The Farmers Awaken (not in the US yet)
A few years ago the farmers of India captured the media’s attention with their blockades of major roads in and out of India’s cities. The Modi government had created and tried to enforce policies that supported the agribiz corporate agenda, and made life that much tougher for the already poor farmers.
One of the protestors, Mr. Singh, had this to say in November of 2021…“The root of the agricultural issue in India is that farmers are not getting the proper value of their crops. There are two ways to see reforms — giving away land to the corporations, the big people, the capitalists. The other is to help the farmers increase their yields.”
And after the year long protest, the government gave in, reversing the policies that initiated the protests. Make no mistake, the agricultural system in India is still a not mess of long-standing grievances and more recent issues, often around changing climate, yet it was clearly a victory for the farmers.
Just this past month, July 222, farmers in the Netherlands are making their voices heard with similar protests, blocking streets and entrances to grocery stores to make their point. In this case the Dutch government is using the need to reduce nitrogen emissions and runoff as the reason for new laws that hurt the farmers.
There is no question the agribiz model of farming sucks. It produces shitty food and the nitrogen runoff here in the US has devastated the Gulf of Mexico, creating vast ‘dead zones’ where fish cannot survive. Yet instead of sheparding the farmers of the Netherlands into organic, wholesome growing methods, they’re taking an approach that screws the farmers but leaves corporate agribiz pretty much intact. More BS.
We’re seeing uprisings in Africa as well, where Mr. Smarty Pants Bill Gates thinks bringing in big tractors and ‘the Agribiz Way’ to these farmers will make them ‘more productive’. Perhaps. It will surely make them more in debt, more exposed to nasty chemicals, and less in touch with the land they’ve worked for thousands of years.
Now we’re seeing Canadian farmers who see the writing on the wall that their government wants to impose similar harsh measures that large scale farms can comply with, but most small farmers cannot. Does it seem like there’s a pattern here? You bet.
And what is this pattern I speak of? It goes by multiple names, the two most common being The Great Reset (World Economic Forum 2020) and The New World Order (popularized in the 1990s). Now, these terms both immediately bring ‘conspiracy theories’ as the defining characteristic, yet if you’re part of whose behind corporate media would you not take this exact approach. Invalidate the idea regardless of truth – which is what corporate media has been doing for at least 40 years now.
Looking at our world, and why farmers and so many others are not putting up with the bullshit anymore, and there can only be one of two conclusions. 1) The Great Reset is clearly in evidence, and we must do whatever we can to resist. 2) These vast imbalanced are just the result of corporate greed, and we must do whatever we can to resist.
So, conspiracy theory or clear truth, our response must be the same. We must do whatever we can to resist. It’s what World 5.0 is about, and it’s just in time…
Corporate Boat Versus Life Boat
In the muddle of these times, progressives ’embrace’ the democratic party because they have no alternative. We in the US live in a duopoly, where our votes are limited by the two party system.Democrats feign policies efforts that would improve our lives, but damn, they’re stymied again, and again, and again. The Republicans are now well adrift from reality, with many aligned with traitor Donald Trump, and nearly all of them given to ideology that does not befit us, and a lust for power that makes corporate interests ever the priority. It’s all too damn ugly.
We may begin to see another option if ranked voting, such as Maine and Alaska have recently initiated, takes hold. But for this election and the near future, the dems are all we have. Sad.
The Republicans began their trajectory in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan, the democratic party took a turn toward neoliberlism with the Clinton presidency in the early 1990s, and it has only gotten far worse with more recent ‘leaders’.
With this context, it’s clear we must make our voices heard more loudly than they have been, as the data shows are elected leaders pay almost no attention to our needs and interests, and all the attention they want to Corporate Overlords. Super Elites. Ideological Controllers. See, they’ve been so successful in keeping us duped that we don’t even have an accepted term for these bastards.
I needn’t remind that these bastards are destroying our planet’s biological life at a horrific pace, we humans included. That precious resources are used for yachts and rockets and endless bullshit because these bastards have almost all the money. The yacht is a nice metaphor for the corporate boat, which has controlled our culture for hundreds of years.
