To try or not to try – that is the question.

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To try or not to try – that is the question.

To try, or not to try – that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.
I have been told that there is nothing we can do to take on the powerful who are presently destroying our planet, sowing the seeds of war, exploiting the poor and desperate and controlling us for their own greed and selfishness. That they are too big and too powerful and we are helpless. These massive global corporations who control our media, and through them our thoughts, buy our politicians, are funding both candidates in the USA election, are funding all parties in the UK, are running war for profit, creating inequality for profit, are too big to oppose.
I am pissing in the wind.
So we have two choices:
  1. We give up – retreat into the safety of our comfortable homes, despair at what is going on, feel helpless and acknowledge that the future is lost. There is nothing we can do but carry on our own lives and try to blot it out. Give up on our children’s children, the chimps, gorillas, elephants and all of nature. Accept the planet will be bulldozed for profit – to suffer the slings and arrows.
  2. We try – we oppose the wrong we see around us. We speak out. We protest. We campaign. We shout! WE SHOUT!!!!  WEEE SSSHHHHOOOOUUUUUTTTTT!!!!!!! as loudly as we can. We take up arms and oppose them.

I’m not one for giving up. I’m one for shouting. I’m taking up arms!

It may all be a gesture. There may be nothing we can achieve. But that does not matter. You do what is right with all your might.

Who knows? There are millions of us out there. The internet connects. Together we are strong. They told Ghandi he was nuts. They told Martin Luther King he couldn’t win. They told Nelson Mandela it was futile.

Sometimes – against the odds – great things can be achieved.

For the sake of the chimps, elephants, rhinos, starving people, the sweat shop employees, those in the filth of the shanty towns, the gorillas and polar bears, the rainforests and coral reefs, the climate and those being bombed, gassed and executed – we have an obligation to try.

How to change the world for the better! Easy step

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How to change the world for the better! Easy steps!

The first step is to acknowledge that things are not so bad as they might be:

  • We are not dead
  • We are not starving
  • We are not at war
  • Hardly anyone has been killed by terrorism
  • We are quite comfortable
  • We are not cold
  • We are not in great danger
  • Our children and grandchildren are safe
  • If we need help we will be taken care of

In fact we are exceedingly lucky when compared to the conditions most of the world lives in!

The second step is to realise that most of the things we worry about do have solutions:

  • Islamic terrorism will be defeated
  • War in Syria/Libya/Iraq/Afghanistan will come to an end
  • The environment can be protected
  • Poaching of rhino and elephants can be stopped
  • Overpopulation can be dealt with
  • Global corporations can be controlled
  • Inequality and poverty can be addressed
  • Racism, sexism and xenophobia can be addressed
  • We can create global legislation
  • We can enforce global laws
  • We can prevent and cure cancer and heart disease
  • We can set up a colony on Mars and the Moon

All it takes is the will. Some of the things are hard but they are not impossible.

The third step is to recognise that there are a lot of things that are much better now:

  • We have had peace in Europe for the longest time in history
  • We do not have marauders coming through killing us
  • We live comfortably without great threat
  • We are not cold and hungry
  • We have a much better standard of living than our parents and grandparents
  • We can travel the world
  • Violence and murder is on the decrease
  • Racism and sexism are being addressed
  • There is no systematic cruelty to animals – dog fighting, badger baiting, cock fighting
  • We have welfare and support for those in need
  • We live in far greater comfort
  • We live longer
  • Education is much better

We have a tendency to think that things were better in the past. But they weren’t. Looking back over the last three hundred years you can see the journey we have made. We have become more civilised.

Over the next hundred years we can, via the internet and education, create a quantum leap forward.

The fourth step is to help build that change in mass psychology – the new positive zeitgeist:

  • To be optimistic
  • To highlight the problems and issues that need addressing
  • To harry and force politicians to act
  • To provide a positive force for change
  • To be outward looking, full of compassion and realism

In future posts I will outline my thinking on how to deal with all of the major issues besetting us. They are all able to be solved.

Is There a Formula for Happiness? – A Small Experiment

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Is There a Formula for Happiness? – A Small Experiment

Here’s my list of things that would make me happy
(Not necessarily in order)
A Good Education
Lots of Friends
A Good Sense of Humor
Great sex
A society that is compassionate
No war
A community and world in harmony with the planet and nature
Appreciation of the wonder around us – trees, rocks, countryside, culture, sunsets, geology
No religion
Plenty of love, children, family
Pets and wildlife
Creativity
Debate and argument
Relaxation and sport
Writing and painting
Photographing beautiful things
Communicating
Alcohol
Great food
Warm weather
Being respected and valued
Valuing and respecting others
A good marriage
Good neighbours
Great music
Discussion and close friends
Adventure
Health and fitness
A great job doing some good
Making a difference to the world.
Meeting interesting people and going interesting places

That should do it!

