The Sun is Burning Out cult feared
the inevitable. I thought it was a reasonable fear. Although a bit premature.
Of course, I hold true the scientific hypothesis that the Sun will blow-up like
a giant bubble and burst (a Red Giant stellar event), but they thought it was
actually burning out, very slowly. At the time I found the SBO cult, the
process of Sols’ death did not matter very much to me as it was an event, not
on my calendar yet. The cult’s basic premise remained intact. They faded out
after about 3 years, but the site was untouched for almost ten years, then gone
one day, after a simple small message had appeared on its front page. But I am
glad I had saved their images and banners, for posterity and for a lesson to be
taught to someone, in the future.
I remember being impressed that
they actually had a couple of retired astronomers they had video interviews
with, saying seemingly absurd things. “The scientists must have been
padding the old’ Social Security income.” I thought.
They took solace and peace in
expending their energy on a futile attempt at advocacy of an issue, with
complete, only imaginable, catastrophe occurring in our very, very, distant
future. They seemed be living in contradiction. They would make clear that
their obsession may be a waste of time and may be the most unimportant thing a
person could be concerned with. But still they came and grew for a few
years.
Towards the end of the cult, most
members shared an odd appreciation for the absolutely fruitless efforts of
somehow stopping the sun from burning out. Some were sharing a mutual
feeling, that they had achieved a Zen like peacefulness in the pure futility of
their purpose. Because they had found the epiphany that they had all the time
in the world.
There was turmoil within the
organization, which occurred between those embracing the Sun is
Blowing Up hypothesis, and the founders and their loyalists who
maintained the whole things was a burning-out issue. But a picnic was held for
two summers, where the SBU’s joined in volleyball against the larger SBO’s, and
they eventually accepted they had strong mutual concern. There had been
a newsletter, I have since lost it, where the whole guff of
understanding was explained, and the truce was called for, prior to the
first picnic.
I thought the SBO’s highly
amusing. It was very entertaining to check-on their website now and again. They
were for me a sociological study in beliefs, paranoia, and fear in general. It
struck me as such waste of human energy since humanity has so many priorities
on its plate in this millennium. Never mind what’s on our plate in about:
2,500,000 millennia. I thought and concluded, “It’s good, I guess, that
somebody is worried about this. I think there’re enough people now, on Earth,
that we can happily allow a bunch of them to be concerned with Sol’s inevitable
death. Who knows? Maybe we can stop it one day, inspired by the writings of
these whack-jobs?” So I never insulted them. I respected their concern.
Reason, I concluded, is not unreasonable, even it’s a reason for concern
of something 5 billion years from now. It is just, a bit early.
The SBOer’s teach us lessons about
life. About entropy, extinction, oblivion, dissolution and the many other
concepts, of existence ending. About the constant fear of ending that remains
in us all. They also cause us to wonder about the puzzlement, that is doing
nothing to prevent our demise, when it seems out-of-control. Because
they are planning on an event, billions of years from now, they teach great
patience and control of our desires for our survival. They cause us all to
consider in contemplation our unreasonable fears of this time we are in
now.
Live for today - not 5 billion
years from now. Did the Buddha say something like that?
Now a confession:
I created the cult. It was online
only. Had one member. I was into getting really stoned and making humor web
pages, around 1999-20002. I actually paid for the domain and hosting services.
Had a chat forum set-up with fascinating running dialog from fake members. But
the internet was still too young to appreciate it. There was no (large) atheist
community to obtain the interests of, but places like AOL and Prodigy. And
marketing your website was very difficult, very manual. So I moved on to a few
months of making fake missing animal posters to hang around the neighborhood.
There was the missing talking pigeon that looked like 150,000 others in my
city. The childhood dog that eloped with its gay lover and was rumored to be
hiding on empty properties nearby - an appeal to saving a romance, shunning
dog-homo love, and returning to a boy his dog. And other important humor for my
community.
There is a half irony here . . .
SBO could only have been created by someone with too much time on their hands,
or an interest in providing comedy (in reality). And, if you’re worried about
an event billions of years from now, you are a candidate to join the SBO,
because you feel you have a lot of time. So, I guess, if you have a lot of
time, you can reasonably worry about something that occurs, a very long time
from now. You might even be productive in your concerns. Who knows, how
history will remember the SBO?
