Stand for something or you will fall
for anything. Today's mighty oak is yesterday's
nut that held its ground.
― Rosa Parks
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Thích Nhất Hạnh: The Quality of Our Life
The quality of our life depends on the quality of
the seeds that lie deep in our consciousness.
― Thích Nhất Hạnh
Mahatma Gandhi: You Must Not Lose Faith In Humanity
You must not lose faith in humanity.
Humanity is an ocean;
if a few drops of the ocean are dirty,
the ocean does not become dirty.
― Mahatma Gandhi
Will A War With North Korea Be Our Political Leaders’ Greatest Regret?
Sometimes it is hard to have words for the insanity of humans. My deep prayers continue that more and more of us will wake up. Now. ― Molly
 |
| "Government officials should follow the leads of lawmakers like Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Ted Lieu and speak out frequently and loudly to mobilize public opposition to a potential war." (Photo: Richard Engel/Twitter) |
Top nuclear security expert Scott Sagan warns that the risk of war is far higher than during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and predicts that one million people could die on the first day.
by
President Bill Clinton’s greatest regret was his failure to respond to the Rwandan genocide. He estimated that U.S. intervention could have saved 300,000 lives.
The Vietnam War was former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s biggest regret. He wrote an entire book to explain why he was “terribly wrong.”
Former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Tom Harkin, and Sen. Walter Jones have all said that they deeply regret authorizing the war in Iraq. Jones once lamented, “I helped kill 4,000 Americans, and I will go to my grave regretting that.”
In each case, government leaders regretted their complicity in hundreds of thousands of deaths. In each case, they had chosen to prioritize politics above ethics. Today’s political leaders are about to make the same mistake.
We are now on the verge of another unnecessary war — this time with North Korea — and it is likely to wreak more havoc than Vietnam, Iraq and Rwanda combined.
Top nuclear security expert Scott Sagan warns that the risk of war is far higher than during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and predicts that one million people could die on the first day - a figure that exceeds the death toll of the entire Rwandan genocide. Even more worryingly, Russia and China are making military preparations, suggesting that a Korean war could quickly escalate into a world war.
Despite this horrific scenario, President Trump continues to ratchet up tensions by issuing bombastic threats and overseeing provocative military exercises. He is increasingly keen to launch a “preventative” strike, and there are multipleindications that he plans to do so within the next three months unless North Korea agrees to denuclearize. At the same time, he is forbidding diplomacy, blocking any possibility of a peaceful solution to the crisis.
Put simply, war could be inevitable if Trump remains in power. Government leaders therefore have an ethical obligation to remove him from office before he fulfills his dream of using nuclear weapons.
Impeachment, however, is no longer a viable solution- the impeachment process takes several months, whereas Trump is reportedly looking to drop the first bomb by March.
Please continue this article here: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/12/27/will-war-north-korea-be-our-political-leaders-greatest-regret
As Wealthiest Amass Another $1 Trillion in 2017, Calls for a 'Strike Back' Against Oligarchy
There are those who mindlessly, ruthlessly, and pathologically suck at the life force of our nation, our communities, our families, our world, our Earth Mother. This is indeed completely unsustainable. The madness of late stage runaway greed and toxic corporate capitalism simply cannot endure and must be stopped. There is enough on this planet for all. Another world is absolutely possible. ― Molly
"We can have a world where everyone has a decent home, the chance for an education, and access to healthcare. Or we can have billionaires. We can't have both."
by
As the gap between the world's richest and poorest people has widened to an extreme not seen since the Gilded Age, the 500 wealthiest people have gotten $1 trillion richer in 2017, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.
The richest people in the world have been able to amass huge wealth this year thanks to a booming stock market, as billions of poor and working people around the world have seen little if any benefit from strong markets. Even in the world's major economies, including Japan, the U.K., and the U.S., workers have seen their wages stagnate or decline in recent years.
Efforts by the very rich to contribute to the lower classes through charity, while commendable, have also done little to halt the growing wealth gap in a global economy in which the world's five richest people control $425 billion, or one-sixth of the U.K.'s gross domestic product.
