Thanks Sam!
Cutting money out of politics is an admirably direct approach, but strategizing how that might happen in a capitalist society that deliberately - and successfully - transforms "responsible citizens" into "consumer units" -- also known as "addicts" or "slaves" -- is problematic.
Ivan Illich On Gender
Ivan Illich On Gender
The "United" States is no longer a notably friendly society - certainly on the right side of the aisle where cruelty has been normalized by the Master of Cruelty.
"Cruelty Is The Point": An Update On Donald Trump And His White "Christian" Base
And I believe that the accelerating disappearance of friendliness, and interrelated acts of random violence - including acts of mass killing - are linked to what Illich identified as the replacement of "value" with "price."
Malignant Messiah exemplifies this replacement with his comment: "Vagina is expensive." https://heavy.com/
Believing that we can purchase whatever we need with "cash on the barrelhead" disables all former kinship-and-social systems where interwoven webs of necessity kept us together - kept us whole, both as individuals and as societies.
We were not independent.
We were mutually interdependent.
Perhaps we can get past our systemic and systematic obsession with price-based "independence" by devising a system in which we make sure that everyone has enough - what Richard Nixon and Milton Friedman promoted with their call for a "Guaranteed Minimum Income" or "Universal Basic Income." https://www.
However, at this moment, it appears that the United States, never having outgrown its egocentric obsession with Ronald Reagan's "Government-Is-No-Good---
Pride comes before a fall, and here we are with the nation's most vocal/ostentatious "Christians" putting Donald Trump in office, while they now work on Trump 2.0 version in the form of Ron DeSantis.
Thomas Merton was right when he said that the best disguise for scoundrels was a Roman collar.
Now, every "conservative" "Christian" pontificator wears his own Roman collar, simultaneously hunkering down in psycho-social-political silos waving flags that say "The Republic of Me!"
The backdrop of capitalist Consumerism is "feigned calm": just work harder, buy more consolation prizes (to prove that "s/he who dies with the most toys, wins"); and -- voilà! -- everything will be just fine.
Against this backdrop, I urge preparation to divide the "United" States of America" into two sovereign nations, tentatively called, "Jesusland" and "The United States Of Education and Compassion."
Compendium Of Best "Pax-Barbaria" Posts About Red State - Blue State Secession
Either we educate enough of our young people (or, take wise measures for them to educate themselves) or there is no hope - at least no hope for uneducated polities such as our own body politic is becoming.
The barbarians are already inside the gates.
And make no mistake, it was Trump (in league with nominal Christians) who let the dogs out.
Trolls... And The End Of Civilization As We Knew It
James Martin
The odd thing is that we may be on the verge of a new Dark Age, but it feels as if we should be celebrating our good fortune to have discovered - at last! -- that Cowboy Capitalism and the "Money, Money, More Money Experiment" ... didn't work.
Next!
All you need is Love.
Why not?
After all, we have it on high authority - some would say "inerrant" authority - that "God is love."
The History Of Corporations: The Founding Fathers, Ronald Reagan And Elizabeth Warren Converge On Stakeholder Capitalism - "Get Back To Where You Once Belonged, America!"
*****
I feel this email is incomplete without reference to Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller.
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