Resurrecting Community
What rises, what was buried, and what we must tend to.
Long before the Easter story was told, humanity was already telling it. Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of love and fertility, descended into the underworld and returned — and the world bloomed again with her. Persephone rose from the dark earth each spring and the grain rose with her. Osiris was killed, gathered back together, and restored. These are not competing stories. They are the same story, told in different tongues across thousands of years, because the human heart has always known this shape: what matters most can be lost, and its return is possible.
Community is one of those things. Not the word — the word is thriving. It appears in app download pages, mission statements, subscription upsells. “Join our community.” Community as product. Community as the warm feeling that keeps the metric moving.
That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about the older, harder, more demanding thing: the experience of being genuinely known by people who are genuinely present. The kind of community that has a smell. That argues. That feeds you when you are sick. That notices when you are absent.
We did not lose community because people stopped caring. We lost it because we built a world that makes presence expensive and absence cheap.
Community was not lost passively. It was squeezed out — by urban designs that eliminated the front porch, by economic pressures that consume every hour, by technology engineered to capture attention rather than deepen presence. These are not acts of God. They are choices. They can be made differently.
So what does resurrection actually look like? Not policy, not platforms — the small, specific, almost embarrassingly simple things.
It looks like eye contact. A real one, held a beat longer than the transaction requires, that says: I see you, not just the role you are playing. It looks like a smile offered to a stranger on a sidewalk — not performed, but meant. These tiny acts are not sentimental. They are the atoms of community, the smallest unit of acknowledgment from which everything larger is built.
It looks like knocking on the door of the elderly neighbor and asking if anything needs doing. Carrying the groceries up. Sitting for twenty minutes because she hasn’t talked to anyone today and you have twenty minutes. This is not heroism. It is the baseline of what it means to live near someone rather than merely adjacent to them.
It looks like staying. Staying at the block party past your comfort zone. Staying in the difficult conversation. Staying in the neighborhood long enough to be known. Real community is built not in grand gestures but in the accumulated weight of showing up, again and again, in ordinary time.
The spring traditions knew this. Ishtar’s return was not automatic — it was called for, celebrated, met with ritual and intention. Persephone’s emergence was not taken for granted — it was tended, honored, received. Resurrection in every tradition requires the participation of the living. Someone has to roll away the stone. Someone has to be there when what was lost comes back.
On this particular Easter Sunday, that someone is you. The invitation is not abstract. It is the neighbor whose name you almost know. The face in the elevator you have been too distracted to meet. The friend you keep meaning to call.
What has been buried can return. But not by an algorithm. Not by an app. Only by the decision, made again today, to show up — to know and be known, to stay, to tend the small things until the larger ones become possible again.
Happy Easter.
Seeds of Change
It is obvious that we need a new cultural model that better reflects reality—who we are, where we are in time, and what is happening – World 5.0.
It is no diversion to mention this here, because we can’t just fix our political system without addressing a far wider core of issues. The whole military/industrial/media/government complex is on trial. This Juggernaut has contrived to define “reality” and to tell us what we want. It sold us the stories of fear, the stories that said we should not trust. It sold us the stories that said we should not love our brethren if they look or act differently. They said they knew best. Just give them the money.
Enough! Politics may or may not be local, but survival is. It’s not just the financial markets, it’s the pattern. Food and energy costs, continued war and violence on our streets, dysfunctionality at every turn. Corruption, lies, malfeasance. Disaster capitalism. We clearly require something different. We require a new operating system.
As we establish the priority of the Totality of Now and the failure of the old systems to support us, we recognize that our three most basic requirements [beyond air and water]: food, energy and shelter, are best met on a local level.
We must literally rebuild this thing from the ground up. And that means a new-found cooperation, dedication and trust in growing our communities. We have little choice.
World 5.0 makes no claim of initiating the emerging movement toward compassion, sustainability and pluralism. As aptly described in Paul Hawken’s Blessed Unrest – How the Largest Movement in The World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, we are in the midst of an epochal transformation of human culture, and one that has been in incubation since at least the 1960s. Hawken describes the incredible development of hundreds of thousands of non-profit groups and agencies that are creating connections through networks that support their missions and by adding their voices to similarly-minded groups.
What World 5.0 does lay claim to is being the simple term that describes this new interpretation of ourselves, appreciates our reality and understands the direction we must take to enhance our awareness, rebuild our lives and restore our global ecology. Home at last.
