Laboring to Understand

I've been struggling to understand human behavior and actions this week (maybe every week). As it's Labor Day weekend I was thinking about the current labor strikes in our prisons. Really it is a strike against inhumane conditions and out right slavery. So why is it humans are so cruel to one another, to our fellow lifeforms, to our ecosystem at large. I usually explain it as greed, but I fear it is something deeper ... a fatal flaw in the nature of our species. It seems we lack the ability to act now for our future tomorrow. The corporate media can be blamed in part, but some things have become pretty obvious. How about the wild weather we've been having world wide? But we still keep pouring carbon into the air and pushing for more fossil fuel...basing most of the worlds economy on its extraction and use...driving absurd wars in the middle east and blatant efforts at regime change in Venezuela. Is it willful ignorance, or are we truly blind?

Ninth Dimensional Distractions

American people are routinely misinformed, misled, and deceived by the lame stream media. It is no wonder that we are rushing head long toward extinction. The international media has displayed less interest in global warming and climate change throughout the last decade. For the most part, US citizens can barely keep their heads above water as they struggle with multiple jobs...or no job. Snippets of news are all people have to inform their world views.

July 3, 2017, to July 3, 2018, MSNBC dedicated zero segments to the US’s war in Yemen, but 455 segments to Stormy Daniels. … After all, Obama backed the war on Yemen—though not nearly as aggressively as Trump has—and it’s difficult to make a coherent left-wing, anti-war criticism when the current Republican in office is simply carrying out your guy’s policy, but on steroids.

https://fair.org/home/action-alert-its-been-over-a-year-since-msnbc-has-... And it isn't just US media...even in New Zealand people get the corporate spin. We face even more serious threats to independent media due to a spate of corporate censorship. Facebook and Twitter in conjunction with CIA staffed think tanks are taking down accounts of Iranians, Russians, and others they deem inappropriate. Even Telesur English was removed from Facebook for a few days until public outcry paved the way for their return https://mronline.org/2018/08/21/what-is-behind-facebook-deleting-telesur...

Dancing Around the Issues

This is the old-time dance weekend on the mountain. I won't be around till this evening. So, I thought we would take a break from the news and I would share with you a little of what I know about old-time southern dance and music. The music and the dance go together...usually one time through the tune, one time through the dance. In the past just hearing the tune told you which dance to do. Southern music and dance is a cultural amalgam. It builds on a base of British country dance and tunes, illustrates the influence of the French quadrilles with square dances, cranks up the drive with African rhythms and slave dances like the Calenda and Chica, and finally includes a dash of native American dance with calls like “single file Indian style”. This is the dance form of working people...a barn dance. These people hadn't studied with a dancing master, so one person called or prompted the figures....circle, line, square, couple, and set dances are among its many forms. Both the dance and the music are cooperative efforts.

Corporate Censorship in the Age of American Aggression

The meme of fake news is very effective. There are so many lies told again and again and again that they are accepted as truth. You now select your own truth. Examples that come to mind: the DNC HACK (not leak), recently elected Maduro is a dictator, Russia is hacking our election and they poisoned a spy in Britain, Assange is a Russian agent, Assad gases his people so we MUST bomb him, Iran the aggressor put their country in the middle of OUR military bases and on top of OUR oil, Israel is our ally and is for peace and stability in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia must battle the evil Houthis who are working with Iran to overthrown the crown prince, and on and on...

American Acquisition Disorder

We are a nation of over consumers. It is reflected in our obesity, our waste stream, our debt load, and much more...our need for much more. What brings this to mind is "The World's Longest Yardsale" occurring this weekend. It starts in Gadsden Alabama at the southern end of Lookout Mountain and winds its way to Addison Michigan near Ann Arbor almost 700 miles. The name and the event support my point - it is the world's longest and so must be the best, the greatest, the largest, the mostest. We just can't get enough. Folks we have a problem.

Trashing Trump

I don't like Donnie "tiny hands". I see him as an arrogant, authoritarian, oligarch, and a masterful con man....but the constant negative media hysteria about Trump plays right into his "fake news" meme. Even when he does something I think is positive, like peace with Korea or Russia, he is portrayed as evil and submitting to the communists. The Trumpeteers see it too, and it is uniting his base. More and more I see it as theater to distract the masses. Because all the while Trump and his administration have been stacking the courts, deregulating everything, dismantling public services, capitalizing the corporations, and promoting wars and coups. I agree with Jimmy and Ron...I don't like Trump, but I'm not going to let him rob me of my critical thinking skills.

A Judgemental Case or...
A Mental Case Judge?

Have no doubt, the courts are being stacked with corporate elitists...not just in the US but around the world. There's no better illustration than the ongoing saga in Brazil. First while the Olympics were in Brazil the courts illegally oust Dilma as President and install Temer who failed to be elected several times. This summer past-President Lula is leading the polls, so he's sent to prison on trumped up charges...not given his constitutional rights. In Poland they are removing 27 judges from their Supreme Court. Around the world courts have been complicit with coups. Honduras comes to mind.

Resignation

Definition of resignation
1 a : a formal notification of resigning
b : an act or instance of resigning something : surrender
2 : the quality or state of being resigned : submissiveness