Begin Again

Each day I wake and worry about where our species are heading.

My days are filled with listening to podcasts, radio shows, articles on the human condition. In the background is the sound of the dryer pushing clothes around and around. Sometimes I hear  birds chirping or arguing with one another. 

But all we have is our ability to judge and as long as we can admit we do not have the key to truth we have the responsibility to work from what appears to be true after we have read and thought about what's happening.

The notion that we cannot know anything is worse for our health than the notion we know everything. We plod along questioning and thinking, comparing headlines with news reports. We have the ability to judge when someone has distorted the truth for their own benefit, but it is just a judgement.

Some of us are better than others but we are not holders of the only truth. Who benefits? We all do.

Every age has its dangers. People like Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated their lives to the greater good even while they are imperfect. Finding truth is the task we all have to do.

Better Than Nothing? Eh?

 

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025/06/19/Influencers-Conservative-Politicians-Misogyny/?utm_source=weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=230625&utm_term=builder

Misogyny is more than hatred for women. It's in fact hatred for vulnerability in ourselves and those we rely on.

Men have been traumatized to believe they must be strong, choose the right response fast, avoid second guessing and compassion because it asks you to think too much.

What happens if we are led to believe by an authority that's hard to dismiss, we are isolated units competing for the most of what each of us wants. 

We choose entertainment about men defending the frontier, willing to kill anyone who might be a threat. To even think about social justice and peace makes us strangers to this land. We have created the warmonger hero and called him God. He is very useful. He can fix cars, save those who are drowning, narrow down the future to win or lose, strong or weak. We are choosing to destroy this planet and all its inhabitants. 

Trump, Hitler, Mussolini, have been created by patriarchy. Silence the doubt, the questions like where did we go wrong? Read Hannah Arendt, Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou, read poets, The Talmud, the Bible, John Lennon -- be afraid but not frozen. The winner is dead.

Money is power, war is god

 

Once upon a time there was a planet called earth. It was small but beautiful. Full of trees, air, rain, wind and climate which supported life. Thousands of years of humanity, patriarchy, civilization and science by 2025 we (thinkers) loved power more than anything else. We had destroyed our future not just by our habits but our religions like capitalism.

Humans had become so vain they focused on how they looked, what they owned and where they stood on their inherited pecking order. When I began working as a clerk typist, a friendly man wanted to help me. He said its all about the pecking order and where you sit on that. It was a large engineering company, most people were politely kind. This meant to me, we are civilized.

What I couldn't see was the effort it took to civilize our world. As years passed I learned the pecking order has no morals. Capitalism was organized by the principles of the economy. But I believed we were becoming civilized because we moved away from glorifying the wealthy and powerful and talked about serving the greater good.

I believed we knew too much to allow Hitler or Mussolini to bring back authoritarian rule. We were calmed by advertising and the use of the idea of "we". America was very powerful even more than Great Britain. The power was in the money though and I didn't see capitalism as having the will to control everything. I had swallowed the idea that democracy was here and safe. We had learned to get along as a member of the greater good.

I read some of Carl Jung, and other wise people whose ideas were stacked safely in the local library. I went to church and listened to a man preach on Genesis. I was pregnant with my first baby then. The man was a bishop and he quoted the story of eve and how women will always suffer in childbirth because Eve disobeyed the "Lord".

This was a new perspective for me. I thought mothers were revered because they incubated the embryo that would become civilization. I saw it as a sign of honour not punishment. So then I left the Anglican church which I had always thought as advanced in its theories.

Fifty years later, having joined the Unitarian fellowship I was aware that power was available to us all if we lived in peace and love. And I learned things I didn't want to learn.

Patriarchy is a constant influence.

The Collapse of American Empire - YouTube

 https://youtu.be/4RfKnQBvXF4?si=DczzI4uI1v8BQrx0

by Noam Chomsky

Alex Neve - Our Failure to Provide Universal Human Rights

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/masseys-2025-announce-alex-neve-1.7553810?cmp=newsletter_CBC%20Books_14559_1947582 

To Alex Neve, the core promise behind human rights is that they are applied universally: to everyone, everywhere, at all times, without exception.

But in this year's Massey Lectures, he argues that while universality is the noblest promise we can afford our fellow human beings, it's also the area where we have most gravely failed.

"I think everyone would acknowledge and recognize we live in a world where human rights are not at all delivered and enjoyed universally. So it gives us a chance to explore what the promise is all about, but also where we have come up so terribly short," Neve told IDEAS' Tom Howell.

Concentration Camps

https://scheerpost.com/2025/06/15/chris-hedges-american-concentration-camps-read-by-eunice-wong/ 

Fascism is ultimately designed to rid the world of humanity and replace it with traumatized zombies, tortured to empty their minds of thought,  feeling and loving kindness.

It replaces humanity with a false hierarchy, not one of talent and achievement but of messaging that clears the mind of thought.

Read Hedges, Chomsky, Arrendt, History and all thoughtful commentaries.

Imagine the entire world without humanity. At first you might think wild animals are better than fascists. But we have a serious job to do. Judge our society not for bad people but for why people are harmed. The reason behind concentration camps is not for saving society but for replacing it with zombies.

Saving The World -- No Really!

I am a mother, wife, poet and Canadian citizen. Our family came to Canada in 1965. Coming from the UK there were many things to learn, one being the phrase in England we do ..... this ... is not relevant according to many of the people I spoke to. Admittedly I was only 16 at the time and I fancied myself as commentator having an opinion on everything. Even today whenever I have a theory of anything, it is with humour and ......... 

Who do I think I am? Doesn't matter. 

Really I am aware that when I express my opinion on anything. It is possibly/probably annoying. However I am concerned like an old lady with white hair. 

How then can I approach the topic of saving the world when great commenters such as Suzuki, Atwood, and other famous people convey they're learning on the topic while we kiss the feet of billionaires. OK maybe not the feet and yes many celebrities are wise and thoughtful. So why would an unknown granny with no doctorate be considered as an expert on such an important topic.

First of all I am not an expert or influencer. Ordained by media,  o-one has ever thought that of someone who hasn't got the doctorate or fame. Most of us stay quiet until we are at a dinner party or community meeting. There is an argument to say let's keep our opinions to ourselves, smile and say hello how are you? But opinions do nevertheless exist and influence our society.

Then there are the endless letters sent to media outlets. So why would I add to something so bullishly as saving the world. We have in our world huge religious spaces where we can go and get some deep thoughts and inspiration.

So why do we have huge threats to our future? We are locked into a world where power is the dominant force paid for by billions of dollars. While wealth is admirable it doesn't favour saving anything, not even the world we live in. 

Then there is science, knowledge, print and sound. So what is missing here? Nothing, in fact there is too much. We are talking on top of each other or keeping it in where it sours inside us, making us redundant. We are blah unless we have a special designation. Even Kings don't preach anymore.

It's sobering but the wisdom that has guided us through many centuries has been  muted. Yes there are gifted wise people crushed into sound bites because any advice has already been said by many voices.

But rather than list all my ideas here please don't give up on your greatest wealth -- the ability to feel compassion enough to drown the cynicism. Most of what we do is civilizing even though we don't get paid for it. Why do we get married, have children, learn a skill and get a job?