Warned again and again, even by our founding fathers, that corporations inevitably corrupt other institutions, we see now how far we are under their thumb. The recent decisions by the utterly bogus Supreme Court to overturn a woman’s right to her body, the regulation of guns and the EPA’s power to regulate can all be easily linked to these bastards.
There is a way out of this morass for each of us. We transform ourselves, away from mindless noise on the screens and toward our true selves. We each have on. Even these bastards. Yet they are so far from knowing themselves that that fat guy can way more easily fit through a needle. A few things for starting…
Turn off the screen. So much useless, time sinking, distracting horseshit that whatever of value exists in that ream it’s not worth chasing. Far wiser to learn to sit with yourself, breathe, notice your body and what’s happening within the place you are in, knowing we are all here in Life together. So we not only move the goalposts, we change our entire life’s game.
Ending our fear is the requirement behind finding our authentic selves. Because our authentic self is Love, which is antithetical to fear. Love is the Energy side of our eternal Tao. Yang. Just as Eternal Awareness is our Yin. We have much to release and let go.
And we must start with ourselves so that we bring authenticity, and its attendant integrity, into our lives. We change the framing of our lives and how we spend this preciousness of Life we share. So this is the Life Boat. So THIS experience of living we are sharing Now, is, quite literally, the Life Boat. Or the First Truth as I call it.
We give our attention to personal healing, which is what I describe above, because healing our lives together and our planet requires that we are healing ourselves already. Then we can begin our efforts to transform this corrupt and broken culture. Indeed, we must rise up.
And as we become more and more authentic we understand and appreciate the messaging we give ourselves on how we best participate, best let our voices be heard, within this transformation process we are undertaking. Our nearly fearless selves understand our place in All This.
And this is what World 5.0 is about. It’s yet another name for our Life Boat. Embracing ourselves, embracing each other, embracing our Earth, and above all, embracing This Life We Share Forever.
Living In Community
Our true destiny…is a world built from the bottom up by competent citizens living in solid communities, engaged in and by their places.
– David W. Orr
Communities are the lifeblood of human existence. ‘No man is an island’, and we do well to hold this context. Sadly, our communities have been abused and destroyed by the usual suspects. This must change.
We’re already starting to see smart communities evolve that have a pioneering spirit and an ecological soul. Intentional communities, smart growth initiatives, the new urbanism and a host of other creative actions are pointing to ways we can live in greater health within our communities. We still have a long to go.
Until recently, the mainstream model for a city had changed little since the last major “innovation”—designing cities around cars. Ouch. Cities have been undergoing substantial changes in recent times, whether it’s designing smart growth and public transit like Portland, or determining how to reconfigure a city like Detroit, with great voids where neighborhoods and factories used to be. Like many “rust belt” cities, Detroit has lost substantial population and money due to globalization. And yet even there things are awakening.
Awakening
Cities are indeed awakening, as are communities everywhere. The Awakening, our grand journey into wholeness, is very much grounded in our communities. And while the most dramatic changes may be found in cities, rural, suburban and every other kind of community is experiencing this as well. It’s part of this massive shift to the World 5,0 culture.
These days many of our communities are virtual. Whether it’s an online group we’re part of, facebook, twitter or other social apps – the rich texture of our communal life is endless. The requirement is that we rebuild and recreate our communities to reflect our values and goals, wresting them back from corporate and government overlords who have ruined communal life with their dictum of profit at all costs.
Community blend
Another great realization these days is that we now well understand than our communities are in truth, ecologies – interwoven and interconnected arrays of people, land, architecture, natural resources, and all else that ties us together. At the same time, our particular local setting very much determines the kinds of communities we are part of. This is damn handy as it is in our local communities that we can have the most impact in effecting change. Local initiatives, local politics, local business and local health create the context for our local lives.
