Beyond Trump: The Path to Real Change

What Is Mutual Aid

Mutual Aid is the way Nature and biological life work. 

The Totality of Now

The totality of now sounds foreign, even meaningless, to most of us. Putting the words ‘totality’ and ‘now’ together is almost incomprehensible to people all over this planet. We clearly remember yesterday and understand tomorrow is on it’s way. Which is exactly true. The past is gone, and tomorrow never comes. 

Yet we seem unable to get our heads wrapped around this central fact our biological existence. Very strange.

For starters, let us look to the truth. Now is an infinitesimally small moment of time. A second is host to innumerable ‘nows’, each leaking into the next. As we watch events like the Olympics, it is stunning what some small fraction of a second can mean in naming winners and losers. And even as this parade of changing energy swirls on, Now remains. 

So how do we best define the idea behind this crazy word that has no time at all, but contains all of time? We call it Life.

Science might be a help in explaining. In the world of quantum mechanics, and in science at large, there is an implicit understanding that now is the only time when things happen. Yet even science leaves the notion implicit, instead of stating it as the central fact of Life. And science insists on gravity as the big deal. The big deal is energy.

Religion? Hardly, when it keeps trying to point us toward some future time where ‘heaven’ may wait for us. I do not know what awaits the end of biological life, but I very much appreciate this business of creating and of being together – a process that I trust continues long after these bodies are given up.

So, the fact is clear. We are always Here, Now, even as we are birthed, grow up, grow old and pass on. Indeed, it is impossible to leave Now, though most of us are so busted up from the old culture that we forget nearly all the time – stuck in our little heads. You will find it very difficult to believe this truth if your world consists of spending all your time in your thoughts and feelings, driven by your belief codes. What happened when I was victimized? When can I get that new pair of shoes? Who’s going to win the election?

Ask any plant, insect or animal where we are. They tell you by their very presence. Ask any child who’s not yet been distorted by an ugly world where fear reigns. They tell you the same. We are eternally Here, and all our millions of bubbled lives change this not at all. 

Which begs the question, then what, indeed, is ‘This’?

This is simply Life, and this is our home. Which means we are all necessarily Here Together. The deeper understanding is knowing it’s two elementals, Awareness and Energy. 

Awareness is Eternal. It is behind creation, and all that we know. Indeed, without Awareness we know nothing. It is our Source, the Force if you will. Some use the name God, or Allah, or Yahweh, or the Great Spirit. Yet Eternal Awareness [my preferred term], is the constant, the Presence within all that is.

Energy is movement, constantly shifting and changing. Energy is why yesterday is different than tomorrow, and it always happens Now, just as Awareness does. It is incapable of stillness, just as Awareness is incapable of movement. And yet it is only Here, Now, where both exist, and both are capable of existing.

This Is Tao, the yin and the yang of existence. This Is Life, where we always find ourselves. It’s actually quite enchanting. And yet we don’t feel enchanted. We feel broken and abused. Living within a harsh, diabolical and corrupt system does that.

And endless stream of urgent and upset thoughts, unruly emotions, belief codes that honor nothing – what can one expect when driven by such temperaments. All of these serve to keep us from the awakening and awareness of what I s. Rulers have kept us down for thousands of years by feeding us crap that serves to create fearful thoughts, unruly emotions and ugly belief codes. So this we must change.

And this change begins with the recognition of our common ground, our life here in Life.  

Finally, do not let your uniqueness in space confuse you about our shared moment in time.
 

A Revolution of Love

After generations of abuse from the world’s controllers, the global elite are losing their grip. For those paying attention, there are a host if indicators that their iron fist of control is cracking.

New forms of banking are emerging to challenge the corruption of Wall Street. The fossil fuel industry is losing control as renewable resources come online, we the people rejecting their priority of profits over climate change and the Earth’s health. Organic food is growing by leaps and bound. We could go on and on.

But let’s focus on the new. What is replacing these obsolete systems?

New systems that reflect our human dignity and the Earth. Systems that contribute to our wholeness instead of ill health. Systems that demand equal rights, economic rights, and integrity and transparency.

These are signs of love emerging. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

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In sharp contrast to the devastation being visited on the Middle East by the Empire, on a more personal scale we’re seeing folks find alignment and getting along like never before. We’re seeing a greater sense of empathy, a reaching out to help and an engagement in neighborhoods and communities that is unmatched in generations.