More than 170 of the richest people have signed the Giving Pledge, created in 2010 by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett to encourage the rich to give at least half of their wealth to charity. But since the pledge was established, according toOxfam, the wealth of the poorest half of the world's population has fallen by a trillion dollars—suggesting that good intentions among the rich are no match for a worldwide economy with such an extreme consolidation of wealth.
The wealth gap has grown large enough to leave some advisers of the rich wary of a potential sea change in the coming years, as the degree of inequality becomes unsustainable and leaders take action to stop markets from favoring the wealthy few—similar to how monopolies were broken up in the U.S. in the early 20th century.
"We're at an inflection point," Josef Stadler, the lead author of a recent report by UBS/Pricewaterhouse Coopers on the world's billionaires, told the Guardian."Wealth concentration is as high as in 1905, this is something billionaires are concerned about...The question is to what extent is that sustainable and at what point will society intervene and strike back?"
On social media, many denounced the widening wealth gap illustrated by Bloomberg's billionaires index.
The #plutocracy cometh: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1tn this year. This won't end well for anyone. If you know your #history, you already know this. https://t.co/SXqHfUnnu4— Robert Brodey (@RobertBrodey) December 27, 2017
“These millionaires – who account for 0.7% of the world’s adult population – control 46% of total global wealth”Just let that sink in a moment.— John Belchamber (@JohnBelchamber) December 27, 2017
How do we convince just 500 of our planets 7.7B people to forego their $5.3 TRILLION wealth to ensure everyone is adequately fed, housed, educated, receives healthcare, and lives in an unpolluted environment? https://t.co/hazyD5rpRn
— Marc Bowden (@fotomdb) December 27, 2017
World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1tn this year. Groundhog Day. Can 2018 be the year we finally do something about our grotesque inequality?! https://t.co/bvs34zxJhS— Faiza Shaheen (@faizashaheen) December 27, 2017
Please go here for the original article: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/12/27/wealthiest-amass-another-1-trillion-2017-calls-strike-back-against-oligarchy?utm_term=As%20Wealthiest%20Amass%20Another%20%241%20Trillion%20in%202017%2C%20Calls%20for%20a%20%27Strike%20Back%27%20Against%20Oligarchy&utm_campaign=News%20%2526%20Views%20%7C%20World%27s%20500%20Richest%20People%20Got%20%241%20Trillion%20Richer%20in%202017&utm_content=email&utm_source=Act-On+Software&utm_medium=email&cm_mmc=Act-On%20Software-_-email-_-News%20%2526%20Views%20%7C%20World%27s%20500%20Richest%20People%20Got%20%241%20Trillion%20Richer%20in%202017-_-As%20Wealthiest%20Amass%20Another%20%241%20Trillion%20in%202017%2C%20Calls%20for%20a%20%27Strike%20Back%27%20Against%20OligarchyWe can have a world where everyone has a decent home, the chance for an education, and access to healthcare. Or we can have billionaires. We can’t have both. https://t.co/muwcZilKRa— UK Uncut (@UKuncut) December 27, 2017
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Thích Nhất Hạnh: To Be Beautiful
To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don't try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself.
―Thích Nhất Hạnh
Daniel Berrigan: One Is Called To Live Nonviolently
One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better.
― Daniel Berrigan
Dorothy Day: As We Come to Know the Seriousness of the Situation
As we come to know the seriousness of the situation, the war, the racism, the poverty in our world, we come to realize that things will not be changed simply by words or demonstrations. Rather, it's a question of living one's life in a drastically different way.
People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.
― Dorothy Day
Trump Embodies the Crisis of Capitalism: A Conversation With Naomi Klein
A powerful and vital interview. ― Molly
 |
| President Donald Trump talks with journalists after signing tax reform legislation into law in the Oval Office December 22, 2017, in Washington, DC. |
By Laura
Flanders,
Truthout | Interview
After the spate of disastrous floods, fires and
quakes that have shocked us this year, this is a good time to revisit Naomi
Klein, whose work continues to dig deep into the way that the global
capitalists use shock and chaos to advance their agenda, regardless of the
impact on the vulnerable. It's hard to think of a national or global emergency
that Donald Trump hasn't tried to exploit for his own purposes, but still, a
year after his election, roughly 30 percent of Americans polled continue to
support his presidency. What is Trump selling? Who's buying? And why? And what
do those who consider themselves part of the resistance need to say
"yes" to, after so many months and years of saying "no" to
Trump and Trumpism? Naomi Klein is the author of 2017's No Is Not Enough, as well as The
Shock Doctrine, No Logo and This Changes
Everything. You can watch this conversation --
and many more like this -- on the Laura Flanders Show,
or subscribe to the free podcast: @lfshow
Laura Flanders: I'm waiting for the book
that has "YES" as big on the cover.