Now there are millions of examples of the new world emerging, just as there are of the old world crumbling. It is a transmigration of energy. The long darkness of earlier world views is being expelled, and in its place a new world of peace, love, friendship and sustainability is emerging. It is long in coming, and we do not see it if we’re watching news provided by a conglomerate.
This new pattern can also be considered from the vast scope of how climate change requires a planetary response, a first in our history. It can be considered in a small American farmer who chooses to go organic, or the school teacher who embeds herself into her community, or the former drug dealer that starts a halfway house to help their neighbors and vitalize their neighborhood. It’s happening at both the macro and micro levels.
It can be seen in the energy revolution taking place, where fossil fuels and nuclear power are now seen as poor options, and renewables are creating a new pecking order. The whole idea of sustainability thinking wasn’t even on our cultural map until recently, though wiser folk throughout time have understood this on some level.
Most importantly, we’re seeing it in ourselves. We interpret the world differently than we used to. Old belief systems are breaking down. And while many of us have yet to appreciate just what this new world is, we know in our hearts we’re in the midst of something completely different from anything we have known before. It’s not difficult to see in this World4 culture, with elitism, fascism and fundamentalism running amuck, that we’re becoming kinder and more understanding of each other. The InterWeb is an external reflection of some internal coming together that we’re experiencing now.
The point is, we as a species have been waiting for this time since we climbed out of the trees, or at least since we gained higher consciousness from earlier hominoids. If that time, some 200,000 years ago, describes our human birth, these times are calling us to human adulthood. This comes on the heels of our very dangerous adolescence.
As astronomer Carl Sagan pointed out, we engendered a very dangerous time in the 20th Century with our wars and bombs and ever-more sophisticated technologies of death. At least 100 million human beings were killed in the 20th century at the hands of other humans—a trait we dare not let continue. The machinations among the ruling elite that typify the last age will clearly doom us to a nasty and brutish existence in the coming years if they are not stopped.
– from the book Home At Last by Jim Prues
The Cincinnati Southern Railway
For those not local to the Cincinnati area, you likely aren’t aware that the city of Cincinnati owns a rail line. We’ve had it since 1880, and now our politicians want to sell it off to Norfolk Southern, that wonderful corporation that brought is the disaster in East Palestine last February.
In a surprising confluence, my friend Justin Jeffre asked me about filming former mayor Dwight Tillary for remarks again the sale about a month ago. A bit later that same day Justin asked if I could also record Alfred Nippert. Alfred had such knowledge that the next day I suggested to Justin we could probably make a documentary with all we got from Alfred. He said go for it.
As it happened I was also able to film former Cincinnati councilman Kevin Flynn who also happens to be a real estate attorney. The result is this 20 minute documentary that describes the reason it came to be, construction, its evolution and why it remains a valuable asset. Lots of cool old photos and moving pictures….
This Restorative Process
Healing happens here in the present.
When humans are in conflict, things need to be sorted out. It may be a simple quarrel, or it may be a horrid crime committed. Still, the process is the same. Restoration.
Restorative Justice is the term that came into being in in the early 1990s. “Restorative justice is a fast-growing state, national, and international social movement that seeks to bring together people to address the harm caused by crime,” write Mark Umbreit and Marilyn Peterson Armour. “Restorative justice views violence, community decline, and fear-based responses as indicators of broken relationships. It offers a different response, namely the use of restorative solutions to repair the harm related to conflict, crime, and victimization.” -from wiki
A similar phenomenon occurred in school systems eager to find a better methodology than punishing and expelling students for unacceptable behavior. In this case the same process is referred to as ‘Restorative Practices’. Both terms share the same key features.
As noted above in the quote, the old methods of demonizing a bad actor are recognized as the result of broken relationships. Indeed, it is these relationships which must be healed. Whether the result of a criminal act, or someone acting out in school, the process is the same. Restoring relationships.
Typically, the process begins with a cooling off period, where offender and victim or two or more acting out are removed from contact with others until emotions become settled. Then offender and victim, or those acting out, are brought together for a conversation. Ideally the setting is a ‘Restorative Circle’.
In a Restorative Circle, those involved and one or two mediators form a circle with chairs. This is in contrast to situations where, say in a classroom, where someone is ‘in charge’ at the front of the room. The circle becomes an equalizer. All participants share in the physical circle.