Love is emerging.

And in this crazy election year, we’re seeing a commitment to progressive, human supporting ideas that hasn’t been seen since the New Deal in the 1930s.

Let’s be clear. Love is the deepest human emotion we are capable of. It wishes the best for everyone, without the motivation of personal benefit, like wanting to get laid. Love is the genuine expression of life once fear is removed from our lives. You see, it is Peace that engenders Love, because at are core we are Eternal Awareness – call it Life, God, Allah, The Force – the word is of little consequence. So regardless of the tumultuous nature of our lives, at our core is peace. And by touching that peace, love becomes our natural expression.

What many of us older folk struggle to learn, the younger folk have an intuitive understanding of who we are and what we are about. This is why they flock to Bernie. He’s authentic and holds integrity, rare traits in politicians.

We can thank the indomitable Bernie Sanders for lighting this fire. But it is not his flame. This is the flame of Truth emerging. This is the flame of millions taking action for a better way forward. This is the flame of recognition when we look into a stranger’s eyes and see a friend. This is the flame of revolution. And the revolution is Love.

From Peace Comes Joy

Sadly, among the innumerable failure and deceits of the current culture, one of the largest omissions is the recognition that from peace comes joy. The propaganda, religiosity, and belief codes we’ve faced from a corrupt system have left us traumatized. We do not think clearly. Donald Trump is Exhibit A. Hillary is exhibit B. And yet as the Three Truths describes, our intent is our most powerful tool in interpreting reality and in making decisions that reflect our true selves. So it is ever our decision right now that allows for a sense of peace. An appreciation that we are all here together, and as individuals exactly where life would have us. And so with each thought, with emotion, with each belief code we study within ourselves seeking to understand who we are and how to be happy, we have now the context of Eternity to understand our place. We are Life. We are Union. And we are a whole bunch of freaks each doing our own thing and trying to find ourselves and each other as best we can. Well, now we can. We have the truth. We have the name. With the Bern Movement, we have a base of folks already together to move our selves forward. But regardless, even should we find Clinton or Trump in the White House, our recognition transcends politics. Our peace is grounded in the clear awareness that we are always here. And so, as biological beings with self awareness living in Eternity, why would we not be peaceful? We would and we do. Some might think ‘oh how boring’, but there’s nothing further from the truth. With peace we find Life’s ongoing and constant enchantment. We find this act of being and living a biological life a gift. We find the magic of Life everywhere, which is again but truth. All good. Yet none of the above addresses what may well be the greatest benefit of peace – joy. True joy is boundless, a great stirring in the heart where we trust fully and completely. We know where we are, and it is exactly where Life intends. We know even with the horrific state of our corrupt culture that a great healing is beginning. We know we are all here together, on the great adventure of transforming our Earth. Why would we choose anything else?

Finding Our Ground

These are tumultuous times. Actually, this is fucking crazy. We’re in the wildest of times, as the inequality of an economic system that is controlled by a handful of elites who care nothing for humanity, us and our sisters and brothers, at all. They are ‘happy’ to ruin our lives and our Earth for their maniacal ends. But change, some call it revolution, is in the air. Most obviously recognized in the Sanders presidential campaign, we will not go quietly into the night any longer as the forces of a broken system try to continue their plunder. It is not to be. The simple reason it is not to be is that we are finding our ground. Together. Especially we see it among the young, millennials and those of us who may be much older, but share the ideals of integrity, justice, balance, peace and love. The seeds planted in the 1960s of peace, love, equality and environmentalism are reawakening with a vengeance. Not surprising since the times require it. With Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Fight for Fifteen and other social movements awakening in the last five years, we’re seeing a new wave of activism. Curiously, it was we boomers that generated that wave, it is now millennials, surpassing boomers as the largest age group, who hoist the banner. And leading this march is Bernie Sanders, emerging from nowhere to become a political force unmatched in a generation. We do not yet know whether this force can overcome a corrupt system, in its many forms. What we do know is that we are finding our ground. We will no longer succumb to ‘the lesser of two evils’. We will no longer allow ignorance and ideology to keep us apart. We will no longer sit passively when clearly the answer is rising up. World 5.0 is helping in this effort. Finding our ground includes knowing who and where we are, the reality of now. We clarify the power of our intent. And we focus on peace and love, that we may be happy. How this revolution moves forward is yet to be witnessed. But already we know it will not end with a convention or election. It will not end until fee people everywhere have a life of health, happiness, love and peace. Because of course they all work together.

