1848. Their description of seemingly indestructible societies falling apart was particularly apt in 1989.A revolutionary process began that year which destroyed the world order in Europe. The Eastern Bloc countries fell first, and shortly after came the Soviet Union that had controlled them since the end of the Second World War.As millions took to the streets, regimes which described themselves as “socialist” stood exposed as brutal dictatorships.

  In October, East Germany’s rulers were celebrating the 40th anniversary of its founding. The ruling SED was among the most hardline Stalinist parties. It thought its repressive state apparatus would forever protect it.

  But discontent was brewing. Groups of radicals who had previously huddled isolated in churches now found that first hundreds, then thousands, were ready to answer their call. A similar spirit gripped workers in country after country.

• Václav Havel’s Blueprint for Operating in a Dangerous World: By Bohuslav Sobotka, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic **** (ruthfullyyours.com)
  Havel, who died in December 2011, was a modest man. He might have gotten a laugh out of such a pompous event. When bidding farewell as president in February 2003, he had this to say: “It all happened so suddenly that I did not even have time to properly consider whether or not I was up to the task.” And yet he oversaw epochal events both at home and abroad and in many ways he was an active participant.No sooner was he sworn in on Dec. 29, 1989, than President Havel had his foreign-policy mettle tested as he coped with the far-reaching repercussions of the Iron Curtain coming down. The former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe were mired in domestic political and economic woes. They also found themselves in a geopolitical void as the Soviet Union fragmented, and simmering ethnic tensions in the Balkans cast another shadow over the future.Havel was acutely aware of the ills and wrongs of the world. While to some he may have seemed a naive idealist, he was convinced that noble ideals should guide his country’s foreign policy to help it stay on a righteous path.
• Klaus in EU Parliament: 25 years after the fall of communism (motls.blogspot.com)
  Some readers may find 100 minutes to listen to a talk by Czech ex-president Václav Klaus in the EU Parliament that he gave yesterday:
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  Klaus would explain why the communism felt – it had totally discredited itself and there were no real supporters anywhere anymore. He would think that socialism would never return. But he was wrong. Here we have the European socialism.The ex-president recommends the EU to be dissolved just like communism was stopped.While I am not hysterically afraid of such a scenario, I am still uncertain whether this is the right way to proceed, whether it would bring greater benefits than costs. What do you think? Richard Sulík of Slovakia has also attended (and spoke!) – and he’s even less certain about the dissolution’s being a good idea than I am.
• Ukrainian textbooks to remove “Great Patriotic War” designation for WWII (euromaidanpress.com)
  New textbooks in Ukraine will replace the Soviet term “Great Patriotic War” with the phrase Second World War, which is used worldwide, said Education Minister Serhiy Kvit, November 26, before a Cabinet meeting.Kvit said he supports the position of the Institute of National Memory to restore the phrase Second World War as a replacement for the term Great Patriotic War, which was reintroduced in Ukraine during the Yanukovych government
• China media: Premier Li’s Russia visit (bbc.co.uk)
  Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who is in Russia on a three-day visit, will meet President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.Both countries signed at least 40 agreements in energy, aviation, space, high-speed railways, tourism, and finance, reports say.Several papers have criticised Western media outlets for “badmouthing” the Russia-China relationship.

  Showing strong support for Moscow, the overseas edition of the People’s Daily observes that the US has “doubts or even enmity” towards China and Russia because it feels the two countries are “seeking to change the world order”.

  “The US is the main architect and main beneficiary of the post-war world order. The world order that it is defending is different from what many countries, including China, are hoping to see. However, China is not suggesting tearing down the existing order, it just wants reforms,” says the article.

  The paper adds that the “US still sees China as the biggest potential challenger to the existing world order”.

• Silesia: a borderland in Central Europe (britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk)
  Silesia is a region now located mainly in Poland with small strips in the Czech Republic and Germany. Historically the province has been divided into the north-western Lower Silesia and the south-eastern Upper Silesia with the two biggest cities Wrocław (Breslau) on the Oder and Katowice respectively.  In the early Middle Ages Silesia was populated by various Slav tribes and was part of Great Moravia and Bohemia.
• The Free Market (and all that) did not bring down the Berlin Wall (mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com)
  There are certain narratives which are never questioned. One such narrative is rise of free market thinking in the last 30 years or so. Now, this itself was not new as before great depression we had similar thinking.