I think, therefore I exist.

Happiness is hard to understand: sometimes something bad happens but you still feel happy and sometimes you’re unhappy with no logical reason as good things are happening. Everyone has their own personal factors that make them personally happy and unhappy. There are some universal aspects, however. Some things – like poverty, low self-esteem or loneliness (not feeling alone) can be objectively linked to unhappiness.

So is there list of ingredients, which applied to everyone in the world would mean happiness to everyone?

I will ask for your collaboration in this one. Below there is a list of possible ingredients. I ask you to think about what would be a universal factor of happiness and either organize them from most important to less important or give a top 5 of most important.

  • A Good Sense of Humor
  • A Beautiful Big House
  • A Healthy Diet
  • Children and Grandchildren
  • Predictability
  • Good Government
  • An Interesting…

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Behind every great fortune lies a great crime – Balzac.

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I am sometimes accused of being extreme. I do not believe that is true. I merely oppose a system that I see as grossly unfair.

The world is run by the rich for the rich. The mass of people (us) are manipulated, controlled and given as little as they can get away with.

They control the media and use it to denigrate anyone who is a threat to this system.

They promote their own, use corruption and inducements and buy off politicians.

The result is that wealthy people like Trump, Johnson, Cameron, Osborne and May are put into power. They then fail to address the tax evasion loopholes, give tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations, and support a system of corruption.

The result is a small elite who cream off a huge slice of the wealth and the rest of us who have to live off what is left.

The result is public services that are grossly underfunded.

We have a grossly unfair system.

The inequality gap widens. The rich get richer and the poor become poorer.

After a decade of Tory mismanagement and austerity we have a lot more very rich people, decaying public services and the poor being demonised and placed in terrible straits. Rough sleepers, soup kitchens and food banks.

Do the Tories care? Not at all. They have just been elected with an increased majority. They’ve conned everyone again!

So I ask – is it extreme to ask for a fair wage?

Is it extreme to ask for better public services?

Is it extreme to suggest the tax evasion loopholes should be blocked?

Is it extreme to want a graduated tax system to reduce gross inequality?

I think not.

I want a fair and just society – not paupers and princes!

As Balzac said: Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.

The wealthy elite, through greed and selfishness are creating mass poverty and destroying the environment for obscene amounts of profit.

They need curtailing.

How the Wealthy Elite control and manipulate us.

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He who controls the media controls the minds of the masses. One only has to look at the vitriolic message that was consistently put out by the media (controlled by the wealthy elite) regarding socialism and Corbyn and Bernie Sanders.

Goebbels summed it up:

‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. ‘

This is the principle through which both Trump and Johnson have prospered. Dominic Cummings is the master of the lie. In many ways Goebbels was the architect for this political mess. Now we are lumbered with fake news, lies, Trump and Brexit. Instead of Jews being the scapegoat they used Muslims.

This is what else Goebbels had to say:

“Think of the press as a great keyboard
on which the government can play.”

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”

“Man is and remains an animal. Here a beast of prey, there a house-pet, but always an animal.”

THERE WILL COME A DAY WHEN ALL THE LIES WILL COLLAPSE UNDER THEIR OWN WEIGHT, AND THE TRUTH WILL TRIUMPH AGAIN

Leon Rosselson – Palaces of Gold – Meaningful lyrics.

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Leon Rosselson – Palaces of Gold – Meaningful lyrics.

 

I love Leon Rosselson. I think he is one of Britain’s greatest song writers, perceptive, astute and intelligent.
In this age where the Tories are intent on bringing their dogma to bear and using austerity as an excuse to slash public services (While giving tax hand-outs to the rich) we desperately need people like Leon to point out the inequality and what it means.
Leon and I stand for fairness.
I saw what the Tory cuts did to education first hand as both a teacher and Headteacher.
They are heartless and uncaring when it comes to ordinary people. As far as they are concerned the money could be better spent on larger profits for business.
Their own sons and daughters have the privilege of Public schools, private health-care and gated communities. They have no need for the public services and despise the majority who do. They resent every penny spent on them. If they had to use the same public services the rest of us do there would be a miraculous improvement.
Leon says it better in his song.