Coming Soon

Hi, and welcome to the new World 5.0 website. If you’re new to this idea of World5, you’re in for a treat. World 5.0 cracks the code of who and where we are, and suggests ways forward that will bring you happiness. Read the book and check out the Declaration video to submerse and learn.

And Now (ahem), we have a digital home. Here you find a refreshing retreat from bullshit and ads, a place where you can contribute and express yourself quite easily through the Connect menu link above. We can now finally be heard in a supportive way.

The World 5.0 menu link breaks down the necessary priorities for us to restore our planet and create new global, local and everywhere in between cultures that affirm Life and our togetherness herein.

We intend much more with this site, primarily in creating better tools to connect with each other, but it’s clearly a beginning. The Connect button on the menu will allow you to post articles, add links and videos for starters, and see and comment on recent posts from others. Soon we’ll allow for grouping by topic and other additions to make that side of the site and functional as possible. The World 5.0 side allows you to learn about our new culture, where we appreciate that we’re all here together in Life, and we begin to understand the power of our intent. The Platform suggests transformative strategies based on Peace, Good Governance, Localism, Organic Food and Learning.

We’ll also be implementing new digital tools as quickly as we may to bring our new paradigm into being. Bernie Sanders keeps telling us of the need for a revolution. Couldn’t agree more, and World 5.0 is surely part of this revolution./p>

A Black Swan Presidential Campaign

The Black Swan theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain the disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology. The printing press is an example.

Some recent examples include:

1. The Internet.
2. The earthquake in Japan that created the Fukushima nuclear meltdown.
3. The BP Gulf of Mexico disaster.
4. 9/11.
5. The financial collapse of 2008.

While there may have been a few insiders and visionaries who saw these events coming, they were all massive, culture-shifting events that were not predicted. And while the creation, development and encompassing nature of the Internet has taken 50 years to develop, it’s clearly a Black Swan ‘event’ that was not understood when DARPA started the project in the 1960s.

2016 Election Campaign Swans

In the 2016 presidential election campaigns, the Black Swans are flying in both political parties.

Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee, and if you believe corporate media, Hillary Clinton is similarly poised.

Donald Trump is all about Donald Trump, to a point that makes his election seem catastrophic to most of us. His Black Swan overtaking of the Republican Party has astonished the right, and proven again the fits and starts of Life.

The other Black Swan is obviously Bernie Sanders. He is the other side of the Tao to Donald Trump. Bernie is bringing forth ideas for substantive change, and engaging the younger generation like no other candidate.

And the reason for his popularity is clear. It’s his authenticity, his integrity and his genuine love and compassion. His candidacy and agenda resonate with the reality of millions of us, who do not benefit like the .01%.

The future?

We have yet to learn what will happen at the conventions. But we already know change is afoot like we haven’t faced in a generation or longer. As data-driven historian Peter Turchin said,  “In the United States, 50-year instability spikes occurred around 1870, 1920 and 1970, so another could be due around 2020,” he added. Or we could be witnessing such a Black Swan election cycle this year.

Standing here staring at presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, it’s clear there are forces at work well outside what establishment Republicans assumed and prefer. With a Trump standard bearer, Republican control of both congressional bodies is now in play.

Against this backdrop, establishment Dems [and corporate media] are doing all they can to bolster Hillary Clinton’s campaign. My impression is that they don’t know which they fear more – a Trump presidency or a victorious insurgency by Bernie Sanders. Either is inherently threatening to their power structure. Yet clearly Ms. Clinton is the more vulnerable candidate with her past policies and actions. She holds no moral ground on Mr. Trump. And she does not inspire as Trump and Sanders do.

The Democratic Establishment

What the democratic establishment ignores at its peril…According to writer Bill Boyarsky, “The Sanders team is now the Democratic Party’s activist base, and without its enthusiastic participation, Donald Trump may be elected president in November.” Here we go, folks. Game on!

The inevitable march of time will bring us the final candidates and a new president. The inevitable parroting of mainstream media will keep harping their talking points with little respect for history or truth. And the inevitable nature of change assures us that Black Swan events will continue to mark turning points in our culture.

A Spring that Can’t Wait

As the corruption in our system continues unabated and the interminable Republican Primary Season continues its buffoonery of ‘solutions’ for our failing state, there is some highly unusual behavior taking place independent of either. It’s the behavior of the weather for most of the country, an unprecedented string of warm days even before Spring officially began.

