Thursday, July 28, 2011

New friends ...

Kane, Dan, and Ross

We made new friends recently. On a trip to the grocery store, we met three young gentlemen who had just ridden in on loaded down touring bicycles, in the process of riding from Portland OR to New York, NY. They had already ridden more than four thousand miles. Happily, they accepted our invitation to sleep, shower, and breakfast at our house. We had an enjoyable evening and breakfast with them before they continued their journey the next morning.

Ross, Dan, and Kane lounging after breakfast

You can follow their account (that is Ross's account, their blogging spokesman) of their travels at: http://www.thisisvicariousness.blogspot.com/

Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water. --W.C. Fields

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. --Mark Twain

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind. --Aristotle

Saturday, July 09, 2011

Time for a new Paradigm

What are the main problems in the world? Could they be the poverty of vast portions of the planet? Or perhaps you think it's disease, or the scarcity of food for all but the richest nation-states of the planet, or even a lack of jobs? Why does such a small portion (1%) own or control the vast majority of the worlds resources, energy, and production? Is this “meant” to be? Is there some divine law that mandates it? Or is this the “Social Conditioning” that we've all had to suffer with, kowtow to, since the feudal doctrine of the “Divine Right of Kings” that was foisted upon us, along with all it's variation over the millennia, like Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Marxism, and etc. They are all of the same ilk, just shuffling the basic components of the systems: money, property, government. Why should the resources and arable land of our planet, which is in reality the birthright of all of us be subject to the will of only a few individuals or governments?

The truth is that we are socially conditioned to accept it as “natural,” the way it has always been and will always be, because it is in the vested interest of those in power to keep us all accepting their power, as if it's their “divine right.” They are trying to hang on to a paradigm that has favored them since it's inception. And that's no accident. The problem is that their paradigm has also led us to economic collapse, and even to possible collapse of the planets ability to sustain human life, except for a very (privileged) few... the same ones who own or control most of the resources of our planet.

Social and financial stratification is not inevitable, but an intentional strategy for keeping the vast majority under control, and scrambling to barely feed and clothe themselves while those in the upper strata claim ever more and more for themselves.

Time for a new paradigm. Not sure what that is yet, but am currently looking and interested in the Zeitgeist and Venus projects. I'm not totally convinced yet, but am very interested in the concepts. They are certainly better than anything we've tried up to now. It's a new paradigm, and nothing is perfect, and since it hasn't been tried, some questions can't be answered until it is tried. For now I'm keeping my mind open. Certainly, the old paradigm hasn't worked for the vast majority of humanity!

http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/
http://www.thevenusproject.com/

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. --Friedrich Nietzsche
All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth. --Friedrich Nietzsche