Copyright Reserved, James G. Mason, Thursday, November 13, 2014. JamesGMason.com
1st: As a graphic and emotional example, of how many women feel about public sexual harassment, and all sexual behavior in public directed at them: On the subway one day, a couple of years ago, Nicola Briggs, suffered a visual, in person, sexual assault from a pervert flasher. She reacted in a manner appropriate (I wish more women would have her reaction - I would defend her right to do so, immediately). Ms. Briggs has since used this experience toward positive action, teaching women to defend themselves in public, and speaking frequently on the issue. Video taken by passengers went viral and the man was arrested and placed on a sexual predator public directory:
Nicola Briggs: “Then I see his penis out.”
2nd: A public experiment, that shows us, here in the U.S., that in some other cultures it’s far more blatant, and actually accepted by the male population: A heroic young man, sensitive to this assault on women, and the two young women who present themselves as prey, for this important social experiment. It's also viewed and accepted differently in sub-cultures within the United States.
3rd: The video that inspired this essay, a new video produced with purpose to expose public sexual harassment is getting a great response from the public at this time:
In discussions of this recent video, women seem in majority agreement that this is harassment that is offending, and so harmful to the feelings of women, and girls. There are more than 30 videos of people, mostly men, discussing their viewpoint of this experiment. Many men opining on this video presentation, are downplaying the significance or harm of this cat-calling and teasing gestures. Even the persistent coy, devilish, smiling as has been included as harassing behavior in this video. The men are in agreement: “What’s the big deal?”
But be advised men and boy readers: We can not just consider their feelings vaguely or broadly. Try to understand, for the women, it is an assaulting challenge on overall self-esteem to experience this every day.
It is as you are followed by the store detective every time you go into a department store. Because you look like a shop-lifer, in the shallow profiling judgment of some $15 dollar an hour security guard.
A long term hurtful perception from this behavior is developed. We call the victims stigmatized. While your sister is walking, your daughter, your mother she is attempting to maintain pride in who they are, and protect their level of dignity. Self-esteem allows positive emotions like pride and dignity are traits we all try to maintain all day-long.
Men, think about your own pride and self-esteem, and imagine yourself on the other side of this behavior. The behavior invokes the persistent feeling of having to live while stigmatized. A self-esteem defeating condition to have to live with. We men don't want to live with it, why dish-it-out? Unless you're just a selfish and shallow a**hole.
By the way, women are getting armed and training for close encounters with sidewalk a**holes. Stop the cat-calls and the jeers, and passing greetings of animistic sexual barbs. It may be the practical thing to do.
~~~~~~~~~
How to Greet Beautiful Women in Public, Using the Mannerisms of Courtly Love:
I want to encourage men and boys, toward a new manner of getting a beautiful woman’s attention in public. I find it to be courteous, pleasant, dignified, friendly, and far more likely to receive a pleasant reply.
The background I speak from, and here’s my take:
I must confess before I go on further with my experience in getting the attention of a woman: I’m a handsome guy, from afar, and up close. To my disadvantage I have actually denied this most of my life. As I disbelieved persistently, that attraction to my appearance, was a major factor in the many times a girl or a woman made first advances, by flirting communications toward me. I have walked away from at least ten opportunities, unknown to me while I was being hit-on by an attractive girl or woman. Because of my under appreciation, for the face I genetically inherited, and my lower than worthy self-esteem in this important area of human interaction in life, I have allowed myself to collect remorseful memories of several of these encounters, where “I blew-it.”
My mother was a feminist, in the late 1960’s and into her life. As a boy I was dragged along to her weekly and sometimes bi-weekly, Women’s Liberation Front meetings. Where I was bored by the apparent gagglings of women, who were voicing their disgust, with being treated by men as a lower status of a person. They were clearly angry and full of complaints, and on the verge of being ready to take-up arms. But I was a little boy, and so paid scant attention to their pleas for equality. However, my mother explained the issue to me once or twice during those days, and so I shared in her passion, but only casually, because I was a hyperactive little boy.