We’re finding our ground and empowering our selves, neighborhoods and communities. We’re taking a fresh look at priorities and possibilities.
By applying the principles of ecology and the World Five Platform, we find ourselves far less stressed, far more connected, and far more happy in our surroundings. How nice.
The Permanent War Paradigm
Now that we’re several months into our Ukraine Conflict, we begin to see things a bit more clearly. Putin remains an unstable threat, yet there are undertones and currents which suggest the US empire is exploiting this conflict, allowing Ukraine to be destroyed one bit at a time, when we could be using diplomacy and global pressure to bring an end to this conflict.
We won’t. We’ll continue to call out Russia as the bad guy and keep pretending we’re the good guy, as corporate media always does. In truth as NATO surrounds Russia tighter and tighter it’s kind of to be expected that Putin would react. Remember Cuba in the 1960s? We were having none of that.
“Terrorism” is the perfect term to highlight the permanent war paradigm at this time. After all “Communism” or the “The Cold War” don’t carry the weight they once did. And, once ‘Terrorism’ loses its convincing value, there will be other threats thrust in our face to ensure we allow a trillion dollars a year of our money to be used for U.S. Imperialism. And for those offended by such strong language I do not apologize. I ask that you open your eyes.
Who has military bases in 200 countries? Who has initiated the most military conflicts in the last 50 years? [it’s not even close!] Who has replaced the most democratically elected leaders with U.S. friendly dictators? Think Chile, poor Haiti, Iraq, Lybia and a good handful of others. Yeah, that’s us.
The terrorism bogeyman card can be played, if not forever, well into the foreseeable future. And it’s a trump card, as we’re seeing so clearly in the bloated budget earmarked for the Department of Defense. No wonder they feel obliged to cut social programs.
In the permanent war paradigm, there’s no new money for states and cities, or local renewal. There’s no new money for alternate energy, education,or a host of other issues we face, but there’s 400 billion for Iraq. (That money goes to energy research, we don’t need their fucking oil.)
So ‘our leaders’ are creating a United States of America with rising illiteracy and poverty, less healthcare, no retirement funding and crumbling infrastructure. But BY GOD, THOSE TERRORISTS ARE NOT GOING TO GET US!
Ongoing support for the permanent war paradigm remains ridiculously high in Washington politics. This is the sordid group that’s codifying the Permanent War Paradigm – and believes they’ll be able to control the game for the indefinite future.
They may well be right. Democracy is tough. Corruption is easy if you’re in power. The Permanent War Paradigm guarantees conflict for decades ahead, meaning continued profits for profiteers, and insulation for corrupt politicians.
And if I have not stressed enough the connections between our shitty politicians and the corporations they are beholding to, rest assured they’re incredibly deep and wide. As of 2022, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon Technologies win the top five spots. They own our politicians and so the endless wars continue.
The eventual success or failure of these outlandish plans depends on many things. One sign of hope is that events tend to outrun even the greatest strategists. [Even this idea of World 5.0] Another positive is burnout. Many Americans are getting tired of the “terrorism trumps everything” modality our federal government champions. And a third cause for hope – we, the People of the Blog. There is an undeniable progressive movement, typified by new editorial sites like David Sirota’s The Lever, that is shaking the fundamental assumptions of capitalism and cronyism.
Sometimes things have to fall apart so they can be reconstructed. “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” – from the Declaration of Independence.
Yeah, what he said.
2020 Vision
Well, Here we are folks! A pivotal year in so many ways. Climate chaos is upon us. The very fabric of what’s left of our democracy is being hollowed out by senate Republicans addicted to power and corruption in the Trump Impeachment Trial. At the same time, the primary season is upon us, beginning with the Iowa Caucuses in early February.
The classic notion of 2020 vision is that of clear sightedness, of which there is little to none in our government or corporate controllers. Even in the elitist lust for power there should be some sense that saving the planet is a serious consideration, if only to continue their malevolent behavior.