Misleading world, stress, technique, superficiality, past, future and positivism

I am convinced that in case we try to bend all our negative thoughts into the direction of good thoughts we can manage better. Very important to avoid stress situations simply is avoiding those people who could bring us into such a situation. We best avoid negative influences and associate better more with people who can contribute positiveness in our life.

Eliminative Materialism (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We should be careful not to be taken in, by not be focusing on the distribution of material power because that are the matters which can bring us down.  Materialism in the end always will kill the person. Always being aware that no way we ever shall get a good working system or any political system that can solve everything. For that we shall have to wait until the return of Christ, when the Kingdom of God shall at last become a full reality. Before that the reality of a perfect world is an illusion. The reality that surrounds us is not in itself a product of the objective forces but one of our shared perceptions, ideas, social values and understanding. We would be fooling ourselves if we believed the state and the inter-state systems, would not be artificial constructs, meaning that they are constructed by humans, and they can be changed and developed in new ways in extreme cases leading to anarchy and a huge security dilemma.

We all should work on coming to understand how the world evolves and what for influence we as human beings have on nature. when you look how we treat nature it more seems that we are very good at destroying it instead of living in symbioses with it.

At the moment how people are making a mess of the world they are also putting stress on the whole community, using everything and every one to get as much material gain as they can. Not many people are really interested in the spiritual site of life. Most people are also not interested to come to know or to come to an understanding of the universe and the world around us.

All the things that happened in the past can never be undone. This can be hard to swallow and it can bring much sadness to us. But it has no use to linger on such bad events, sad happenings and to keep facing depressing thoughts. the world must go on, and we with it.

Instead of having people to succeed to push us in a hole, getting us not believing in ourselves any more, we better try to understand why such people became so envious, jealous, and so frustrated that they like to bully others. They would like to kill all initiative others would take, because that would put them in the shadow. Often such people looking to get all the power would not mind putting all those on their path, standing in their way,to not only put them in the shadow, but to get them in the dark, not having to play any significant role any more. it is all a matter of control. And when we lose control we might come into a phase of stress and they think they also would come in a phase of no power any more.

Sharing  control and sharing tasks has not to mean you would or the other would loose control. Together more can be managed than on your own. Often when people start feeling their loosing control they do come in afraid to loose their position in the comfort zone. Some may take on the defence mode and try to suppress the other, others may come in the discomfort zone and feeling stress. at first the one feeling the pressure at work might thing he or she could solve the problem with working harder, giving himself or herself more for the job, but many of such hard-working and optimistically minded individuals have lost their jobs and have come so depressed, taken over by the stress or worries.

We best take care we do not get in a position were we could start dwelling on the negative spiral to nowhere. It leads to nihilism. We too can avoid that others get in a stress situation and loose their optimism. By encouraging others to focus on the positives is an act of ‘brotherly love‘. It also shows a faith in other individuals as well as a faith in what is around you or in the organization you are working for.

Captain Edward Rickenbacker, America’s premier “Ace” officially credited with 22 enemy planes and the proud wearer of the French War Cross as he appeared upon his arrival on board the Adriatic. Underwood and Underwood., ca. 1919  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We all should remember  what World War I ace and aviation entrepreneur, Eddie Rickenbacker said:

“Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in experience and achievement.” That is an attitude worth maintaining and nurturing especially when times are so severe.

A big problem today is that most people are so focused on the materialism they do not see that there are more important matters and they think somebody else can destroy them. Several people consider atheism as being more useful for the development of life forces and the worldly satisfaction of the larger masses of mankind. {“Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit.” Articles by and on Berdyaev, Returning to Berdyaev at the Return to Materialism}

The triumph of the bourgeois spirit led Berdyaev to declare that history was a story of failure. Berdyaev lamented that the will to power and affluence had triumphed over the will to holiness and genius.” (Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century, Paulist Press, l98l.) {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

This world is taken over by materialism, idolatries of power, lust and comfort. Normally you would think all the luxury would bring much satisfaction to the people, but by comparing what others have and what they do not have the  jealousy took them down in a spiral of envy and bring them in a stress situation. Lots of people have created their own god. They do not understand that the for them useful and practically effective god of capitalism cannot be the True God. When you look at their god or gods you might come to see that it is no problem at all to unmask their new and popular gods. We can see that many adore the money and have put away The Only One God of religious revelations far away. For them That God can not be seen nor felt and therefore has no value for them. You could ask them: whenever did you try to look for Him and tried to see Him?