Mommies' little feminist of the future. 1968.
Use Courtly Love
Aretha Franklin was not just singing pretty sounding words, when she reminded us all "A little respect," is all it takes. Constant respect in romantic or admiration behavior is the basic premise of Courtly Love.
In the public, as an attractive woman approaches my location, I seek a moment in the timing of her approach, that will likely catch her eye. When that tiny moment arrives I always wave (not excitedly), smile pleasantly, and say in an upbeat intonation (mid or high C note) “Hi” or “Hello.” Nothing is sexual about it except for your own secret intention. I hope to convey to her the feeling of being addressed by someone “Who would be grateful to know me.” This impression is often a priority for a woman. Don't forget this men, boys, lesbian or bi-sexual women and girls.
Men, guys, seriously: You are far more likely to get a return smile and a wave, for your efforts in this manner, than the cat calls will ever get you. Or by doing something foolish, like spontaneously flattering her hair or shoes. Because she's then thinking "What the f--k do men know about hair and shoes? What an a**hole!” Sometimes this is received as disarming to a woman's natural defensive persona while in public. Seen as distinctly different from a confrontation or a sexual threat. I get a pleasant return for my brief investment at a chance at love. Sometimes the pretty woman will reply quickly, seemingly impulsively, and wave back and smile. I just recently received a pleasant return wave and smile from a pretty girl, from over 150 feet away, on the other side of grassy common, in eastern Connecticut. And that is rare in New England.
I was motivated to adopt this public approach upon having a realization as a 17-year-old, at a time when I was feeling very lonely. I had developed a social phobia. I impulsively launched into a nervous panic when faced with a beautiful girl, or woman who I would feel could be a romantic and or sexual prospect (it is fear of failure). I remember one day deciding positively, that the chances of just running-into a beautiful woman, and meeting her in a comfortable and natural context, where I felt more confident, were odds almost as bad as those of winning the lottery. So I resolved at that time, that I would always attempt to wave, and say "Hi," to catch the eye and attention of a beautiful woman or girl. I would not deny myself the opportunity of being in love with an attractive partner.
Courtly Love. A 12th-century European adaptation, inspired by poets and troubadours of the many kingdoms. One day a new queen carried to her court, and proclaimed it be practiced, in her own ways:
Wickipedia:
Courtly love(orfine amor) was amedieval Europeanliterary conception of love that emphasized nobility andchivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing various services for ladies because of their "courtly love". This kind of love is originally aliterary fictioncreated for the entertainment of the nobility, but as time passed, these ideas about love changed and attracted a larger audience. In the high Middle Ages a "game of love" developed around these ideas as a set of social practices. "Loving nobly" was considered to be an enriching and improving practice.[1][2]
The term "courtly love" was first popularized byGaston Parisin 1883, and has since come under a wide variety of definitions and uses, even being dismissed as nineteenth-centuryromanticfiction. Its interpretation, origins and influences continue to be a matter of critical debate.
God Speed! by Edmund Blair Leighton, 1900: a late Victorian view
of a lady giving a favor to a knight about to do battle.
It’s different in different cultures.
To my experience, of living in three sub-cultures of this country - women react differently in public to a kind or pleasant greeting, or visual confrontation from a man, soft or light or even seemingly sexual, in different regions with differing cultural norms, of this country, and it is true in the world (as is seen in the 2nd video).
In Maryland where I grew to a young man, once I adopted my new method of greeting in attempting to make contact with a new beautiful woman, I could usually get a reply wave and often a “Hello,” in response to my kind, innocent in presentation, greetings. Even if delivered while driving my car past a beautiful woman. After moving to Massachusetts, I received one, one sunny day in Boston, in the entirety of living there for more than 10 years. I remember joking to the man I was traveling with “She must be from California.” I used to say to my male friends “They’re like walking refrigerators; they react as if I’m presumed to be a masher.” In that region of this country, even a friendly approach is likely dismissed and ignored, although heard clearly, as likely sexually motivated taunt that would result in harm, or “knowing some pig.”