Sadly, there are few voices in the the U.S. political system that are willing to publicly take a stand on our many issues – corruption, climate chaos, income disparity, etc. The only viable candidate who speaks openly and clearly about the nature and scope of our problems is Bernie Sanders. This makes him the clear choice in my humble opinion.
Yet there is room for all sorts of new visioning in this year of vision – 2020. We more clearly than ever see the ongoing tragedy of corporate influence dominating our culture and environment. Indeed, the ongoing tragedy of corporate malfeasance makes it clear that corporations have no place in our new operating system. Which is why it’s such a priority for World 5.0.
And while ridding our culture of corporate control is a great priority, we need a more positive vision than just ending this travesty. We need to understand the truth of who and where we are.
Who we are is biological entities, experiencing Life on Earth. Simple and clear. Less clear, in this broken culture, is that where we find ourselves is All Here Together in Life. Let this sink in. In spite of our long past and many potential futures, Life exists only Now. The totality of this moment, where the future becomes the past, is where we always find ourselves. That we constantly experience the passage of time is because it’s exactly what’s going on. Ever plowing into the future, ever churning the wake that is our past.
We all hold some vision for a better future. Clean air and water, abundant communities, organic food, a world of peace – and we more clearly build our new world by realizing where we are and that, always, we move from Here. This simple recognition is our ground in creating a new vision for the U.S. and the world.
As Our Earth Turns
It’s hard to imagine that there have been times in our civilization’s past where our culture teeters on the edge of an abyss as it does now. We’ve had plenty of horrible experiences in our past, but none has been on the global scale of what we find today. Our history is a litany of corruption and abuse, and according to corporate media sources, there is no end in sight.
Fortunately for some of us, we do not choose to see through the lens of corporate media or corrupt political systems such as we have in the US today. We see from where each of us are, metaphorically and physically. The play of light, our breathing bodies, those around us, fissures in the corrupt old system, plants and trees taking root where the old system has failed. The light within all of us.
As impeachment frenzy holds the attention of corporate media, a million changes are taking place of which corporate media knows nothing.
Folks are waking up to the heavy dose of bullshit we’ve been fed over the course of our lives, and especially more recently, as our controllers see their grip failing. Life is not what we were taught growing up. People are rejecting old religions and political parties, seeking a new way forward. We’re learning that our happiness is not an effect of someone’s attention or a bunch of money, but a place we find within ourselves where, once found, we choose not to leave.
Protests and civil unrest is occurring on an unprecedented scale. Across our planet, from Hong Kong to Brazil folks are rising up against new and long-standing abuses. We are protesting everything about the old system. Authoritarian leaders like Trump and Boris Johnson (along with numerous dictators) are finding that the same bullying tactics that have worked for generations are no longer working. While they have their cultish followers, most of us see them for what they are.
Of course the great learning of our time is that we are not isolated and alone. Life exists only Now, and hence we are necessarily All Here Together. The totality of Now is central to our experience. One hopes science with soon make this obvious reality the explicit First Truth.
As Mother Earth continues to turn, showing herself to Father Sun while half a planet away resting from his light, there is much more that our controllers do not see or understand. We do not live in a Universe where only humans have some level of self awareness. Indeed, while unprovable by today’s science, the vast energies and entities surrounding our planet at this time is staggering.
The controllers have held us at bay with fear and lies for generations. Yet these days we see through such fog more clearly, and we choose to let go of fear that we may better enjoy biological life.
Indeed, the communication and communion between Sun and Earth is barely understood. If we are capable of holding the consciousness that we do in these small human bodies, imagine the level of consciousness held by this magnificent planet and glorious star. Would you not imagine that both know very well what is taking place in our civilization and are engaged in purging from us the abusers that have held us down for centuries?
I do. And I see the mantle of fear lifting, and without their tool of fear, ‘they’ cannot control us. Nor are we content to go along with past times that have held us from experiencing our true selves. 2022 has been a crazy year. Birthing a new culture is a bit chaotic.
Woodstock Lives!