Then the task is to encourage everyone to be ‘present’. From the World5 perspective, we recognize that Life happens only Now, so it is but aligning with the truth of our reality. Regardless, the point is to see the humanity in everyone who is engaged in the process, and to approach the session with a clear mind and warm heart. No name calling, no speaking over one another, no blame. Openness is key.
Once the space for healing is established and everyone is present, meaningful conversations begin. And they begin with questions. The questions are not accusatory… “Billy why did you hit Bobby?” The questions are honest efforts to understand those involved. “Billy, what were the circumstances that led you to think hitting Bobby was the best option?” “How were you feeling when the encounter occurred?” How do you think Bobby felt during the encounter?” What do you thing we might do to minimize the damage done, to each of you and your classmates, and prevent such situations from reoccurring?”
Again referring to the quote above, these are not ‘fear-based questions’. This is an honest effort at healing. An honest effort toward restoration.
Clearly not everyone and every situation is going to be in the space to leverage This Restorative Process. In severe criminal cases, it might be months or years before the space to forgive and heal exists for a victim. Yet the value of This Restorative Process is not hampered by the time required to seek restoration.
It’s quite simple when we’re paying attention. De-escalate the situation. Make sure the folks involved are able to get past the emotions of the moment. Once such a settling has occurred, we get present with each other. Hence, THIS Restorative Process. And once we’re settled and clear minded, we ask Questions That Matter. These are key because there is no attempt to punish or blame, just to understand what happened with as much clarity as possible. And then all do what is needed to heal and make amends.
This process is ground-breaking. It has the potential to transform policing, the criminal justice system, school systems, families and our very lives. I leave you with a 20 minute film that highlights Restorative Practices in the Finneytown School System, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio…
Bolivia Presents Revolutionary Socialist Program To Transform World
Bolivia’s President Luis Arce used his platform at the United Nations General Assembly to propose a revolutionary 14-point socialist program to transform the world.
“Today we find ourselves facing a wide-ranging, systemic capitalist crisis that increasingly endangers the life of humanity and the planet,” he warned.
Arce continued: “We should not only reflect on the economic, social, food, climate, energy, water, and trade crises, but also identify with clarity the origin, in order to change a system that reproduces domination, exploitation, and exclusion of the large majorities, that generates the concentration of wealth in a few hands, and that prioritizes the production and reproduction of capital over the production and reproduction of life.”
“Alongside the wide-ranging, systemic crisis of capitalism, we see the final gasp of the unipolar world,” the Bolivian leader added, warning of the dangers of war.
“But unfortunately we are seeing the gradual deterioration of the multilateral system, because of the whims of the capitalist powers that will not accept the existence of a multipolar world with a balance of power.”
Luis “Lucho” Arce represents Bolivia’s Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party. A trained socialist economist, he served as economic minister under former President Evo Morales.
Morales was overthrown in a violent coup d’etat in 2019, which was sponsored by the US government and led by far-right extremists. But after nearly a year of popular rebellion, Bolivia’s social movements defeated the coup regime, and Arce won October 2020 presidential elections in a landslide.
At the UN, Arce delivered a comprehensive 4000-word speech outlining his ambitious vision for changing the global capitalist system, with 14 concrete proposals.
1. Declare the world to be a zone of peace
Many armed conflicts are “promoted by transnational war corporations, but also by the desire to impose a political and economic order that serves the interests of capitalism,” Arce said.
He called for a concerted campaign to ensure world peace. The Bolivian leader emphasized the importance of “reaching a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine, making sure the historic rights of the state and people of Palestine are respected, and that NATO stops thinking about expansionist plans.”
2. Substitute the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction with just compensation for the poor people of the world
Nuclear weapons threaten life on the planet, Arce warned.
He proposed to “substitute military spending on the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction with a just economic compensation that the countries at the core of capitalism owe, morally and historically, to the countries of the periphery and the poor people of the world.”
3. Against the commercialization of health care, systems of universal health care
The Covid-19 pandemic “exposed the vulnerabilities and inequalities in the health systems of all of the world, as well as the global financial and economic system,” the Bolivian leader said.
He insisted that the state has an “obligation to protect and guarantee collective rights” and “reduce the effects of the world economic crisis on the most vulnerable sectors of the population.”
4. Global program of food sovereignty, in harmony with Mother Earth
World hunger is getting worse, not better, Arce warned.