In the south, in Louisiana where I lived, and in Georgia, and in Florida, a pleasant return can be expected, but not always. But when I left Massachusetts for the wilds of California, at age 30, I soon discovered a reply was common. Even a beautiful woman only hearing my greeting, may turn to smile and wave back, she’ll wave her hand behind her in the air above her, seemingly grateful, as she goes about her life. But that's California a.k.a fantasy-land. And men, if you're wondering if it's true, that women and girls are more beautiful in California, I tell you now, it's really true.
Copyright Reserved, James G. Mason, November, 2014 JamesGMason.com
11/1/2014 10:12 AM, Replying to Scotts’ G+ profile, image (above):
James M
Hi Scott. Thanks for the thought provoking image! hmm. I’m
confused as to how to connect these things. Clearly she’s speaking of children
in the quotation, not fetal or embryonic life. Is the photo collage message
supposed to connect wanting these two things as inconsistent with reasoning, or
inconsistent with a common logic derived within a sub culture?
Specifically, are you pointing out an inconsistency, or
hypocritical behavior, between being comfortable with the legal choice of aborting a fetus and
simultaneously wanting laws involving an assembled product, that is effecting
the populations of people, who are already alive?
Her quotation appears clearly to be advocating a higher,
highest, value among us for our children's lives. Not speaking at all, to the
issue of a woman’s choice to terminate an embryonic or fetal life.
If she’s like millions of women, she is capable of
compartmentalizing born and living lives, and embryonic and fetal life,
separately. Do you think women don’t do that?
I would also note that men often see your (apparent)
perception of connecting these things as morally equivalent, and much more so
than women see this connection. Observe the gender differences, in comments to
this image, you’ll see this.
Earlier post, August, 21st, 2014: Same image, different location:
Erik
Clueless.
Jeff
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Rick
Idiot
Peter Yep. +Erin Thanks for
that.
Marty
Effin hypocrite!
Eric
Gotta love liberal logic.
Mary
Brainless.
Adam
I wonder if the shirt was supposed to say I had an abortion.
I regret it...
Yes I'm playing the devil's advocate ; P
Marty +Adam K
nice thought but its Gloria Steinem...google her for your
answer.
3D/Dova/Dawson
Guns are necessary to keep order and a feeling of safety
Brian
The hypocrisy of the left knows no limits.
Todd
If having a gun and ammunition would save my family, then we
should consider it.
bobby
Thus is another case of a night of passion that should have
ended in spit
James
We should strongly consider allowing her to self abort!
Adam +Marty
Lols : P
James P +James I'd pay to see that!
Stephen
If deporting one irrelevant has been can make our country a
better place then we should consider that!
John
Stupid contradiction. Not a fan of unstable people with
guns, I am pro choice. Am against people who argue ignorantly.
I bet she's for saving dogs and cats though.
Jackass!
John +Dawson
I disagree. My environment may be different than yours
though, so I can't say. I am in NY union construction and have seen the
young men in The African Village, Harlem, kill each
other every other day. The west side the pimps would shoot each other every
other day. And in all my fights, razors, box cutters, sledge hammers and
more have been used against me. No one died. They all have facial scars to
remind them to be polite. There is no lesson or respect learned by the
dead person.
Jeffrey
Another example of limousine liberal hypocrisy
Jeffrey
Blaming guns for violence is like blaming pencils for bad
penmanship or eating utensils for Rosie O'Donnell being obese
John +Jeffrey
Good comparison. Let me know when a teenager goes to a
school with a dangerous #2!
November 1st, 2014:
10:21 AM
James M
“Blaming guns for violence is like blaming pencils for bad
penmanship or eating utensils for Rosie O'Donnell being obese” - Jeffrey
I think it's the effect and frequency of these effects when
guns are used, not the violence itself, that always begins prior to their
intentional use, that really bothers people. So guns don't cause violence, of
course, neither do the rocks we throw at each other. But the rocks do not tear
through each others bodies at high speed in faster than a ¼ second, propelled
from separated distances, by the simple convenience of holding a thing upward
and pointing it. So addressing the tool used is very reason-able, if reducing
the suffering associated with it, is your interest.