The Woodstock Music Festival was held August 15 -18, 1969 in upstate New York. It was in many ways the capstone of an utterly wild time, when young people revolted against the conformist stereotypes of the day. There’s plenty of content online about the event and the tumultuous 1960’s that surrounded the weekend.
“Woodstock was a celebration of joy which wiped out, at least temporarily, the persistent feelings of meaninglessness that permeate our culture,” Billboard’s Danny Goldberg wrote. “It was perhaps the dawning of the age of Aquarius. Questionable as a business venture, it was, at least, a moment of triumph for the better side of man, in a time when the devil seems so often to be winning.
My bitch is that now, some 50 years later, this historic event hardly received notice among our many outlets of corporate media. PBS ran a piece or two, but there was hardly a mention on our 24/7 ‘news’ channels or right-leaning talk radio.
It’s my assumption that the corporate overlords are not keen on reminding us of that little piece of history.
While the event itself was something of a mess, nearly half a million folks in the rain for three days without proper infrastructure, but it was also marvelous! The energy was electric. We young folks thought we could change the world, and indeed we did – though it did not last.
Woodstock typified the free love, egalitarian, back to nature movement that is only now re-emerging as we awaken to corruption foisted upon us these long years. Woodstock featured Ritchie Haven singing about Freedom, Jimi Hendrix disrupting the national anthem, Carlos Santana, Jefferson Airplane and other remarkable acts.
So why the great silence when we should be celebrating one of humanity’s finer moments? Go ask our corporate overlords…
This Central Truth of Life
When one considers the wretched condition of our lives and our planet, it’s hard not to point fingers, as I have surely done, at the forces I believe to be responsible. That blame typically goes toward elites, corporations and nation states. I still hold that these purveyors of power through their money and institutions are indeed, at the heart of our problems.
Yet there is something even more central to each of us that has held us bound and manipulated by the forces mentioned above. It’s the paradigm each of us live within. The way we view ourselves and our place within ourselves, our families and communities. This includes the impact of height or skin color, social status, genetics and upbringing – externals but part of us, and our thoughts, feelings, attitudes and belief codes – our internal world.
Each of us engaging with our own lives. And in the old culture, it pretty much ends there. Ignoring the central fact of our existence. The totality of Now.
Somehow science has neglected this, as a fish might neglect water, or we neglect ‘Mother Culture’. Where is the clear axiom in science that Now is the only time that exists – this sharpness where past and future collide, this point in time where everything happens.
It is useful to our Corporate Overlords that we consider ourselves alone, weak and powerless in the face of their excess. Indeed, they rely on our ignorance to further their agenda of control and domination, even to the point of destroying our Earth.
Is there any way an awake and aware citizenry would allow our endless wars, our GMO and sucky processed foods, the environmental desecration and destruction, climate chaos, extreme inequality, cruelty to the animals we use as food, abuse of Palestinians or Haitians, and on and on? Of course not. An awake and aware culture wouldn’t tolerate any of this bullshit – which proves we have a lot of work to do.
Yet it all starts – resets – when we awaken to ourselves Here in Life right now. This knowing clearly presents a second knowing – that we are necessarily all Here together. We cannot leave this moment of Life or each other. Sadly, the old culture keeps insisting on a paradigm that is far less real.
‘We Move From Here’, the subtitle to my book World 5.0, is intended to help furthering our awakening to this simple truth. You can’t find ‘Here’ by further thinking. The process of thinking tends to have us stuck in our heads and out of touch with our bodies and our surroundings.
We get it by being outside, by observing and interacting with our animal friends. We get it though a quiet mind which is a result from practicing meditation. We even ‘get it’ momentarily when caught in the high drama of a sporting event or film. We stop thinking and become present. Which is exactly where we are. This recognition moves us and our sisters and brothers further into an awakened state, something we badly need right now as the old world crumbles around us.
Why We Need to Awaken
The Battle Within and the Best Way Forward
The stunning reality of President Trump has amplified the fear of millions and not without reason. With his ‘victory’, and his emerging choices for key posts showing a Basket of Deplorables, we may well find ourselves in a deplorable state as well.
