Filed under: Malawi | Tags: Banks, Corporations, Government, Jefferson, Media, Religion, Slavery
“I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
that’s thomas jefferson …
as is this …
“I hope we shall crush … in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country”
and this, on slavery, 31 years before lincoln came along …
“Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.”
and this …
“On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.”
this sounds kinda familiar …
“We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
this came just after that in his first version though …
“whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government,”
that “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny”
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”
just one more …
“Information is the currency of democracy.” … “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” …
Radio and newspapers … <<<—
bb
Filed under: Malawi | Tags: Equality, Freedom, Homosexuality, Ignorance, Love, Religion
I know the words I am about to write are going to offend some people whom I love. I’m sorry about this. Your emotional reactions exist entirely within your own body. Further, words themselves are devoid of meaning beyond what we individually attach to them. If you read these exact words written by … Doug Flutie, your reaction would be very different. It’s all you. Be empowered by this. You are not a victim.
More disclaimers. This is going to be an opinion. If you don’t like the opinions, there is a little x in the top right hand of the screen. For the record, I know my opinions are wrong, and I like being told how. Feel free to tell me . Growth is important to me. I believe sincerely that you are right!
No more disclaimers.
Homosexuality is illegal in Malawi, as it has been in many of the countries I have visited. In many places I am told it simply does not exist. Apparently California just voted to remove the rights of homosexuals to marry. A significant percentage of the vote in U.S. (and Canadian?) elections is determined on this single issue alone. All around the world, the battle wages on.
Battle?
What are we fighting about now?
One group of people are trying to deny a different group of people the right to marry, have families, etc. because they believe that their God wishes it. The other group believes that they are human beings, and should be respected equals. [I realize it is not this simple.]
I am just going to go ahead and say this. People who believe that their own religious beliefs (though they make up a minority of the world’s population) justify denying other human beings their fundamental right to equality should be denied the right to breed. As YOU, the ‘religions fanatic,’ are also a minority, and we the people would like a world with less DIFFERENT and STRANGE people, you may not pro-create.
Offended? Why the FUCK do you think it is ok for you to say this to somebody else?
Do you take me seriously? Do you accept my demands? Probably not. Do you see your hypocrisy?
I have a question. Why do some Christians hate love so much? Marvin Gaye tells me that “God is Love” and Marvin knows his shit. It’s at the core of every major religion and anti-religion I have studied. Simply, beautifully, love each other. All you need is love.
Love thy neighbor! A neighbor who says “you are not my equal because you are different” is not much of a loving neighbor. Do you believe that God, the creator of all things, supports discrimination and inequality? Are you high? Did you know that ”The bible contains 6 admonsishments to homosexuals and 362 admonsisments to heterosexuals?” Who are this sinners?
Let’s just say you are high, and you do believe that God loves inequality and hatred (though I can’t possibly see how marijuana could induce such hatred). What makes you think that your personal belief in a 2000 year old book, written by humans and full of human biases, justifies imposing your will on the rights of others?
I believe in a book that I think is the word of God and it says that I can light anybody on fire who I want to light on fire because I am the chosen one. Tell me how my argument is any less valid? Anybody have any gasoline I can borrow?
But I don’t want to fight. There are enough battles going on in this world. Can’t we just love? Can’t YOU just love and respect your fellow human beings enough to grant them the simple right to live as equals.
The man who loves another man; the man who chooses to live as a women; the woman who finds both men and women beautiful; these are human beings with hearts and souls who ask for nothing and want nothing but to be themselves, to love whomever they want and to be respected for their undeniable humanity. Why do you want so badly to sabotage their happiness?
Because they are different and unique? Why do we insist on standardizing what is different? Diversity is beauty! Thank GOD I am different! Thank GOD I am unique! And thank GOD you are too! What are you so afraid of? Happiness lies in embracing yourself in all you distinct beauty! Do you want a world where everyone is just like you?
Here’s a message to everyone reading this: I love you! You are my equal in every way and I urge you to do whatever makes you happy, as long as you are not harming anybody else. I will never intentionally harm you, or try to bring darkness into your day.
Pass it on!
Pee sun luv ma brah tha zan ma siss tahs … pee sun luv …. pee sun luv …
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Afghanistan, Heroism, Remembrance Day, War
Remembrance day. A ‘be honest’ donation and a little plastic flower on the lapel to show due respect for those who died to protect our ‘freedom’ … whatever that means. Seems a bit of a farce, doesn’t it? A sea of little plastic flowers, filling trash cans across the country on November 12, but nobody can say we didn’t remember, right? Most people don’t even get the day off work. So much for paying respect.