All across the country cities are seeing record or near-record highs, a string lasting nearly two weeks. It’s as though Spring, 2012, can’t wait. Instead of the usual sequence of blooming flowers and trees, it’s as though everything is condensed and blooming at the same time. Very strange.

Many of us see this as another obvious example of aberrant weather due to global warming. Our use of fossil fuels continues almost unabated, as energy corporations leverage their stranglehold on our energy systems to push for more dirty oil and natural gas use. Their failure to value our planet, when it is so obviously stressed, is but one of their many crimes of corruption, legal or not.

This strange, early spring points to our federal government as well, and its failure in its basic duty to protect us from such undue corporate influence. Indeed, not only is the government hapless in the face of this climate crisis, it’s actually an accomplice to big oil in this process. Energy subsidies and tax abatements are still the norm. Our government is literally paying big oil to slowly kill us off.

But could there be more to wild weather than just global warming? More and more of us recognize that we do not inhabit a mechanical world. Life on Earth is more than a machine. It’s alive, and it’s our constant experience. We live here, in these bodies and in this experience of life. And we’re learning that life contains energies and awareness we have long ignored.

What of the emotional reprieve from this early bounty of warmth? What of the energy of so many of us able to be outside much earlier in the year than is typical? What about the cerebral curiosity from experiencing such out of whack weather? While still anecdotal data, this anomaly of record and near-record temperatures across so much of the country may portend a year of great abnormalities, and not all those related to weather.

We see a spring that can’t wait in the Occupy Movement. After a relatively quiet winter, Occupational activities are on the upswing, with the promise of a summer of political and activist actions like never before. Occupy is finding its focus and its grounding, and and the implications are yet to be understood. There are actions planned around the G8 and NATO Summits. Plans for May Day and July 4th. Plans to interject ourselves however we may into this corrupt system to clog it, and plans to extricate ourselves from this system to starve the beast.

But this fateful spring belongs to far more than Occupy and those uprising across the planet. It belongs to all of us, human and non-human members of Life on Earth. It belongs to us more than ever because we are recognizing that we belong to the Earth like never before. We are finding our connection to Earth and our kindredness to each other, even as the corporate media keep trying to pull our focus ‘off the ball’ of our Life here together in this moment.

The surge of energies being unleashed in these times is profound. It is seen in the negative energy that causes a ‘hater’ named George Zimmerman to cross the line and kill a young African American Trayvon Martin in Florida. It may be the delusional Staff Sergeant Robert Bales whose ‘too much war and too many tours’ past led him to murder 16 Afghani people. It may be the continued stridence of Israel in addressing their Palestinian neighbors, or the over-reaching of Wall Street executives even after it has become apparent that their behavior took down our economy and wrecked millions of lives. This negative energy has been at the heart of the global system for a generation.

But the greater portion of these emerging energies seem designed to heal. The local food movement, sustainable energy production, efforts to reverse the massive influence of corporations on legislators, and efforts to end the permanent war paradigm are all gaining strength. Millions of us our finding our voices like never before. We’re sharing our brotherhood and sisterhood with a new-found trust and endearing warmth. Energies of peace and love are emerging spontaneously, in spite of the resistance from the controlling powers. Energies that will no longer allow the Juggernaut of corporate power to destroy our lives and our Earth in the unholy lust for power.

Finally, there are other curiosities of our time – Spring, 2012. There is an alignment taking place this year between our sun and the galactic center. There is the Mayan prediction of the ‘end of the world’ coming before this year ends – which could mean the end of the corrupt culture we’ve all be subjected to. And there is the growing view within science that our reality is ‘holographic’ – amenable to our attention and reactive to consciousness.

This spring cannot wait because we cannot wait. Our broken system must be replaced by a system of ethics – principles like peace and love – because if we do not change, we die. This spring that cannot wait may be the very force of Life, conspiring with Sun and Earth, to bring about the end of globalization and to create a new narrative of peace and love.

Hemp for the World

There’s a lot of energy in the air these days surrounding hemp, and with good reason. Hemp was removed from our culture back in the early 20th Century when a number of laws were established that demonized hemp and marijuana. Now, as we’re learning that so much once held as true is false, it should come as no surprise that our illusions about hemp are crumbling as well.

