Riding the Cycle

Wheels within wheels...inside and out. Balance is key, but we seem to have lost our sense and are wobbling out of control...a spinning top losing momentum. At the same time the natural cycle swings into play showing the colors of spring and the quick flush of green. It is as though the world is bipolar...oh yeah, it is. So this week I've been thinking about the difficulty of balancing the joy and beauty of the natural cycle with the horror of human activity. The Assange arrest hit me harder than I thought. I really expected something like this, but none the less feel stunned. Another disappointment was "Pompous" declaring Iran's army to be a terrorist organization as Bibi (the real terrorist along with the family Saud) wins another term. The speed of our climate collapse is accelerating faster than models predict. So weeks like these I try to spend time outside with the trees, despite the pollen blast. The chestnuts we planted have leafed out. We've been harvesting lettuce and eating fresh salad most days. The blueberries have a strong bloom. All is not doom and disaster...we each have to find our balance on the cycle of life.

Is There a Cure?

The United Snakes of America is spreading its poison again...this time declaring the elected president of Venezuela is a dictator, and recognizing the leader of the assembly as president. That's like Russia and China announcing Pelosi is now our president. The Carter Center stated "As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world." Old tiny hands, the liar in chief, is at it again. We use slightly different strategies in different countries to prop up corporate hacks as president. Both parties have been complicit. Consider Honduras and the stolen election the US recently recognized. Not to mention the coup supported by Obomber and the $hill. Brazil provides more evidence of our support of corporatists with the illegal removal of Dilma, and the imprisonment of Lula on trumped up charges. Bannon was in Brazil promoting Bolsonaro as was the CIA.

I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.

― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: by America's Most Decorated Soldier