The World 5.0 Politician – Legislating From Truth, Integrity and Love
Legislating from truth, integrity and love. Wow. What a notion. These precepts hold for those of us supporting legislators of truth, integrity and love as well. This is the simple context for being a World Five Politician. We see that we are all here together, sharing life at this moment, and we side with truth and love. Which means we live in integrity.
Recognizing the near impossibility of a successful third party here in the US and the need to root out the corruption so rampant in our political system, there is a clear need for something new. I present the World Five Politician, the antithesis of most politicians who seek power and not to serve the citizens of this country.
The World 5.0 Democrat or Republican holds a few simple ideas and the clear commitment to the values of Truth, Integrity and Love. Truth because we know now, after the attack on our capital, that a common shared sense of truth is required for us to build a healthy government.
Two things in particular deserve our attention. ending the fear that controls our lives and ruins our communities. And ending the legal status of corporations that ruin our lives and our communities.
Love because we too long have disallowed love from our politics and culture, pushed by enslaving interests, when love is the greatest healing force on earth and a requirement for our happiness.
Integrity because we cannot find love if we do not keep our word, honor our commitments, or fail at our task of standing for the American people. With integrity alone brought into our political system, it would be transformative.
With World 5.0, we maintain the totality of Life Now, which requires that we are all here together. Now and always.
A central theme is recognizing that corporations make healthy cultures impossible (as we know from our lives in this corporate controlled culture). We seek to overturn this corporate control. Corporations control every major function of our lives – food, healthcare, media, energy and every major government on Earth, and ‘The Corporation’ has not served us.
For the first time in our country’s history, we did not have a peaceful transfer of power. We had a mixed crowd of insurrectionists and fools that overwhelmed our capital. This is not a sign of health. This is a sign of a broken system. And the fix is an educated electorate. World 5.0 helps in this education.
For the ever-repeated cycle, our choices for president, and so many state, county and city officials, have been lousy. It’s a long list. Another possibility exists.
We need a new construct for moving forward, and World 5.0 provides that construct. This context of Life, awakening to the totality of now, is a requirement for understanding reality. Yet agreeing on this simple truth opens the door to recognizing truth everywhere.
And truth everywhere is required. Our issues are legion, our times unprecedented. The World Five Politician has the potential to shift the ugly and deadly dynamics of a greedy corporate culture to one where all of us are thriving together, one where we remain — connected here in Life.
Land of the Free. Home of the Brave.
Welcome to America, circa end of 2020.
The COVID is full steam ahead, the country is in shambles, there are so many hungry and homeless, the President won’t leave, the climate is in chaos, ecosystems are collapsing, pollution of every sort everywhere, and of course these are just the catastrophic symptoms.In our communities of whatever sort, we find brokeness. In our families conflict and way too much pain in our personal lives.
Land of the free, home of the brave? Not so much. We seemed to have left that behind with so many other illusions we’ve held over these long years.
At least we have avoided the greatest immediate threat, that Trump would succeed in his attempted coup. Yet our supposed solace is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Less than inspiring. Were the system not so rigged Bernie Sanders could well be president, and we would be far better served for it. Yet the system is so rigged.
There is no going back. There never is, as this moment continues to separate future from past. Just as it always does. Even in a more stable and less corrupt moment, we can’t truly go back. Joe Biden’s ‘build back better’ is complete bullshit. Not in these times. Not with our problems. We need historic transformation.
Indeed, America was ever truly ‘Land of the Free, Home of the Brave’ (a slogan termed by Francis Scott Key) unless you were a white man of means. But I know with certainty, and not me alone, that today America is Land of The Corporation.
The system is crystal clear now for those with eyes to see. The corporations control the government, which sets the standards for a healthy culture. And with their demonic need for profits at any cost, they will always inherently stand in the way of a healthy culture. Partnerships, coops, small businesses and individuals can harness the capitalism needed to provide goods and services. And they come with balanced priorities, and a far greater likelihood of being invested in their communities.
Joe Biden and the new administration won’t do much to end this longstanding corporate scourge. They’re in the broken system. No universal healthcare, no Green New Deal, no serious rethinking of our white supremacy laced police departments and wildly overblown military. Wall street? Big Ag? Pharma? Hell no, not the bottom up, systemic rebuild that is required.
Our constitution is 240 years old, the world’s oldest. It was written by wealthy white men tired of paying taxes to Great Britain across the sea. No doubt there was some bold thinking about a better system of governance than that of a king, but this nation started, as it has fostered ever since, as a nation that’s all about the money.