I wonder what is worse, not paying any respect at all, or doing so as shamefully as we do? Generations of Canadians learning to honor and respect our fallen heroes by going about business as usual with a little red flower on, and maybe catching a couple snippets of the ceremony on the news. What’s for dinner?
I would like to place a vote in the ‘forgetting is better’ column.
Don’t get me wrong. What our veterans did was great. Great! Full stop! The world was different then. They were needed. They went at great personal cost. None came back as he/she left. Our great nation was founded on their backs and the strength of their character is something, I think, we can all take pride in. Destroyed lives, torn families and decades of anguish and pain deserve more, however, than a ****ing plastic flower.
But, since there are far more important things to distract our attention, paying due deference to our greatest generation is not a possibility. In the absence of a real choice, I choose to forget entirely. I would rather promote the reality that a) doesn’t provide the Canadian forces with another opportunity to recruit, b) doesn’t subconsciously entrench the idea of Canada as a war nation, c) doesn’t perpetuate the idea that war is a justifiable solution to problems and d) doesn’t teach kids that the path to glory and heroism is a path strewn with guns and blood. (“You see, war is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate”)
We really have never been good at respecting our heroes though. The nurse who grants quiet dignity to a person at their very weakest. A teacher who gives up their spare time to do what they can to best prepare their student for the big bad world. Police officers working in remote locations, under difficult circumstances, to maintain the ideals of Canada’s democracy. Why don’t we have days with crappy plastic flowers for the heroes who continue to make a profound difference in our lives? Why no 2 minutes of silence to remember a teacher who made a difference in your life, or even the stranger who helped you by the side of the road? Wayne Gretzky though. That guy could hit a little disc with a stick. Isn’t there some way we can name the whole country after him.
On another topic entirely, I wonder how many times the parallel was drawn between the modern war in Afghanistan and the glories of the past century? The same dusty, decades old rhetoric about ‘men and women making the ultimate sacrifice in the name of freedom.’ This, perhaps, is the greatest crime of all.
Hitler invaded Europe. We kill the invaders to liberate it. Thus, we are heroes.
We invaded Afghanistan. Taliban fighters kill the Canadians invaders to liberate it. Who are the heroes again?
You say, ‘come on Brandon, the world isn’t black and white like that.’ You, of course, are right. In a black and white world, we would be properly condemned as murdering thugs, pursuing an imperialist agenda on behalf of the princes and earls of our corporate elite. In our world of grey … well … Winston Churchill said ‘I know history will be kind to me as I intend to write it.’ War, they say, does not answer the question of who is right. It only answers the question of who is left.
At what point does kicking down the doors of poor peasants who have never done anything but fight off the foreign invaders become heroic? How does the fact that not one of them has ever made anything resembling a hostile act towards our country justify us mocking their religion, humiliating them in front of their families and taking their lives? And let me just abandon all the sarcasm and say the fact that we are supporting our allies who use torture to satiate their greed makes me want to smash my face agasint the wall and then put a gun to my head. True patriot love, in all thy sons command. Lest we forget.
It’s Remembrance day in Afghanistan. I wonder how many Afghanis are left to remember a happier time, before their country became a ping-pong ball in regional geo-politics because we allow war after war to be fought in our name. I hear heroin production is up a few hundred percent since we invaded (underline: INVADED). At least their poppies are real. I hear they can give you a real kick if you know how to use them properly too. Now that’s a happy remembrance day!
Peace and Love
Filed under: Malawi | Tags: Awareness, Capitalism, Corporate Activism, Greed, h, Power
Late at night with TV’s hungry child, his belly swells. Well, for the price of a coke or a smoke, I could keep alive those hungry eyes.
Power!
I sit and I try to make sense of the world around me. I try to understand the challenges, the solutions and the reality of life in 2008 on this insignificant little rock of ours. Staring out the window of a bus, at a busy street, into a bottle of quickly disappearing beer, at a blank page with a pen in my hand, I sit and I think. Power is the destination to which all roads eventually lead.
As with pretty much everything, it is defined by its dichotomy: powerful and powerless, and the indiscriminate blob of grey in between where most of us make our homes. This is oversimplifying, I know. Even the most powerless creature has some power, and nobody is powerful all the time, but the concept is abstract, and I don’t feel like writing a book.
The powerful will always, and often unconsciously, exploit the powerless to gain what they want. This is the nature of power and the powerful. If one wants something and can get it, why not have it? If one has the ability to create a reality where one can get more, why not create that too? This is the nature of want. Buddha says we are all addicts and the only thing we are really addicted to is craving. From morning to night, we want, we want, we want. This is life.