In 2021, 828 million people suffered from hunger, representing 9.8% of the world population.
He proposed a program to strengthen food sovereignty by supporting small-scale agricultural producers, giving peasants and farmers all the seeds, fertilizers, technology, and financial support they need.
5. Rebuild the productive and economic capacities of the country of the periphery hurt by the logic of the unrestrained concentration of capital
The Bolivian president warned of the damage being done to the world by the inflation crisis and the rapid increase in the price of energy, fertilizers, and raw materials caused by the proxy war in Ukraine.
He called for debt relief for the Global South, maintaining, “The restructuring of the world financial architecture is vital for the relief of external debt on the global scale, so that we developing countries have the space to implement sovereign social policies from the perspective of integral and sustainable economic and social development.”
“And, as has always been a cry from the countries of the South, we must balance the trade relations that currently keep benefiting only the North,” he said.
Arce then explained how his government helped to stabilize Bolivia and recover its economy after the chaos of the US-backed far-right 2019 coup d’etat.
“Following the recovery of democracy in 2020,” he recalled, Bolivia returned to its “social, communitarian, productive economic model, a sovereign economic model in which we don’t accept and we will not accept impositions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”
Arce explained that this economic model “is based on the active role of the state in the economy, in the nationalization of our strategic natural resources, the articulation of all forms of economic organization, the strengthening of public investment, import substitution industrialization, the dynamization of the internal market, productive diversification, security with food sovereignty, redistribution of revenues, the struggle against poverty and inequalities.”
He added that this economic model is also influenced by Bolivia’s Indigenous communal traditions.
Arce boasted that this model has been so successful that Bolivia had a rate of just 1.6% inflation in August. The country has the lowest inflation rate in all of Latin America, and one of the lowest in the entire world.
“We regret that, while the countries at the core of capitalism gamble on war with large sums of money, negligible contributions are made for integral and sustainable development, for decolonization and depatriarchalization, for the eradication of poverty and economic and social inequalities,” he said.
As an example of this irresponsible behavior, Arce pointed out that, in just a few months, 20 times more financial resources have been spent on the proxy war in Ukraine than have been invested in the Green Climate Fund in a decade.
6. The climate crisis requires responsibility, solidarity, and harmony between human beings and nature, not usury
Arce warned that the climate “crisis is passing into an ecological collapse.” But he lamented that “the countries that have the means to change their patterns of production and consumption do not have the political will to do it, and those of us who have proposed ambitious goals have not received the means of implementation pledged in the [Climate] Convention and the Paris Accords.”
The Bolivian leader also pointed out that the international climate agreements that do exist do not “take into account the historic responsibilities of the developed countries, or the capacities and limitations of developing countries.”
On a sarcastic note, he added, “Perhaps the historic climate debtors want us all to worry only about the future, to avoid discussing in the present the broken promises made to developing countries about financing, technology transfers, and strengthening capacities.”
The “centuries of bad capitalist development” have done a lot of damage, Arce lamented.
“We are convinced that a future low in emissions and resilient to the climate is not possible if we keep concentrating wealth and incomes in a few hands,” he asserted. “Therefore, to reverse the climate crisis we need to resolve the economic, social, and political contradictions caused by the capitalist model, as well as those that exist between human beings and nature.”
7. The industrialization of lithium, for the benefit of the peoples and a fundamental pillar for the energy transition
Noting that Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium on the planet, Arce pledged to use those resources “with much responsibility,” “guaranteeing that its use is of benefit to humanity, as a fundamental pillar of the just global transition to a future low in emissions, respecting Mother Earth.”
“We want our lithium reserves not to follow the path of other natural resources that, on the conditions of colonialism and capitalist development, only serve to increase the wealth of a few and make the people hungry,” he said.
“In this sense, we affirm the sovereignty over our natural resources such as lithium, its industrialization, and the benefit oriented toward the well-being of the peoples, not of transnational corporations or a small privileged group, and the sovereign appropriation of the economic surplus to be redistributed, especially among the low-income population,” the Bolivian leader promised.
Citing a statement by the commander of the US military’s Southern Command (Southcom), Arce warned that South America’s “Lithium triangle,” made up of Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, “is in the sights of the United States.”
8. From nationalization to regionalization of the struggle against drug trafficking
Early in the day on September 20, a few hours before Bolivian President Arce spoke at the United Nations, Colombia’s first ever left-wing President Gustavo Petro used the General Assembly to declare that “the war on drugs has failed.”