In the Trump administration and McConnell dynasty, so many norms have been broken that we need serious legal remedy, Recall McConnell obstructed Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court and so much potentially useful law which he would not bring to the floor. Trump has thrown all norms to the wind in his megalomaniacal PTSD stupor.
So, two new ideas that need to be in the public sphere…
A new constitution, let’s call it Constitution 2.0. Built on the best of the original, and the vast knowledge available today combined with what’s working in other counties, and we could generate an outstanding document that brings in a new era.
And as part and parcel of this constitution, we dismantle the corporate engine that has caused so much corruption and so many wasted lives. We end the legal status of corporations. In the meanwhile we do our best to so weaken them so much that we can flush them down the toilet.
Land of the free? Home of the brave? I don’t think so. How about land of the free. Home of the Truth. If we get the second part right, we have a chance at the first.
The Biden Presidency – Volume One
This piece may be premature, as there is a least a small chance Mr. Trump and his Republican allies might pull of The Steal, curiously shouting their motto, Stop the Steal. But for our purposes, we will assume even this beleaguered democracy can hold up through this assault as she has many times before.
The second caveat is the two senatorial races in Georgia, the winners of which will will control the senate. The Democrats need both victories for a 50/50 split where Vice President Kamala Harris becomes the tiebreaker. The legislative power of the Biden presidency will be thwarted by Republican leader Mitch McConnell if the Dems can’t pull of both Georgia victories. And we’ve seen what a toad Mr. Mitch is.
Now the most important point of this whole piece. The reason Donald Trump got over 70 million votes is, along with media bias and our social media bubbles, that way too many folks, especially rural folks, are not seeing their lives get better.
Clinton built up prisons, cut welfare and open the gates to more corporate malfeasance with the end of Glass-Steagall Act, which kept banks away from Wall Street type speculation. And with the 2008 Financial Meltdown, Obama saved the banks and other financial institutions, but showed no love for Main Street. This sort of legacy isn’t helpful.
That right wing ideology plays a factor is a given. Yet that might be 40 or 50 million, not the 70 million votes that Donald Trump received. The truth is that, in spite what many liberals view as ‘crazy’ thinking, many Republican voters trust establishment Democrats even less that Republicans. The neoliberals who run the Democratic Party have done little for the American people. They support corporate control.
But back of President-Elect Biden. In Joe Biden’s 45 years in government, he’s been an establishment figure. He’s never been a progressive, or firebrand, or radical in any way. Yet in his acceptance speech on November 9th, he described America as being at an ‘inflection point’.
Not a big stretch. Among long standing social ills like inequality, climate chaos, institutional failure to control corporations and a failing system of democracy, we throw in this year’s pandemic and the protests prompted by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, I easily agree. We are at an inflection point. The question is where do we go from here in terms of our federal government.
In these very early days, where President Trump still refuses to acknowledge his loss, we are seeing some early signs that may be promising. Biden’s transition team has some notable progressives, he’s been working with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and early signs are that he will try to reign in Wall Street and our corporate controllers.
That said, we have seen that our corporate overlords do not easily give up money or power. Indeed, their whole mission is to not give up money or power, so that’s no surprise. What will be a very pleasant surprise is if Biden/Harris have the strength of character to resist thei corporate overtures and threats.
More will become clear once Trump is out of the way and we get through the Georgia runoff races. By then we may have a better sense of where we’re going as a country.
Oh, and the second big point I want to make. There is no doubt public officials respond to public outcry. We made our voices heard in the recent election. We must continue. Engage locally, stay involved nationally, and be ready to march, protest, and write your congress people to push them in the direction we need to go.
Change or Die
In this crazy year of 2020, we’ve already been forced into some pretty substantial changes. COVID-19 has most of us in masks in public, social distancing and avoiding what used to be commonplace like going to a game or shopping. All changes we didn’t seek, but changes we have to deal with none the less. And that’s just coronavirus stuff.
Change or Die applies to the more active resistance to police abuse. If you’re a person of color, your very life is threatened by systemic racism and cops who want to control others instead of supporting their communities.
We’re seeing Change or Die being applied to the Democratic Convention and we’ll surely see it next week at the Republican. No crowded convention halls, no physical back room deals – it’s all had to change.
Here in Cincinnati we’re having another bout of gun killings. Last weekend 18 people were shot with 4 of them dying. Here’s a piece from WLWT.com about how 2020 could see the most deaths ever, passing 2106 as our deadliest year so far. And this piece was published on August 4, before this past weekend…
These are just a few top of mind examples of the incredible changes we’re facing and hence the incredible strain we’re under. If you live in Eastern Iowa you’re facing even more challenges, as the ‘storms’ there last week devastated the area.