We have become surrounded by technique and many are totally taken by it and also have become very dependant on it. Their relationship with all that technical stuff however did not help to bring them into closer communion with their inner life and soul of nature. they might think it brought them closer together, and has created them having more ‘friends’ on the social networks. But they do not see that many of them are ‘virtual friends’ and have not a real social connection at all. We even see that more people become more isolated in their environment of Linked-in and Facebook relatives. They might have many so called ‘friends’ in their circles but they are very lonely … on their own. They, in their isolation, also seem to loose track of their own possibilities.

The machine sets its stamp upon the human spirit and all its manifestations. Thus civilization has neither a natural nor a spiritual, but a mechanical foundation. It represents par excellence the triumph of technique over both the spirit and organism.

The machine and technique are the product of the mental development and discoveries of culture; but they sap its organic foundations and kill its spirit. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

With all the focus on material goods not much interest can be found for culture. those working in the cultural field may be tampered and losing positivism as well. They have to find a way to earn their living and are persuaded to greater concessions. Many artists having lost the artistic soul, becoming part of the mainstream ‘civilization’ where spiritual matters are discounted and where quantity has displaced quality.

The assertion of the will to “life,” power, organization and earthly happiness, brings about mankind’s spiritual decline; for the higher spiritual life is based upon asceticism and resignation. Such are the tragedy and fate of historical destinies. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

Vyacheslav Ivanov, Lev Kobilinskij-Ellis, Nikolai Berdyaev (standing) and Andrei Bely (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I do not think like Nicholas Berdyaev that civilization as opposed to culture, which is given up to the contemplation of eternity, tends to be futurist. I do agree that machinery and technique are chiefly responsible for the speeding up of life, but that some might have lost the reason why we could make advantage of such tools. and its exclusive aspiration towards the future. the technique should have helped our society to come more at ease and to be less stressful. Many let the machine take over and concentrated more on the material gain it could bring instead of making use or advantage of the time it could make free for them to do other things.

Organic life is slower, less impetuous, and more concerned with essentials, while civilized life is superficial and accidental; for it puts the means and instruments of life before the ends whose significance is lost. The consciousness of civilized men is concentrated exclusively upon the means and technique of life considered as the only reality, while its aims are regarded as illusory. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

Berdyaev may think that spiritual culture is unreal, but for me culture is fundamental for a healthy community. Culture is is not a mere instrument of technique, it is the gear transmission of society. It is the sociological controller and instigator for a good relation between end and means. Culture is also the mirror for man to put everything in perspective and the golden thread in history. Today we may see the loss of any sense of purpose in human life, culture and religion.

All historical tendencies which have striven to create harmony, to overcome the dark premise, to subdue the turbulence of freedom and supersede it by compelled and necesary good, are concerned only with the secondary signs of the unique and primal mystery of divine freedom. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

We as human beings should remember we are only a very tiny element in the universe. We would love to believe that everything turns around us, but we are thoroughly mistaken.

21st Century Materialism (Photo credit: tomislavmedak)

I do agree with Berdyaev that humankind has a solution in front of them, which was already given to them early from the start. And that it is this fundamental moral contradiction we are facing today that invalidates the doctrine of progress, turning it into a religion of death instead of resurrection and eternal life.

There is no valid ground for degrading those generations whose lot has been cast among pain and imperfection beneath that whose pre-eminence has been ordained in blessedness and joy. No future perfection can expiate the sufferings of past generations. Such a sacrifice of all human destinies to the messianic consummation of the favoured race can only revolt man’s moral and religious conscience. A religion of progress based on this apotheosis of a future fortunate generation is without compassion for either present or past; it addresses itself with infinite optimism to the future, with infinite pessimism to the past. It is profoundly hostile to the Christian expectation of resurrection for all mankind, for all the dead, fathers and forefathers. This Christian idea rests on the hope of an end to historical tragedy and contradiction valid for all human generations, and of resurrection in eternal life for all who have ever lived. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

Our habit of breaking up time into the past, present and future does not entitle us to endow the last with more reality than the first. From the standpoint of the present, the future is no richer in reality than the past, and our efforts should be with reference, not to the future, but to that eternal present of which both future and past are one. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

More people in this world should make the choice on what they really want to focus. Too much we have forgotten the importance of the choices we have to make and on the direction we have to focus our eyes and mind. We should all be convinced how much we ourselves can regulate our own life and how much depends on the focus on what we want is directly proportional to what we can achieve.