Petro criticized the US government’s violent approach and its militarization of Latin America, as well as its internal system of racist mass incarceration of Black Americans.
When Arce took to the podium at the UN, he made similar comments.
“It remains clear that the war on drugs, principally the one unleashed by the United States, has failed,” the Bolivian leader said. “Therefore there is an imperative need that this country [the US] does a deep analysis about changing its policy, with attention to the fact that it has become one of the main consuming countries, which has resulted in the lamentable death of more than 100,000 people by overdoses and drug addictions inside of its territory.”
“We must change the focus in the approach of the struggle against drug trafficking. To keep emphasizing supply and not demand has only served as a pretext for militarization and for the waging of the international war on drugs,” Arce added. “That has affected peasants in the South, and left absolute impunity for the large criminal groups, never publicly identified, in the countries whose populations largely consume all types of drugs.”
“The international war on drugs criminalizes and leads to unilateral sanctions against countries of the South, but it shields money laundering and facilitates drug trafficking and other crimes connected to the countries of the North. It can no longer continue this way.”
Arce proposed the “regionalization” of the struggle against drug trafficking, with an “integral focus that is less militarized and more socio-economic.”
9. Strengthen international mechanisms for preferential treatment for landlocked countries
In his UN address, Arce proposed the idea that countries have a “right to the sea.”
For landlocked nations like Bolivia, “We face grave difficulties in accessing the sea and using its resources, keeping in mind that marine spaces make up zones of great potential for the development of countries, especially developing countries,” he explained.
“All countries have the right to access and utilize oceanic space and marine resources,” he argued. And to protect those habitats, “We should ensure the just distribution of rights and responsibilities with respect to marine wealth.”
10. Widen our restricted vision of human rights and democracy
“We need to widen our restricted concept of human rights and their relation with democracy,” Arce implored.
“Neither one of the two exists,” he argued, “when the preservation of the privileges of a few is done at the cost of the effective unfulfillment of the economic, social, and cultural rights of the majorities.”
As an example of how this can be done, Arce held up Bolivia’s plurinational model, which provides equal representation for the 36 Indigenous peoples that make up the country.
11. Intergenerational solidarity
The Bolivian leader also called to protect older populations who are sometimes forgotten by society.
“This vibrant and productive generation must show solidarity with those who built the first foundations of our houses,” he said.
“One cannot assure equity with future generations if we do not show equity between the present generations.”
12. Declare the decade of depatriarchalization to struggle against all forms of violence against women and girls
Arce condemned “the persistence of violence against women and girls, and in particular Indigenous women and girls who are in poverty.”
“The pandemic and the structural crises of capitalism are deteriorating the conditions of life, especially of women, of the countryside and the cities,” he said. “Those women continue confronting complex and intersectional forms of violence.”
The Bolivian government officially declared 2022 to be the “Year of the Cultural Revolution for Depatriarchalization: For a life free of violence against women,” Arce noted.
“We are advancing policies oriented not only at strengthening regulatory goalposts but also attacking the structural causes of violence, from education, strengthening economic autonomy of women, and also through cultural processes, to transform that lamentable reality, rooted in patriarchy, as the oldest system of oppression, that has a feedback loop with colonialism and capitalism.”
13. Reject unilateral sanctions
Condemning the imposition of sanctions, Arce declared, “It is inconceivable, in a world rocked by crises and the pandemic, that unilateral coercive measures are still applied with the goal of subduing governments, at the expense of people’s hunger and suffering.”
The Bolivian leader denounced the US government’s “inhuman and criminal commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, that puts at risk the lives of millions of citizens.”
“It is a crime against humanity to maintain that type of measure,” Arce said, blasting Washington for adding Cuba to its list of so-called sponsors of “terrorism.”
Every year, more than 95% of the 193 member states of the United Nations vote to oppose the unilateral US blockade on Cuba, yet Washington has maintained it for six decades.
The impunity that the United States enjoys despite these illegal forms of aggression show “how the decisions taken by the majority each year in this [General] Assembly are not fulfilled by certain countries,” Arce lamented.
14. Guarantee the full validity of the UN charter and the principle of multilateralism
“The multidirectional crisis that the planet is going through as a result of capitalist ambition, far from being overcome will get even worse if urgent measures are not taken,” Arce warned at the end of his speech.