Which points to at least one or two more ‘Change or Die’ points. Climate Chaos is already upon us. The media changed the term to ‘climate change’ from ‘global warming’ because global warming sounded too scary. I guess we’re not scared enough yet. Iowa’s huge agricultural footprint points to another Change or Die – Industrial Agriculture.
Modifying our food plants so they can withstand pesticides being applied to reduce bugs or weeds – what could go wrong? GMOs. And why might that be some disgusting shit to put it our bodies – it is. And this before we mention topsoil loss, ocean dead zones, runoff from factory farms where caged animals live and die for our meat-heavy diets.
Change or Die. It’s a new mantra, a new meme. Alan Duetschman actually wrote a book on the topic back in 2007. A main theme of his? We don’t like to change, and don’t do it much.
I counter that we change plenty when it’s life or death, as we’re doing this year. And yet there’s an even more interesting and compelling context for ‘Change or Die’. It’s how we run our personal lives.
There’s no data on how fearful we are. No pundits who describe a year as particularly full of fear or full of release, minimal stress, etc. That said, 2020 is probably the most fearful year since at least the 1960s, when so many of us were convinced nuclear war was imminent. The COVID-19 disruption. BLM with so many ruined lives from past brutalities and a bully president. Economic desolation with so many of us losing work and/or businesses. The fear level is overwhelming.
Here, at ground zero of our individual lives, we find another ‘Change or Die’ situation. Even in these times where our very species feels threatened, we can choose to live without fear. Now that’s a change. Fear is the conditioned response we’ve been taught as a reaction to pain our whole lives, and our corrupt culture is heavily predisposed to making us afraid because it serves their ends. I could go on and on about the corporate empire we live under, but my concern here is to remind you of the freedom you have within that pretty little head of yours.
Regardless of what the world throws at us, we maintain the power of out intent. We are (potentially) the masters of our intent, so we can choose love over fear this second. (That said, in my case it’s been about a 30 year process.) At least when I started working to rid myself of fear, I understood the real choice, which is how I play it right now, this point where the future becomes the past. This point of Life, Now.
The greatest learning on my quest was ‘A Course in Miracles’, a very curious work notable for lessons like ‘There is no fear.’ and ‘I need do nothing.’ – a far cry from what we’ve learned growing up in this broken culture. This quest is so central to the quality of our lives that I write extensively about fear and love in my book, ‘World 5.0 – We Move From Here’. And if the idea of the Totality of Now seems foreign, I’ve an article on World5.org that addresses The Three Truths.
So, even as our world is crumbling under the weight of all the bullshit in the old culture, a new culture, built on Life Itself, is emerging. Those of us living within the new culture, if only in our personal lives, know ‘there is no fear’.
Black lives Matter
For some of us, the idea that Black Lives Matter is kind of a duh. Of course they do. Human life is a rare gift and should be held sacred, not disposed of as an inconvenience or act of hate acted out. George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer has been the straw that broke the camel’s back, the camel being the corrupt culture of police and police unions. They are now so busted.
And we know it’s not just criminal justice that needs reform. Our political system, monetary system, food system, etc. etc. etc. all need reformation. Literally – re-form anew. It may be time for the world to wake up to World 5.0, the name I’ve given to our new o/s.
It has principles – five of them – Peace, Love, Integrity, Justice and Balance. All honorable ideals. And Integrity demands and ethical stance. We cannot speak of integrity without ethics.
More importantly, World 5.0 describes the truth of who and where we are. Who: biological, self-aware beings. Where: together Here in Life. There is no other place. Now is all there is, and the sooner we recognize our Hereness together, the better we can deal with the craziness of being human in these times.
World5 acknowledges the power of our intent, which the elites controlling our world do not want you to appreciate. We have the power to choose between Love and fear, right now, and no one can take that power from you. There is a third truth as well – Only Love Makes Us Happy.
So if I title an article ‘Black Lives Matter’, what the help am I doing pimping World 5.0?
We don’t need another ‘analysis’ of why this is happening, or another stat about protests. But I will add one from Cincinnati this very day [6/7/2020], where we had over 10,000 peaceful protesters demanding accountability from our police. It’s inspiring.