The long list of issues leading us down this path are now clear, and it’s the hands behind our mega corporations and long standing bankers like the Rothchilds that are intentionally destroying us and our home planet for power and control. They’re sick in the head.
The central strategy for their success is to keep us terrified, bewildered and distracted. Their central tool in that strategy is fear. Full stop. Their central tool is fear
Fear is the compassion killer, the awareness killer, and the killer of our happiness. Where there is fear, love cannot enter. Any more than reason can enter the realm of insanity. Indeed, when we seek to know what keeps us from being happy more than anything else, it is fear.
Of course I don’t mean the thrill seeking, momentary fears of looking over a steep cliff or of losing a game. I mean the deep seated, constant, trauma and stress driven fear that quite literally owns us.
Such is the battle within, amplified mightily be a failing world. And yet the answer remains the same as it ever was. The answer is Love.
Just as love cannot abide a space filled with fear, fear cannot abide the presence of Love. Learning to be with this Presence of Love within us teaches us peace and love, which are but two sides of the same Tao.
Many of us know this dynamic, but have had little success in ridding ourselves of fear. This is because we still hold the old culture view that we are isolated individuals living in our past and future, with occasional moments here in the present. We live in a bubble, and yet it is a bubble we do not see.
The truth is that, while we all have our uniqueness in place, we all share the same time. And that this time is Now. Quite simply, we are all here together. Always Here. This simple truth gives us ground to stand on as we wage our battles against fear.
Which focuses things quite a bit. The question is now, not whether we will choose fear or love in the future, the question is ‘what do we choose now’. Because of course Now is the only place in time where our intent is exercised, and where we can impact our thoughts, feelings and most importantly our belief codes.
So, with the intent to spend This in Love instead of fear, a few simple strategies are in order.
First, recognize fear for what it is and what it does. You will not dismiss your fears easily, yet steady emphasis with the consistent choice to let go of fearful thoughts and engage in loving thoughts. If this seems impossible to you, know that the keys are forgiveness and gratitude. These are two of the best words that resonate Love.
Our intent then, is thoughts and feelings of love and compassion. Your belief codes will drive your ability to find success in this, so they are where you look when you’re struggling to find happy thoughts and feelings.
The second step is to seek a quiet mind. We’re always a step behind Now when we’re thinking, regardless of the quality of our thoughts. The very process of thinking engages our attention, or intent, so that our experience of Life is second hand. With a quiet mind we enjoy the Presence of our Source, Life, and the other biological and non-biological beings we share this Timeless Moment with.
Finally, breathe like it’s the best thing in your life, because it surely is. Not only does it keep us alive through the constant recharge of our cells, it focuses our intent on the present, connects us with our body, and brings feelings of calm and joy.
Because we are so under-oxygenated in our typical day to day existence, we rarely take the time to focus on what we need most – to breathe.
So, now that we understand the battle, and the strategy to ‘win’, what about our failing world?
Our stumbling science is beginning to recognize the essential nature of energy and vibration. It even presumes the totality of Now, though it’s more implied than stated as the central fact of our existence.
The wiser among us even understand, as did physicist Max Planck, that ““When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Our thoughts, emotions and belief codes are susceptible to change, and when we change them, our world changes to reflect these changes.
With such a given, what are the energy vibrations that best suit us in these foreboding times? Of course, same as it ever was, Love is the answer. Holding the space of peace. Sending forth the vibration of Love, always and toward everyone and everything – this is our best answer to a failing world.
Do not forget that we have been abused and lied to for generations. Do not forget current efforts to abuse us further. And most of all, do not forget that this incredible experience of Life we share, as breathing humans Here on Earth, is far more powerful than the haters that rule us.
No question we need to resist the machinations of a failing empire, the now ugly US of A. No doubt we must engage with our communities and replace corporatism. But the biggest single thing we can do, for ourselves, our sisters and brothers, and our Earth, is to Love.