“Only through a strengthened multilateralism will we be able to reach greater dialogue and cooperation in search of solutions to that crisis.”
The Bolivian leader affirmed that his country is waging a “revolution” that is dedicated “to overcome the current polarization of the world architecture, to overcome the capitalist order that has put us in dizzying, dangerous, and limitless race of consumerism that puts humanity and the planet at risk, and to instead build a more just, inclusive, and equitable world, for everyone.”
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.
From Corporations to Cooperatives
There’s really no need to expound on the state of our lives and our Earth in this time. The evidence is abundant and clear. We live under the rule of the global corporate state. Nation states, especially empires like the U.S., still play a large role, but the controllers are obviously the people behind global corporations, especially financial ones. We are not helpless and we can no longer tolerate this.
While stats like the relative wealth of the 1/10th of 1% compared to the rest of us can be eye opening, they do little to aid us in finding a remedy to this unconscionable situation. And these same elitists and psychopaths have no interest in the remedy.
We do not change something so substantial in isolation. We change everything. Starting with ourselves and our context about living. This Great Turning encompasses an evolutionary leap, a new way forward with a vastness we were previously unaware and incapable of.
Contrary to the old adage that ‘money is the root of all evil’, money is but a tool. At issue is the way money is managed, which is very poorly in the corporate state. These soulless institutions were designed to limit liability, and allow those behind corporations to profit unduly. By rights they should be illegal, as their intent is not the common good. It is the corporation, not money itself, that needs to be banned.
So it’s clear that corporations, since their ‘modern’ inception in 1600 where Queen Elizabeth first allowed the charter of East India Company, have sped the introduction of technology and fostered global trade. It’s equally clear that they’ve outlived whatever usefulness they may have had.
Western Europe’s centuries of colonialism were done at the behest of corporate interests, just as United States imperialism exists today to continue the dominant, controlling role corporations have in our world.
The obvious question becomes what about all the manufacturing, trade and services these corporations provide? Surely we can’t just disappear corporations!
No, we can’t. But we can, with political will, force their end by converting them to worker-owned cooperatives. How we muster such will when nation states and media are in lock step with these corporate behemoths is the real question.
Why We Need to Awaken
The Debacle of U.S. Healthcare
Well, gee, that was easy. Not.
Our ‘leaders’ spent over a year shoveling a big piece of crap together that’s supposed to bring dramatic improvement to our healthcare system. Pardon my suspicion, I haven’t read it, but I’m still convinced it’s a big turd. Why? Because the profit motive has no place in maintaining and augmenting human health. Jesus made the comment that ‘no man can serve two masters’, and these companies, literally a cartel, are uninterested in making us, the citizens of the United States, their master.
Universal Healthcare, or Medicare for All, was never seriously discussed. A public option got some modicum of discussion, but was quickly thrown under the bus. A ‘secret deal’ was negotiated with Big Pharma to keep foreign drugs illegal to purchase. The Healthcare Cartel maintains what is literally an anti-trust exemption status. And now the 30 million or so who don’t have healthcare but can likely afford it are being forced to pay the cartel or face a fine. And the other 15 or 20 million who can’t afford it? Well, they may get a new clinic in town to keep them away from emergency rooms.
This debate inevitably turns to taxation, a paying for healthcare, personally and as a country, is a huge deal. Many folks don’t care for big government, and many folks feel that healthcare is a human right. How are such dillemas resolved?
For starters, let’s stop thinking in terms of whether big or small government is better. One can easily argue either side, but we miss the greater point. It’s not so much about bigger or smaller, as it is about ROI, return on investment.
For me the massive amounts of tax money that go to keeping military bases in some 200 countries is bad for ROI. Fighting in Iraq and Afganistan is bad for ROI. Private military contractors like the Halliburton and Blackwater are bad for ROI. The classic argument for militarism, ‘keeping us safe’, is a big crock of shit [not unlike our healthcare system]. The government will always insist on finding bogeymen [formerly the Soviet Union, now Terrorism, maybe China next?] because that’s how spending trillions on war and armaments is justified. Bad ROI, and lots of dead people to go with it.
So we find, in the end, that it’s the same old story. Our government does not serve us. Our representatives represent the never-ending war machine, heartless money barons and the Healthcare Cartel. And we will continue to get crap until we throw the bums who enable such garbage out.