10 years ago I made a little video about the new world we seek. It’s called ‘The Declaration of World 5.0’. It encompasses much that we need to change to create the world we want. You can view it here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hU3gOuQgHw
I’m more hopeful than ever that we’re, as a species, ready to take this on. We can use our combined intent to do amazing things to heal ourselves, our communities and our world.
peace and love,
Jim
3
“The Corporation” Destroys Capitalism
There is an implicit notion in our culture that corporations equal capitalism. Nothing is more false.
Capitalism is the notion that folks make products or offer services, each with a relative value. The customers have the option of this pair of shoes or this house painter, and they base their choices on the perceived value each vendor offers.
It’s actually quite a good system. Honest competition, along with a bit of salesmanship, lets the customer decide the best value or the vendor who most suits them. We learned about it in high school.
Corporations, on the other hand, are a legal entity devised primarily in England about a thousand years ago. A cozy little legal trick to provide ‘limited liability’ and a methodology to keep the powerful powerful, passing corporate money down across the generations. Here in the states, when our forefathers were establishing our Constitution, they were quite aware of the work of the Hudson Bay Company and the East India Company, precursers to the corporate behemoths we have today.
Because these were wealthy landowners, even though they mistrusted the legal entity of the corporation, they didn’t disallow them as such. They placed strict restrictions on the corporations of their days, only allowable for certain purposes and with limited lifespans, but they didn’t embed forbidding corporations into the constitution. It’s up there with promoting slavery and generating a savage response to native Americans.
And looking at our global culture today, it is not capitalism that has given us endless war, GMOs, the propped up fossil fuel industry or so many other ills, it is the corporations.
There is a growing debate in this country about the virtues of two competing cultures – democratic socialism, or just socialism versus capitalism. Again, I find this a false choice. The decision we need to come to is whether we want a society dominated by corporate control, or a society where honest capitalism and a social base for our weakest citizens and elders is the norm.
It’s worth noting that social structures like social security have been with us for decades, and most countries today have some version of socialized health care. But the money our government spends on these social safety nets is dwarfed by the corporate socialism that exists for behemoths like Amazon, google, Facebook, Apple and a host of others who pay no taxes, have ‘limited liability’ for all the damage they have caused, and who payoff our politicians to give them their corporate socialism.
As we see every day, our politicians pay lip service to our needs, and pay corporations handsomely, with our tax dollars, for their political contributions. Quid pro quo. It’s beyond prevalent, it’s the way it is. This must change.
The solution? We start by making this November election a clear mandate that the old bullshit doesn’t fly. We elect politicians with integrity. We have a few already, but too few. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown in the Senate, some progressives in the House of Representatives. We’re certainly making headway in local government.
But our president must be removed from office, and Mitch McConnell removed from his leadership role in ruining our country. Pelosi’s facing a strong challenger for her seat in the House. You will not see any of those names near the idea of integrity.
Once we have responsive elected officials, we begin reigning in the worst offenders by using existing antitrust laws and tax laws. We begin making them responsible for all the damage they have done, and remind tech companies that we, the citizens built the internet with our tax dollars. Do you imagine those tech companies are paying for the technology we built for them to leverage?
Let’s take a brief moment to consider our world without corporations. Large companies can be partnerships or coops. Without the overwhelming profit motive, the motivation for the permanent war paradigm ends. Coops are not interested in selling weapons. Our food becomes incredibly healthier and tastier, as shithead companies like Monsanto (now part of Bayer) are not trying to control global food. Fossil fuels are long gone.
With a new shared abundance, we heal our neighborhoods and communities. Restore farming and rural communities, urban centers and living conditions for all us citizens. Our forests and oceans are restored, and mitigating climate change becomes the great priority it must be. Corporations and healthy people and planet don’t work.
Back to our plan. Finally, we get to the point where we end the thousand years scourge that is the legal entity, ‘the Corporation’. It serves no human or earthly need. It’s only purpose is to further enrich the already rich. Capitalism doesn’t require ‘the corporation’. And neither do we…
We Persist
The corporate right to make money has always superseded our right to live.
I repeat. The corporate right to make money has always superseded our right to live. Do you need it again? The corporate right to make money has always superseded our right to live.
The coronavirus has revealed the deep level of unfairness built into a culture where corporations rule the day. COVID-19 has revealed the folks who are important to keep society intact. And we know it is not the barons of corporate America and their political lackeys who are taking an honest lead.
The lead is being taken by those of us who are making the effort to see COVID-19 and its effects as clearly as possible, to as best we can interpret the intentions of the elite who, as always, seek to leverage a disaster for profit [see Naomi Klein’s Disaster Capitalism], and with these two recognitions determining how to create the future we want for ourselves.