Hemp is the common name for cannabis, the first plant cultivated by humanity as we crept from a Hunter/Gatherer culture to an Agrarian one. This were several reasons for this. First, hemp is an extremely versatile plant, with edible seeds, rich oil and strong, fibrous stalks. Second, it’s particularly easy to grow, needing little in the way of fertilizer or pest control. And finally, hemp is native to many parts of the world, so it was accessible to large segments of our ancestors.

Hemp has a strong historical influence on every continent, with varied cultural and religious traditions. It’s written about in China as early as the 5th Century BC. It was commonly breathed or smoked by various tribes in the Middle East. Many African spiritual practices involve consuming hemp smoke to enhance awareness and generate visions like the Dagga ‘cults’.

In the United States, as early as 1619 the first Virginia House of Burgesses passed an Act requiring all planters in Virginia to sow “both English and Indian” hemp on their plantations. In more modern times, hemp was a popular crop in antebellum Kentucky and other southern states. It was commonly used for a variety of products, most notably the paper on which the U.S. Constitution was written. Several of our founding fathers were hemp farmers.

All that changed when newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst decided to demonize the plant, his financial interests better served by printing his newspapers on wood pulp supplied by forests he owned in the early 20th century. Dupont’s new plastics were far more valuable in a hemp-free world as well. His nephew, Harry Anslinger, commissioned ‘Reefer Madness.’

Today, we can still follow the money. The lumber, textile and petro-chemical industries are the most influential in keeping hemp illegal. Then for pot there’s the pharmaceutical industry, the alcohol lobby and all those anti-drug agencies with self-preservation interests. We learn much from understanding these connections.

With this background, let’s consider how hemp might again play a pivotal role in our communities and culture.

With hemp, we have a low-impact, high-yield crop that can be used for a variety of purposes. The stalks and fiber can be used in composites as a wood substitute for an array of products. They can also be processed to create ethanol. This is a carbon-neutral resource, since the carbon released is but the carbon the plant ingested during its life. Durable, light-weight, and strong, it’s difficult to imagine all the uses for industrial hemp were we to focus on designing and building hemp-based products.

With hemp oil we have another energy-rich resource, which can be used in cooking, as lamp oil and as a medicinal, as its high concentration of essential fatty acids is great for the skin and overall health. Hemp seed can be used for food as well. They’re highly nutritious with a good deal of protein. Hemp has remediation properties too. It absorbs heavy metals in the soil, reducing their toxicity and harmful environmental effects. There are vast expanses of hemp in the area of the Chernobyl nuclear accident for just that reason.

Hemp can be grown successfully in nearly every state in these United States. One can imagine a culture where locally produced hemp provides a good portion of the energy, food and product needs for our communities. This approach would provide employment in both production and processing of the plant. It would also reduce the environmental damage caused by our pollutive, subsidized corn production. Re-integrating hemp into our culture is a key to the new localism.

And then there’s marijuana. The heathen devil-weed [a term coined by Hearst’s yellow press] was blamed for all sorts of bad behavior as part of the demonization process. Marijuana actually reduces aggressive behavior, unlike alcohol. The demonization and slander against the singular most influential plant in human history is but one example of the dysfunctionality of our culture.

Weed does indeed have psychotropic properties of note. Being stoned has a curious effect on the mind. Most say it tends to enhance whatever we feeling or experiencing at the time, offering a heightened experience of music or games or food [the proverbial munchies]. It is often used as a mind-quieting agent as well, as the stream of thoughts so constant to most of us becomes less pressing in a marijuana state of mind. In our fear-ridden, highly-stressed culture that alone could be of great value.

Medical marijuana is much in the news these days, being legal in a number of states, though often still prosecuted by the Feds. Its value in alleviating the worst effects of cancer treatments, chronic backache and other issues is well-documented. Imagine if our culture actually encouraged research on medical marijuana [sigh]. Not likely when the legal drug cartel called ‘the pharmaceutical industry’ has so much influence in government.

Finally, it’s worth noting that marijuana has not been placed as the medical cause in a single death in this country. Compare that with alcohol, tobacco, or the host of concoctions the pharmaceutical industry markets to us constantly. Mary Jane is decidedly benign.

Just say no to politicians and pundits who espouse the evils of hemp. They are uneducated, disingenuous or both [surprise, surprise]. Let’s say yes to re-introducing hemp into our culture, and to creating local jobs, products and health.