There is no sense in fighting it. It’s nature, survival of the fittest, and humans exist within it. Bacon said ‘knowledge is power.’ Humans have the greatest capacity for retention and dissemination of knowledge. Thus, we are the powerful. May the weakling polar bears, Bengal tigers and great white sharks burn in hell for eternity.
Oh look at me in my fancy car and my bank account. Oh, how I wish I could take it all down into my grave, God knows I’d save and save.
So who is powerful? Of course, the answer is you. When was the last time you voted for a politician who said he wanted to make your country weaker to make other countries stronger? When was the last time you voted for a politician who said he wanted to strengthen your economy so that you could have more of the things you want? You are powerful, and you are exploiting the powerless to get what you want. Those who disagree with me, raise your hand. If you have a diamond or gold on your hand, laugh out loud at yourself for being naïve. (but it’s so sparkly), and put your hand down. If you don’t, pick up your mobile phone and call the child soldier in the Congo who is guarding the mine that makes that phone possible.
Just because you believe that the product you buy is just a product that now exists entirely for your pleasure doesn’t make it so. That product is the material incarnation of a vast web of interconnected lives spanning every corner of the globe. You are, for the moment, the end of that web. Look around at all the things you have. How many lives exist in those things? You are the anchor to which thousands of webs are rooted. What kind of anchor are you?
Man, take a look again, take a look again, at things you have collected. Well in the end it all piles up so tall to one big nothing, one big nothing at all
It’s ok. This time I am not criticizing. I am powerful too. Much worse, in fact, because I am power hungry. Perhaps you crave money, respect, sex, food, pretty things. You would be surprised how little these things interest me. Raw power is my craving, my vice, my lust. I am the extreme outlier, the 0.0001%. They say power corrupts. Bleak prospect. No sense fighting who you are.
So, exploitation of the weak by the powerful is inevitable. I must grant that getting what one wants does not always entail exploitation, but it does frequently, and one can’t deny that our species seems to be most content inside that happy bubble called blissful ignorance. Exceptions aside, what can we do?
They distract, distort and deny. Wars are being fought. People are without food. Billions suffer. Much of the world exists largely as a mechanism to feed the desires of the west, and that world is not doing so good. Because it is being done FOR us, it is being done BY us. But don’t despair. Despair leads to avoidance and avoidance to withdrawal. What we need is the opposite. We need consciousness. We need awareness. Awareness is another kind of power, and mass awareness … well … now we’re talking about something.
Take a look again. Take a look again. Everyday things change, basically they stay the same.
What are you buying and what is its impact? I would conjecture that every war in the world has a white capitalist (or many) behind it. If you are buying those products (oil, diamonds, gold, mobile phones, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.), you are supporting the child soldiers, the corruption, the suffering. How does the diamond improve your life? Is the phone worth it? How can you do better? How can we do better?
What newspaper do you read? What television shows do you watch? Do they support a more sustainable, equitable world? Do they allow (or epitomize) corporate interference in the media?
Where do you work? Does your employer support free media and fair trade? Who sits on your board of directors? On whose boards do your executives sit? Why don’t you know the answers to these questions? You live in a world with transparency and accountability. Don’t squander it. Stop being a sheep. Sheep are the problem. Be powerful!
Forget about the reasons and the treasons we are seeking. Forget about the notion that our emotions can be swept away, kept at bay. Forget about being guilty we are innocent instead. And soon we will all find our lives swept away.
Though it might cost you a little time and effort, simple awareness of yourself and your place in this world will not diminish your quality of life (and you can still have your $6.00 coffee at Starbucks). You don’t even need to change anything. Simply be aware. Be aware of the impact of your dollars. The modern globalized world is the shining triumph of the free-market doctrine, wherein the will of the people shapes the market through the neutralizing power of the dollar. There is power in the market. Real power waiting for you to exploit it, so be aware! Compassionate awareness will drive small changes all on its own. In a real time world, small changes snowball and the reaction of the market can create signifcant changes upstream and down.
Think of all the things you have bought over the past 12 months. Are you any happier now than you were then? Seriously, think about it. It will only take a second. How do you define your personal path to happiness?
What if just by buying a few different things, you could make a real positive difference in one life? What about a thousand lives? The simplest product contains the living hours of hundreds or thousands of people. What if simply by being aware of the impact of your dollar, you could ensure that all those people, or even one of those people, would now be paid enough to live a respectable life? Could the knowledge that you are improving lives, villaiges, countries, possibly make you happier where all your possessions have failed?
Whether you are aware of it or not, your dollar is your vote in a way no ballot ever could be. The question is, what are you voting for? A better world, or just a better world for yourself?
Look around about this roundabout this merry-go-round and around. If at all God’s gaze should upon us fall, it’s with a mischevious grin, look at him.
Peace and love!