Palaces of Gold

If the sons of company directors,
And judges’ private daughters,
Had to got to school in a slum school,
Dumped by some joker in a damp back alley,
Had to herd into classrooms cramped with worry,
With a view onto slagheaps and stagnant pools,
Had to file through corridors grey with age,
And play in a crackpot concrete cage.
Chorus (after each verse):Buttons would be pressed,
Rules would be broken.
Strings would be pulled
And magic words spoken.
Invisible fingers would mould
Palaces of gold.
If prime ministers and advertising executives,
Royal personages and bank managers’ wives
Had to live out their lives in dank rooms,
Blinded by smoke and the foul air of sewers.
Rot on the walls and rats in the cellars,
In rows of dumb houses like mouldering tombs.
Had to bring up their children and watch them grow
In a wasteland of dead streets where nothing will grow.

I’m not suggesting any kind of a plot,
Everyone knows there’s not,
But you unborn millions might like to be warned
That if you don’t want to be buried alive by slagheaps,
Pit-falls and damp walls and rat-traps and dead streets,
Arrange to be democratically born
The son of a company director
Or a judge’s fine and private daughter.

American Irrationalism and Trump

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American Irrationalism

I find it quite scary what these rich people get away with. They pay less tax than me and I’m a pensioner!
To deny what is happening to the environment is not just madness it is unforgiveable. That, if nothing else, makes Trump unelectable.

Stop Making Sense

Chris Hedges writes for Truthdig:

There is no shortage of signs of impending environmental catastrophe, including the melting of the polar ice caps and the rise of atmospheric carbon to above 400 parts per million. The earth’s sixth mass extinction is underway. It is not taking place because of planetary forces. Homo sapiens is orchestrating it. Americans are at the same time bankrupting themselves by waging endless and unwinnable wars. We have allowed our elites to push more than half the U.S. population into poverty through deindustrialization. We do nothing to halt the waves of nihilistic violence by enraged citizens who carry out periodic mass shootings in schools, malls, movie theaters and other public places. The political and financial elites flaunt their greed and corruption. Donald Trump appears to pay no federal income taxes. Hillary and Bill Clinton use their foundation as a tool for legalized bribery. Our largest…

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Roy Harper – The Tallest Tree – a homage to Chico Mendes

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Roy Harpers tribute to Chico Mendes – The Brazilian conservationist who was murdered trying to save the Amazon rainforest.

He stood against the destruction and died for it.

The earth is possessed
By the curse of the west
Who devour
Newpaper furniture
Paparazzia by the hour
But a man with a vision
Believed
That tomorrow’s begun
And has to be won
And nobody here is reprieved
O Chico, Chico Mendes
The man in a million
Stood in the way
Stood his ground
For the earth
For the coming of day
The chorus of dawn
On the perch of each morning
Receives
A forest of tears
As the joy reappears
On their leaves
And believes
Sings his name
And the tallest tree
Forever stands
Beyond the flame
North south east and west
We can all reach the rest
Every day
Now is the chance
To set out together
For a beautiful day
Whoever saw it
A different way
Was a man in a nightmare
Too numb to the future
Of brilliant possibles
Ever to share
The same air
As the men in the clay
O Chico, Chico Mendes
There are men who are more than just men

Pete Smiths cartoons of genius – trapped, restrained

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Pete Smiths cartoons of genius – trapped, restrained

P1120120 (2)

I think we all have those unanswerable questions in our head. We crave to be free to explore and find the answers to our existence, to penetrate the mystery, but we are held back by all the restrictions. Society, convention and the strictures of family, career and life in general clamp us down in their cloying chains.

How we long to be free!

Poetry – Solstice 2 – Our ancestors used to hold ceremonies to celebrate this. Mine’s just a little late.

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Poetry – Solstice 2 – Our ancestors used to hold ceremonies to celebrate this. Mine’s just a little late.

We’re tried worshipping most things. The sun makes more sense that most. We live within its atmosphere and it gives us the light and heat that gives us life.

The Green Man and the sun gods Helios, Ra, Kehpri, Atum, Inti, Lugh, Hepa, Garuda, Huitzilopocthli, Apollo, Surya, Sol, Sol Invictus, Shemesh, Sunnya, and a host more, were all widely worshipped.

The longest and shortest days are good reasons for having a great festival and celebration. Nature is what supports us. We should respect it and celebrate its bounty.

I wrote this poem after seeing Nazca Nine on the Summer Solstice. It was a great gig. They were definitely waxing lyrical and many of the monarchs of yore were thought to be incarnations of Sun Gods.

Then there’s the Moon. It’s been a long time since we walked on it. I think some ancient cultures would have shuddered at the very thought.

Solstices are like a rebirth. I like the idea.

Solstice 2

Waxing on the lyrical

Beneath the sacred sun

Getting quite satirical

When God and Queen are one

 

Verging on the mystical

Beneath the sister moon

Leaning metaphysical

Hope we get there soon

 

Nineteen Nazca nine

Is looming from the dawn

Me and thee and thine

Are going to be reborn

 

Opher 31.12.98