Regarding Ebola: I’m not an alarmist normally.
I am a casual "prepper." I use learn about, and collect resources I
can now, to prepare for not having them later. I was a great student of
biologic sciences, long enough, and I understand biologic evolution by mutation
within a viral cell, to say the following with confidence and caution.
This virus is possibly evolving at a rate
that is barely conceivable by the ordinary person. If you think you understand
the rate of human evolution on Earth, consider, if we had with us the ability
to evolve at the rate of an ancient retrovirus on Earth. With billions of us, all
at once, in just a few hosts, then during our brief history on this planet, we
would have been the gods and masters of the universe by now.
We have not experienced it numbers like this,
with this many human hosts, before. They now have the advantage of numbers
within each new host/person, of billions of individual viruses. Any one single
viral cell can produce a mutation, at
any time that is favored by the rest, then reproduced rapidly and shed from
that host, within just 21 days. Because they die out naturally, rather fast, the
new adaptation is quickly replicated by the remaining new population within its
host. And now the virus has the advantage of hosts, in the thousands, and that
makes it likely a very different Ebola, faster mutating virus than we think it
is. That is a frightening fact you won't hear from the WHO or the CDC.
How the HIV virus replicates. Ebola virus cares not, to look for specialized WBCs,
like HIV1 does. It does not need a blood to blood vector to travel.
It loves many cells and hates discrimination.
But loves to mutate.
Additionally, try to understand that we are
actually providing the environmental clues it's rDNA needs, to make mutations
that can allow it to thrive in a health care treatment environment made to
contain it. It's a treatment paradox that spells large populations infected,
many by new strains only days to weeks old, that are unbeatable by traditional
(last week's) Ebola containment, and treatment methods. Get it? Spraying
everything aseptically in an hospital is an invitation for rapid evolution. We could
be making a genetic strain here, in Texas for example, that will be stronger than
an older strain in west Africa, in only a matter of weeks. They are that fast
at evolving. The truth is this bad. Hypothetically, we would be safer from
its evolution if we treat of the infected hosts in animal barns
on hey. There, out in the open, where we can see the hosts, and treat them
faster for their suffering, the environment surrounding the hosts will be not
encouraging toward a possible mutation. Because the aseptic environment of a
western medical containment area is death to us all, as we offer the virus the
opportunity to evolve, to surpass our many restrictions surrounding the virus,
motivating mutation further, faster.
The virus is a part of human evolution. In most vertebra animals, like us, there are thousands of gene sequences on our DNA which could only have been made by ancient retro viruses, just like Ebola.
When the retrovirus first joined the family of humanity.
Spanish Flu wiped-out 1 in 5 people on Earth
just about 100 years ago. And its pathogenic history started slow and small and
long ago, also. Almost all of us have members of our family tree taken by that
pandemic.
The differences between Ebola and HIV are
fewer than their many similarities. Mainly, Ebola isn't looking for T cells to
infect, which later cause system-wide infection. Ebola does not much care which
tissue cell it invades and replicates within, and so does not need the blood to
blood contact for a vector/way-in, as does the HIV retrovirus. Which makes
Ebola much more dangerous to the population than HIV has been. Today we guard
our skin and our eyes, mouths, nostrils, from entrance into mucosal membranes (soft
specialized mostly epithelial tissues), tomorrow Ebola won't need those
entrances any longer, not the latest most evolved strains, which we are
inciting at a fast rate.
We evolved, they have waited for us; they
evolve at a rate which exceeds our ability to change their environment and kill
them all. I recommend stockpiling food and water so no contact has to be made
with other people, for an extended period of months. I advise use of the D-95 standard
surgical full coverage mask in public everywhere. Don't concern yourselves with
what that looks like in public, or what it infers to others about you. You'll
be the smart one who looks like a train-robber from a Western movie, who gets
to live-on, after the wave has ended. Do not trust that information about just
how contractible Ebola is, this week, is the same information next week.
Copyright Reserved, James G. Mason, 2014, November.