Naomi Klein: Yeah, yeah. No, it's
true. I don't like that when you look at it from far all you see is
"No," because that's the opposite message of the book.
There's a really important insight in this
book, which has to do with the story we tell about capitalism. It's changed. No
longer the lifting of all boats. Can you just stop there and talk about the
implications?
Well, I mean, we are in this moment where the ascendant moment
for the so-called free-market project is in profound crisis, and in truth, it's
been in crisis for a long time. It's been a kind of slow crisis with various
stages, right? It was in crisis really, since it no longer became possible to
negotiate a free-trade agreement with the consent of all the countries
involved.
Lots of people would say it is crisis.
... that it is crisis, absolutely. I think there was a period
from the '80s and '90s, let's just say, the Reagan/Thatcher moment through the
Clinton era, maybe up until ... Seattle [in] 1999, where there was still ...
the promise and the propaganda of just, "We just need more capitalism and
that's what's going to fix it. We need to deregulate markets further, we need to
privatize everything. We need to lock it all in with these corporate free trade
deals ..."
... and that in so doing, we'd raise all
boats.
Yeah, that it was going to spread around the world, prosperity
for everyone. That phase of bringing in every corner of the globe into this
singular project, that is what's been in crisis, and it's been in crisis
because, for a long time, it was largely at the level of promise. Like,
"If we do this, then this will happen...." But now, we're in a moment
where there's a mountain of data, thanks to theorists like Thomas Piketty who
have shown us so dramatically how inequality has widened everywhere -- that
these policies have been adopted, and lived experience, right?
So, that crisis, I think, has been building now for a couple of
decades, but the 2008 financial crisis, watching the powerful break all of
their lives in broad daylight, right? Intervening so dramatically in the
market, doing all the things that they said couldn't be done, everyone saw
that, and once you see it, you can't unsee it. You understand that the rules
can be broken.
The other aspect of this is that the story
about lifting all boats is up against a scenario, a reality where I think the
last story I heard today was five people -- five men -- have between them the
wealth equivalent to half the rest of the population, the rest of the world's
assets? Something like $400 billion.
Yep, 50 percent, yeah.
So, what you say in the book is that we
replace that story of "capitalism will help everybody" with the story
of "it's winners and losers and you don't want to be a loser."
Right, right, and that is key to understanding Trump, because
what he has been selling in this period as the wealth gap has widened, this
period of a small group of super winners, and a whole lot of people who are
just losing, is: "I will teach you how to be a winner." I think it's
really important to understand that that is what he has been promising since he
wrote The Art of the Deal. Like, "I'm going to teach you
how to be like me, never mind that wealth is inherited, never mind that
everything was handed to me...." And this is what he was selling at Trump
University. "I'm going to turn you into the next Donald Trump."
University, right. That's what "The Apprentice" was, right?
Yeah.
This ticket up to the "promised land," up the elevator
to Trump Tower, and it was precisely because ... the alternative to that was
getting worse and worse, that that was such a helpful sales pitch for him.
You make the point that he's not the
explanation for us being in this situation, but he is an expression of it ...
we all live in this ranking, rating world with enormous implications. I think,
among other things, for organizing. How do you see it playing out?
Well, you know, I end the book with this section that I worried
would be a little bit controversial, about how we need to kill our "inner
Trump;" and I want to be clear, I'm not saying, "Kill Trump."
Our "Inner Trump." The parts of ourselves that are a little bit
Trumpish. I'm not saying that we are all the same as Trump, I'm not saying we
are all equally responsible ... but I am saying that he is a product of our
culture. That he could become president is a product of our culture, and we're
all in the culture.
Please continue this interview here: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/43002-trump-embodies-the-crisis-of-capitalism-a-conversation-with-naomi-klein
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