To many of us are more concerned to prove ourselves for man, instead of proving ourselves for the Higher Being. How many of us are not willing to change themselves, just for the sake of wining someone’s approval.

Geetika Garg, who is trying to know more about everything around her, writes on her blog:

You don’t have to prove yourself worthwhile by doing what others wish; it’s certainly not your job. Be confident for who you are, for who you had been all those years, stand strong for all the decisions that you have made and have faith in yourself.  You are enough for your ow. {You Matter}

Too many people have forgotten to be their own self and to dare to speak out for themselves.  A lot of people who would have loved to have more affinity for the spiritual have been pressed against the wall by the materialists. they put their own inner soul aside, thinking they would be less than the other. they looked for ways outside themselves to prove themselves by doing what others wished them to do. they should know that is not the right way and is neither to help them nor the ones they are hoping to please.

May I quote the lady who believes whatever we are seeking is seeking us too, and has hopes that the day the two will meet, it will be complete, perfect as it is meant to be!

Be confident for who you are, for who you had been all those years, stand strong for all the decisions that you have made and have faith in yourself.  You are enough for your own self; you are capable of achieving what all you desire and you require absolutely none to tell you how worthy you are. Instead of focusing on what critics have to say why not concentrate on those who praise you.  Those people are the ones with all positivism and happiness. We often tend to forget that they exist and keep believing on all bad about us. They are the people who matter. Let go of rest. Don’t let your ears used to of those cruel words that inhibit your growth, that steal a part of you and things that change your entire being. {You Matter}

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Recommended readings:

1. Social Constructivism and Positivism in the Context of International Relations
2. Put Positivism to Work
3. Returning to Berdyaev at the Return to Materialism
4. Berdyaev on the Nature of Spirit and Reality in Relation to Apologetics
5. The Practice of Philosophy and Modes of Knowing: Hart’s Rejoinder to Zuidervaart?
6. Searching for fulfillment and meaning through own efforts, facing unsatisfaction and depression
7. Depression, Anxiety, Pressure and megachurches
8. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
9. Aligned
10. Malefactors becoming your master
11. Control your destiny or somebody else will
12. Control and change
13. Science and God’s existence
14. Do we have to be an anarchist to react
15. Getting out of the dark corners of this world
16. Value Positivism
17. Patience is the ability to count down before blasting off
18. He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger
19. To whom do we want to be enslaved
20. Power in the life of certain
21. Know Who goes with us and don’t try to control life
22. God is my refuge and my fortress in Him I will trust

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• The Future of Capitalism according to Nikolai Berdyaev (channelclimate.wordpress.com)
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• Legal Positivism and the Common Law (allenmendenhallblog.com)
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  What distinguishes the common law from a civil law system is the doctrine of stare decisis (“let the decision stand”), which requires judges to follow precedents established by prior decisions or to distinguish the facts of new cases from the facts of previous cases in order to reach an applicable rule.
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  Help arises when you arises. But if you stand and watch, they will do the same and feel your loss and you been d positive dude/girl programmed to rise after every fall (which is right), stay positive when all looks downright bleak, just keep moving on.
• Positivism and Utilitarianism (arulinside.wordpress.com)
  According to Dias the positivist movement started at the beginning of the 19^th century. It represented a reaction against the a priori methods of thinking which turned away from the realities of actual law in order to discover nature or reason the principles of universal validity. Hart pointed out that the term positivism has many meanings which one of them is that laws are commands. Law as command is associated with Jeremy Bentham and John Austin that both are the founder of the British positivism.
• Logical Positivism and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (unfspb.wordpress.com)
  Logical positivism is a more or less loose collection of philosophical theses- some of which are incompatible- which have their genesis in the scientific inclinations of the Vienna Circle members (on this see Friedman 1999 and Uebel 2009). However, one may identify two broadly unifying themes within logical positivism: (1) a verificationist epistemology and (2) an instrumentalist stance toward scientific theories.