Welcome It is not an individualistic purpose driven life and there is one meaning of life and it comes from what drives us and it is inescapable and it is shared first by our entire cosmos and second by all life forms that repeat the patterns of the mechanisms needed to become who we all are. It really is:
The Meaning by Our Actions in Purpose of the Existence of Life!
In fantastic numbers, we are intrinsically connected and incredibly diverse. Now we see a reflection and it is all of our mass in motion in a beautiful and violent ballet ending with a new beautiful beginning. The time of assumptions nears its end as the answer to the greatest question we have ever pondered is now becoming visible.
~~~~~
Update 12/21/2016: I have changed my mind. The whole goal, of all of life, for all of us thinking species, is to eventually reach a point in society when we can all choose to sit on our asses all day. That’s the whole legacy. It is likely that when humanity succeeds in this purpose of life, the little futuristic brats will be completely ungrateful. But that's how it is supposed to be. Sh*t!
the author after this MASSIVE realization - 25 months after writing this essay! Amazing.
However, this achievement of an ass sitting utopia will produce creative innovations that will be amazing. Like having bubbles to float around in while ass sitting as our careers. I’m pretty sure Hollywood has already portrayed this society in an animation movie called Wall E (or something).
This is a massive realization. Imagine, after all these centuries of philosophizing, that being able to choose to do nothing is the goal of all the activity? Too much and not what our fathers told us. Let's deny this.
Someone else who apparently was trying to achieve the true and fantastic real meaning of life (ass sitting), but somehow became a healthcare and medical devices jobs creator. This epiphany is huge! A pun not intended until just now.
Kidding! The three paragraphs above were a complete joke to get someone to read about the real meaning of life. Or was it? The essay has not begun. From the @EndAllSufffering account (me):
~~~~~
Forward:
In the constant motion of the universe that is effected by gravity and energy from its violent beginning, all mass, both of the astronomical and of the biologic born from it is proceeding through our spacetime with purpose. All mass is moving toward a violent and unstoppable transformation that ends with the creation of a legacy as a new universe of new life. We have a choice to watch and marvel and to participate in this transformation or we can stand seemingly still on this ball of rock and continue to describe ourselves grandiosely. A perspective we are very used to as if we are separate and superior to the unstoppable mass in motion that created and sustains us. In the vastness of the universe’s splattered and coagulated webbing of an ocean of galaxies and in the rapidly moving swirls of the seas of billions of solar systems within them, in the cytoplasm in each cell of living matter, programmed by billions of years of adapting by reacting to the forces of nature, lies a distinct collection of electrical activity that’s sum as a feeling only, nags at the subconscious of each human throughout their lives.
This muffled activity speaks to all life. For complex life like humans it may take decades to realize that it is themselves and that it is only biological. Its message is not supposed to be in our language, or as audio, because it never needed to be. However, it is visible to those who step-away and can then see the big picture. It communicates an ancient and essential message.
continued: The Conversation
Copyright Reserved, James G. Mason, 2014, October. http://JamesGMason.com
Freeze Your Sperm/Eggs? You
Should Freeze Your Thoughts Too
Humor: Zillions wasted!
“Idea: A man sells and freezes his sperm, and a woman sells
and freezes some of her eggs. The two sexes each make hundreds of videos of
their thoughts to their child or many children to come. Combine the two
components as a Dad in a Sperm and Mom in a Egg
product to be sold by I.V. fertility clinics to wanting mothers and
fathers who are for any reason choosing, or by no choice, living their lives
without a partner of the opposite sex. The women will have many videos
exclusively for a daughter and may have fewer for a son to be in the far
future. The men will have many videos exclusively for a son, and may have fewer
for a daughter to come in decades passed. Sell for big dollars to smart people
who want a challenge and mothers who also want a father’s influence taught to
their children.
The video compilations can be anything the potential
electronic parents want them to include. Like reading books to the future
children, or children orphaned. Showing the child a craft, a hobby, any
interests. Teaching the child how to play games, like chess, cards. Telling the
child the history and stories of his or her ancestors. A parent can play a
board game in a video, as one player, the child pauses his or her video after mommy’s
turn, then take’s his or her own turn on the same board game, and the cyber
parent has just played a game with their child. The parents gone from life can
have videos of their happiest moments, and of their saddest moments, of
birthday wishes, or celebrations of holidays, like Halloween while in a
costume. The creative possibilities are endless.