Any doubts about who’s work is important has been clarified by what we see today. It’s our front line medical personnel, drivers and sanitation workers, the scientists and virologists, our farmers, fire and police, grocery folks, etc. Nowhere in this litany of the needed are hedge fund managers, Wall Street barons, CEOs or other elites. They just run things in our corporate led, money driven culture. A money as power culture is now exposed for its corruption, cruelty and the scourge on our lives and our Earth.
Many point out the need for corporations so we can have commerce, but that is a false notion. There are individuals, partnerships, coops, collaborations and not yet defined entities that can be used as the grease for acquiring and selling goods and services. As we recognize the value of meeting as many of our needs locally as possible, we improve the quality of our lives in countless ways. Not the least being capable of tracking and mitigating viruses.
For those unfamiliar with the 1,000 year rise of ‘the corporation’, you can check online or in my book, World 5.0. It’s an ugly history, with dark deals among rulers and elites that caused European colonialism, concentrating power under the guise of government and religious objectives.
Again, corporations are not a required legal entity. They spend billions convincing you otherwise, but other forms of business ownership are perfectly useful. And they do not rip us off and rape our planet. There is a very simple measure for a business entity – does it engender greed or abundance. We’ve seen what the other leads to.
There are hosts of us already working to create a better culture in a myriad number of ways. Ending war, ending fossil fuels, ending globalism and worker abuses. Ending inequality. All worthwhile efforts. And yet we’re just playing ‘Whack a Mole’ if we don’t get to the heart of the problem.
Now our efforts are impacted tremendously by coronavirus. How do we protest when we can’t march? It’s true we are hampered. Yet we are not helpless. We can organize online, create alliances to strengthen our impact, work toward vibrant local cultures, and look forward to when we can again mingle without fear of dying.
COVID-19 is a clear scourge, like corporations themselves. Yet this reset is an opportune time for we progressives and awakened to push hard for universal health care, a green new world and a world without war. We will find our new world. The old world is crumbling and we persist.
The Problem is We’re Stuck Here in Eternity
Not much to be done for it. It’s nicely quiet here…
If Ours Was a World
Sisters and brothers, we are separated and broken. Fearful for our lives and livelihood. For our families and friends. This is not an easy time. Epidemics are stressful, and our shit was already all broken.
I could go on and on about the latter, but we already know. Glaringly, corporate greed and human health are incompatible. COVID-19 is providing the magnifying glass on the corporate behaviors that have been wrecking our lives and our planet for decades, corrupting our political process and encouraging endless war.
It was bad law in England 1,000 years ago that allowed for the establishment of ‘limited liability corporations’. These corporations were heavily involved in the conquest that became the British Empire. Our founders were well aware of corporate power and placed great limitations on their existence in the early US.
Yet today we are completely at their mercy – and now when we have this cultural reset due to the coronavirus. I don’t need to do the litany of corporate crimes, but just now, when congress passes a 2.2 trillion survival bill, most of it goes to corporations. We get $1200 checks. And don’t forget that these same folks underwrote corporate malfeasance for 29 trillion, all told, for the Meltdown of 2008. And if we add those $1200 checks for every American up and figure out the percentage of that 2.2 trillion package? It’s less than .2% of the total. One fifth of one percent. Corporations need to die.
This reshaping of our culture is an opportunity for a new way forward that our species badly needs. We can end the Age of the Corporation. We need good law.
That will not happen with the current administration or one like it. We need a revolution. An uprising against The Corporation.
Too often a corrupt monarch, dictator or government is overthrown, only to find the new one that replaces it is little or no better. In this crucial time, such is not an option for us.
We need to know where we want to go, how we want to live, and how we want to be with each other. Fortunately, we have a very good sense of where we want to go. Into a world of peace and love.
We are surely about restorative agriculture, green energy, and end to war, universal healthcare and other obvious needs, created with partnerships and co-ops to replace corporations. but I want to get back to a world of peace and love.
We can barely imagine such a world in these times. Where smiles and camaraderie are constant. Where hate is absent. Where people don’t try to hurt each other, and nation states are losing prominence as our main political unit. And yet such a world is possible. We just won’t get there so long as corporations remain in charge.
We can thank Occupy for beginning this revelation that corporations must end. We can thank COVID-19 for making it glaringly obvious. And we can thank ourselves if we leverage this moment to make this lovely and beleaguered planet truly our world.
Bernie’s Revolution Is On!
Bernie is no longer running for president, but the movement is on…