We all need a laugh and so today, a bonus blog with only one short piece that will make you laugh. Also, more from Playing for Change
From the Mouths of Babes. Yesterday I had a long talk with one of my sons, Jesse. He is a regular reader of the blog, a progressive and somewhat of a lapsed activist. He advised that while the blog was great (what else would he say?), he thought that it had strayed into too much negative commentary couched in fear and not enough content to motivate, couched in hope. He suggested I devote more time to what could be and less to what we can’t do anything about. Wise words and oddly timed, as I have just begun reading Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy by Joanna Macy, a book that Roxanne just finished and wants to read again. And I’ve been thinking more about Bernie’s speech when he withdrew last week — he stated that before we can get justice, we need to see it as possible and believe we deserve it. Going forward, while I will continue to write about Trump and his GOP bedfellows, I will devote more time to what could be, what should be.
I am thinking of capturing the theme of this with: “What if? Why not?” For example, I’ve written much about the potential for reorganizing business around cooperatives, a business model promoted by The Democracy Collaborative and the cities of Rochester and Madison. This morning it occurred to me that we have thousands of small businesses in danger of going bankrupt. “What if” a pot of stimulus money were used to help small business owners restart as employee-owned cooperatives? What if? Why not? Of course, Trump would never do this, but do you feel there is value in airing ideas like this and fleshing them out in more detail and examining the kinds of new economic and political systems that could be possible?
What do you think?
If Trump Were Captain of the Titanic
I got this from Bobbe Besold, one of our longtime readers. Thanks, Bobbe. I hope this makes you all laugh. The funny thing is, if Trump were the Captain, this would absolutely be the flow of his rhetoric. Read on.
Of course the whole sinking was fake news!
“There’s no iceberg, believe me.
There is an iceberg but it’s in a totally different ocean.
There is an iceberg in this ocean but it will melt very soon. Very soon. Believe me.
There is an iceberg but we didn’t hit the iceberg.
We hit the iceberg, but the damage will be repaired very shortly. Very shortly. Believe me. We’ve got lots of people working on it. Very good people. We’re working on it very very hard. It’s a beautiful thing to see how hard we’re working on it.
The iceberg was a Chinese iceberg.
We’re taking on water, but every passenger who wants a lifeboat can get a lifeboat. We’ve got so many of them you wouldn’t believe it. They’re beautiful lifeboats.
Look, passengers need to ask nicely for the lifeboats if they want them. I really don’t think we need that many lifeboats. The lifeboats we have are supposed to be our lifeboats, not the passengers’ lifeboats.
Passengers should have planned for icebergs and brought their own lifeboats.
We don’t have any lifeboats, we’re not lifeboat distributors.
The lifeboats were left on shore by the last captain of this ship.
Nobody could have foreseen the iceberg.
I’m an expert on icebergs. I’ve got lots of friends who deal with icebergs. Some of the best. Really good ice people who know ice and their forms of berginess. They all say, ’Mr President, you should have been a Professor of Icebergs rather than running for President of the United States’.
In solidarity,
Paul and Roxanne
All Along the Watchtower, Jimi Hendrix…. Timely or what?
Categories: Uncategorized
Hi Bobbe. Tremendous parody. I laughed, then wept.
If life is not a joke, why are we continually acting like clowns?
Problems reveal themselves, despite denials from the provocateurs.
To follow the awesome theme of Hendrix, denial is very much a theft. It steals our courage, thereby depleting our resolve.
The joker on this watchtower plays the schizophrenic role of being the fool for the entertainment of the king, but also the parody directed to both the innocent and the thieves.
As Hamlet’s resolve was failing him, he stumbles upon the bony edifice of his childhood jester, poor Yorick. His remembrance of lighter days, of the affection afforded to him by the clown, steels him to produce the play, expose the king, and render vengeance, or justice, upon not only his uncle and his mother, but the kingdom as a whole. The effort essentially kills him.
I practice Buddhism and Taoism, so I do not dally with hope, or fear. Both phantoms, borne from thinking of the self.