The possibilities are numerous if this catches on. Like the
loss of a father or mother or both would be a lessened emotional experience for
children and loved ones as the videos exist. When holographic technology is more perfected and available, that would make this product wonderful.
Copyright Reserved, James G. Mason, 2014.
JamesGMason.com
5.9% Unemployment Rate &
Not Fooling Us Any Longer. Time for Truth in Economic Reporting We Could All Use
Wow, it is being announced our unemployment rate is now down
to 5.9%! This is about where it was just before the financial collapse of 2008.
Huh?
How were you doing back then? Did you have a good job prior
to 2008? Did that job pay you enough to live on? Was that job allowing you to
be happy, like falling in love and having children you could afford to take care
of? Was that job of your choice, or was it economic desperation that brought
you there and keeps you there? How many incomes were keeping your home and life
afloat prior to 2008? Did you have health insurance that actually prevented
disease from making you and your family broke forever? These are measurements
relevant to me.
Not relevant to me is the increase or decrease in the
numbers of people applying for unemployment compensation insurance at our state
labor department facilities, for the first time in their lives, which is how we
get this 5.9% number we’re supposed to view as good news. Hell, I’ve stood in
the unemployment line three times in my career in labor. Is anyone counting me
anymore? Is anyone counting those who have given-up on the fight for a good
job, who for example have been trying to make-a-living selling crafts online
from their basement for three years, while collecting food subsidies from the
government? If not why not? Is the truth too depressing for the American
people? We are in the dark about all of this.
We honestly don’t know - we the common people - what is the
true state of our economy as it relates to our lives. We hope we can continue.
We pretend we will be able to. We hope those in government can do what they can
to keep inflation low, raise our wages, help us meet a standard of living that
includes, minimally, the list of living standards I apply to this article?
More about your condition of working and survival prior to
the collapse of 2008: Was that job you had a laborious job that was kicking
your body's ass every day, certain to
cause early arthritis, back pain, knee pain? Were you compensated for that
risk, all those years? Were you breathing in an amount unknown, or full well
known, of carcinogens and toxins that will ensure you die before most people
you know and love? Did you receive sub
standard pay to make the large profits of someone else prior to 2008? Were
those profits being reinvested in your own community?
Ideas:
Measure the amount of food being purchased/traded for,
including home grown, as it relates to our specific populations and the general
population. Then we’ll know how well we are doing. Then we’ll see visually our
ability to feed ourselves. Very basic. Food purchasing drops even 1.3% in a
quarter? That’s bad news. Food purchasing goes up, people are happier - as
could be defined by deduction of all the material things we need after
feeding ourselves, those next priorities in a life we are all familiar
with.
We individuals should not have to flip through pages and
pages of internet web sites, or watch thirty minutes of financial news a day,
trying to make sense of greed and exploitation’s role on our lives. We should exploit
through technology, the existence of the Social Security number as a labor and
pay tracking device, that follows a citizen for a lifetime. Include in the new
ability of the number the tracking of periods of unemployment, of non working
sick days, of vacation time, of raises. Let factors of tracking include our
educational levels, our geographically categorized economies where we have
lived, our access to health care treatment, our children and other dependents
costs on our income, the health detriment level of our jobs as known to be, and
on and on. Let it track our economic gains and our losses, everyone’s.
Scary? Government intrusion? No. It’s just information and
not of your private life. These records are yours to keep, and one department
of our government’s business to track and record. Accountability. Transparency.
A measure that does far more good than harm for all of us. For the truth about
our economic condition to be available clearly to all, at all times.
On Naturally Corrupt Behavior &
the Presence of Religion - Morality
We don’t know who is corrupt. Worse, many of the corrupt
have no idea that they are. That so many members of our communities seem filled
with corruption and practice exploitation, has little to do with the amount of
the presence or absence of religiosity in our communities. Religion is born
from communities and communities are born from religions. But it is fact, that the
great majority of communities were created for the purpose of locality
convenience for the exploitation of resources and people, and then religion
found it’s foot-hold later.
The Quakers
experience a level of corruption in their flock, the Mormons have their share
of corruption, evangelistic Christianity has a great deal of corruption, and
just observe the religiously inspired corruption in the Middle East.
Observe secular corruption: In our corporations, our small businesses, our
common tax evaders who live next door. Does the later community have more or
less
corruption then the former communities? I think the answer is not really,
not very different. It’s clear to me the presence of a religion matters not as
a significant factor that determines the presence or absence of corrupt behavior.
It’s Natural Behavior:
We humans very naturally seek out advantages to excel in our
survival and happiness. That seeking helps us find corruption near our lives,
and advantages, more easily and more frequently. We find cheats, evasions,
obfuscations of truths to our advantage. We find the lies, and excuses that
aide in our denial, then redirect our morality toward continuing corruption
with a clear conscience.
We accept minimum standards created by uncaring and
un-empathetic politicians who are economically detached from our own lives. We
too readily accept these standards for treating our fellow humans, as the moral
bottom-line, instead of what we know in our hearts is the real moral
bottom-line (more than ½ of our Congress are millionaires). Best example is the
case of the minimum wage: in the Untied States it is a low pay rate which for
four decades now, cannot sustain a family, or an individual, but becomes the
moral bottom-line when a business owner is seeking to keep overhead costs
(labor) at a minimum - as if that behavior is perfectly moral. The movement to
change this moral standard is a movement of true benevolence for the entire
community, of creating a new moral standard that “raises all boats” in the
harbor of our community.
Answer: the legal/constitutional exclusion of the rich from
the easy ability to represent the majority - the 60%, the economically
struggling, by creation of nation-wide public campaign financing for
every office election, small and large. Call it “Amendment 28.”
Morality within a community changes over time. A standard of
morality is a modern standard, a hybrid of our past standards and inclusion of
new standards, of which we are in agreement. But the corrupt among us can
easily create those new standards, and unfortunately, in this modern world,
their economic position places the corrupt in a position to buy speech, to
propagate their new standards in our community broadly.
A non profit organization in my community means little
today. Our government has allowed the special interest group
(representing a minority which seeks only more profit, for example) to appear as if their mission is
for the better of all by allowing applications for NPO status to bypass moral inspection.
Inspection that could determine if the new NPO’s goals do indeed benefit the
community at large.
But our standard has lowered, and large money interests are forging
their appearance in the community as something benevolent, kind, with our best
interest in mind. When they do this, they are reinforcing their perspective, a
perspective coming from the need to profit more. It’s confusing for the
public when an oil company places an actor outdoors standing next to a oil
pipeline and listing a few of the benefits of their profiteering.
Only transparency and accountability can keep the evils of
corruption and exploitation away from our communities, and our influential
children. But we severely lack that ability, and the willingness to police all
of our corrupt actions, and those who have used democracy to place themselves
in the best position to increase the profits of a minority are drowning in a
pool of denial, they wish to share with us. Like having a belief system (a
religion) compels people to attempt to convince others their beliefs are
actually true things.
Liberals like me have been trying to communicate the following for years. The philosophy of taxation's effect on all of us, rich or poor, is infrequently understood and many false assertions come from this misunderstanding. Warren is actually speaking (video below) about a type of person, with a particular standard of morality. I think these people she is pointing her finger at are those who never properly learned to share in childhood, and so never learned that because we share we all benefit. They then take for granted, for rest of their lives, that the resources they need to succeed will continue to "fall from the sky," and so "Why share?"
They are the exploiters, who often get rich by using our resources, and unreasonably they then scream for less government, as they are under a delusion inspired by greed that they themselves had not been hoisted into their comfortable leather seats by taking advantage of our government. A government through which we collectively chose to provide the resources they have used. Warren is speaking below about an ethic that is harming us all. This corrupt ethic also brings us corporations in America with little loyalty to their communities, the first corporations to out-source our communities to their economic death.
Elizabeth Warren understands liberal philosophy and has an eloquent description to aid in understanding the core of one of our most pressing economic issues. If she runs for president, I'll support her over anyone in current contention for the office. See video.