In order to know ‘what to do’ we must first understand what ‘not’ to do. A great NM public service video on the tube not too long ago used youth to deliver a potent message to all of us. If we want favorable outcomes, we must first face our fears. This is yin/yang, to see the positives via the negatives.
When we look into a mirror, we see two things – ourselves, and what is behind us. But the encounter with self, via the mirror, is in the present. Our past follows us into each present, so if we want a different present, we have to change the past in that present.
Employee-owned coops are awesome, I have advocated for them for decades. They are not new. Nothing needed is new, except honesty, courage, resolve and energy. All of this begins from within each one of us.
Let us not confuse artifacts with psychic energies. A coop is an artifact. The energy to make it function dynamically is psychic, which is nothing more than ultra-natural biology in the quantum field.
The quantum field is always now. It is like the Tao, not a thing to do or be used, but a way to be.
In my life, I have made every mistake there is to make. And I have denied each one until all my resolve had been destroyed. Finding myself face down in the mud, several times at or near death, I re-discovered what ‘up’ was all about.
As usual, the mud is always fresh and nearby, if not in my nostrils.
Mick Nickel
Hey cousin,
All Along the Watchtower happens to be one of my favorite songs in the world.
“Let us not talk softly now
the hour is getting late”
Although I have always been a very soft-spoken person, if I could, I would scream this in your ear…from 6 feet away, of course!:
Having been a physician for over 34 years, and still treating many patients with severe autoimmune diseases, which means severe gut dysfunction, and having learned OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM how to help restore their health to normal, I have learned many things about the prevailing medical system, and people. Human Beings do not harm what they hold Holy. Human Beings do not kill what they hold Holy. Human Beings do not allow others to do that to anyone. Real Human Beings do not cower in fear hiding in their huts from an invisible boogie man. They stand tall in the light of truth. The True Self lifts what it encounters. Our only real problem is fear. Fear is denial of the Divine. This virus is a smokescreen, but a very toxic smoke. The smoke itself is enough to kill you. However, the real battle is being fought behind the smokescreen, behind all the masks and gloves. The real battle our immune systems are fighting is for our connection to each other and to all life on the planet. Now that most all the man-made gyrations have ceased humming for awhile, you can feel it. That longing is palpable. You can hear it with your heart, if not your ears. If you are human, you can feel it at a gut level.
There is a spiritual battle being waged for the Souls of all Human Beings on this planet. To focus on your Personal Alignment with Your True Self – your Divinity – is the core task at this time. How you attend to the needs of your brothers and sisters at this time, is a direct reflection of your connection. When this is all over, that will be what matters most. That Connection to your Divinity, is the Foundation Stone for your Innate Immunity. Vaccines only work on your Acquired Immunity. Without a strong Innate Immunity, Acquired Immunity is insufficient to keep you alive. At this moment, educating yourself on the difference could save your life – and everyone you are in “touch” with. The personal ecology of your G.I. tract is 75-80 % of your Innate Immunity. If you want to have Immune Resiliency, you must repair and maintain your gut barrier. And you must move out of relentless stress mode. Everything else is pretty much just rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. And the band plays on…
One of my heroes, John Prine, said it well: “…1/2 inch of water, and you think you’re going to drown
That’s the way the world goes round”
As the Corporate Cabal that is running the world (into the ground) performs economic waterboarding on what used to be the middle class, please remember that your relationships – to everyone and everything on the planet – is all that really matters. Are you more in touch with electronic devices (illusions of the mind) than you are with the physical Earth and other humans (realities of the heart). Be safe. Be well. Be human. Be in touch.
Aho Mitakuye Oyasin (We are all related)
Thanks for the music and the laughter
Paul, I’d like to thank you for recommending the books Columbus and Other Cannibals and The Quantum Revelation. Excellent reads! Harsh, but necessary truth in the former and the universe full of possibilities and probabilities in the latter.
Paul,
Any chance you can do a blog re especially useful New Mexico places to send some of our stimulus money for those of us with the luxury of being able to donate some or all of it?
Yes please on suggestions for stimulus $$ to help someone who really needs it (Food Bank?) or to stimulate something that will have a positive impact on Santa Fe. Thanks! Meg
Great music videos, Thanks, We are not in this alone.