Bill WeissAlexander Neave, If Corporations and their wealthy owners treated workers fairly and shared the earnings in the model of true capitalism, unions would never have been necessary.
Unions are the only way to protect workers against corporate greed.
Reply:
Alexander Neave@Bill Weiss If Governments acted in accordance to their constitutive responsibilities, there would be equally no need for unions. Unions like any other socialist mechanism or political party, become prominent in a society when the elected government fails to protect the rights and liberties of all its citizens. The number one form of racism that has never been addressed by any modern society is the exploitation of the poor. We will make concessions for them, provide sustenance for them, and through these vehicles a marginal sum do achieve elevated status in a society. But like Freud’s psycho-analytic pioneering steps into recovery, we make the mistake of treating the successes of the therapeutic steps as cure, and not as they should be as steps to recovery not the recovery its-self.
Unions are not milestones to the balance of a society, they are symptoms of its dysfunction. They are as prone to exploitation as any other enterprise, and just as Al Capone capitalized on prohibition so have the majority of Unions profited on their role as proxy for the working man.
Jefferson wrote: “I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.” And before the peanut gallery chimes in and opines that he should have practiced what he preached. The truth is; it is, more honorable and more profitable to set a good example, than to follow a bad one. Any one reading this can institute change, by simply not following the status quo. A society led by empowered individuals will succeed in changing the status quo. But a society that follows a leaders ideology expecting change to occur will only reinvent the status quo under a different banner and eventually an equally burdensome oppression. Jefferson also wrote and is most famous for his quote:
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Even in the police state that we have allowed to be built up against us, The two greatest weapons still exist for us to exact change. Our voice, which has never been, in the history of mankind, able to reach as many ears. And our purses that as we speak, salivating Wall street financier’s who have hired the elite and top rank-in-file psychologists and marketers to reach in and empty them and shackle the draw strings, will acquiesce and humble themselves if we as a people will motion to draw them closed. With out a drop of blood being shed, the tree can be refreshed. If you would commit this year to regain your individuality, and stand united in your own conviction for change, change will come. Not collectively seeking change, but independently exercising your right as a free individual collectively, empowered and united by your oneness in spirit. “NO DUES REQUIRED”
The soldiers die, the children on both shores cry. But no one ever asks why? Why in 10,000 years, we have repeated the same scenario over and over again, for the same motives, with the same results, in an endless ebb and flow cacophonous discord of rhyme and reason. The one’s that return will never forget, the one’s that send them don’t remember and the one’s like me just sit here and ask WHY
I’m dead set against war, and won’t pick up arms against another for any reason. However I love all these men and women who fight for my right to protest!! I think we need to go back to the times when the powers to be were on the front lines with our babies, not hiding behind thick walls and red bullshit tape. Bring our men and women home!
To those who are serving, have served, and want to ser…ve. Thank you for allowing me to be me, and fighting for my right to do so. Top left and a bow from the hip to all my heroes.
Mel Shelly, Tim Carr, Kelly Casselman-Carr it is my greatest honour to have heroes like you in my life. Blessed Be and Namaste. My love flows to you on the whispering wings of the wind. Mel my brother thank you. I love and miss you so much. You have been, and always will be my biggest hero!!
So if you have military friends, family, or even enemies. Send them love, and let them know we appreciate their bravery so we can…See more
I heard of the passing of Christopher Hitchens today. The fundamentalist religious community will be a-buzz with the usual vernacular of that culture of dysfunction. I personally can’t say much about the man. He was, as his genre of individual commonly are; a concisely opinionated master of whit, caustic against things he was opposed to, arrogant and condescending to those that opposed him, like Dawkins, and has arrived at the end of his journey, like we all will. The nonsense of religion safely behind him, and what ever lays before him, well that is why they call it the great beyond. Because what lies there is beyond our reach, until we join him that is. RIP Mr. Hitchins
From wikipedia:
Hitchens described himself as an antitheist and a believer in the philosophical values of the Enlightenment. Hitchens said that a person “could be an atheist and wish that belief in god were correct,” but that “an antitheist, a term I’m trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there’s no evidence for such an assertion.”[14] He argued that the concept of god or a supreme being is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom, and that free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization. He wrote at length on atheism and the nature of religion in his 2007 book God Is Not Great.
This is pretty impressive - I know that some of you might be quite opinionated about statistics but seriously, it makes sense and it’s really interesting! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY
Fantastic video on the progression of information technology, researched by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman, remixed By the way, I did not create …
Response:
The greatest piece of advice I was given on statistics was as true then as it is today. “Statistics are an aid to an already structured argument, it should never be used as the support for the argument. For arguments structured by statisti…cs alone usually falter under the minimalist scrutiny.” Did you notice in all these grand assertions, projections and decimal jostling, no mention of the fact that of those 365 babies born during the course of the video, 360 will be born into abject poverty. The redundancy at which technology is outdated is purposely deliberated or precipitated to fuel markets and manufacturing. Did they have a statistic for how much waste will be generated this year, through transient technology, did they mention how much debt will be incurred this year through disposable education. and did they project what it will cost in five years to access this new nirvana of technology . nah what ever we charge, they will pay shine a bobble they oooooh play a sound and they will ahhhhh…. Smarter really? Shakespeare with his 5000 words could write of things grand and small , could expound “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” and would not need a three page disclaimer attached to it. Yes yes all this buzzing of technology….
Dec
15th
Thu
via Bonnie Jean-Louis, MPP Néo-démocrate 2011(Remove)
I think “Management” is one of those cloistering feel good words used to wrap the truth which is “Dependancy” [ Indian: self sufficient farmer/hunter/gatherer noble spirit, peaceful cohabitant of the land. Meets oppressive rule of foreign invaders.] Treaties are implied not made, land and resources are expropriated. First level of interference (lets use your nice word) “Management” If we can just get them to think like us act like us eventually they will be “integrated” (another one of those feel good words for western style ethnic cleansing) like us.
Then after years of meddling, segregated, pillaging of both dignity and offspring, a herded broken spirit is offered parcels of land to hopefully die-out on. And enter the second wave of tyranny (management) the psuedo-iroquois white-greed-indoctrinated ruler-ship known as the tribal council, funded by the great open purse strings of the federal government. And over the years, as every festering bureaucratic bungling has attested to, the bloat at the top has strangled the resources needed to keep the charade sanitized for the public eye.
And now enter the lawyers parading the tap poured statistical spewage… (You know; this has to look good so I’ll use tap A, or this has to look bad so I’ll use tap B, but under the cabinet there is just a Y connector with a directional valve) If Harper has all this money earmarked for prisons, he should at least afford these inmates the same level of creature comfort as he does other federal prisoners, and use that money to build proper facilities for these inmates. If we want to talk resolution, you don’t want, or ever would be allowed to open that can of worms, it layered under so many pork fed bureaucrats and mafia styled skim operations you would never even get close.
Sweet mocha mama was belting out Janis this morning while making the rounds of the social media venues she subscribes to, across the room I sat doing pretty much the same, (making the rounds that is). Janis Joplin, what a tragic yet typical tale of woe, tragic because to die so young and not feel the inklings of resolve that wait for those that hold out for the final curtain, rightly ordered, age is the salve to appease our haunted souls. Typical because on our obtuse revolving orb its occuring albeit sans-celeb on a daily basis.
That menacing progenitor of all we envision ourselves to be. The Ego. erroneously ordering the chaos which is our lives, happily, willingly and on occasion forcefully stepping up to champion the task on our behalf. Our Ego. How many would delegate this role willingly if they knew the Ego’s prime directive was to die as quickly and efficiently as possible? To die, for the Ego is victory, to die is the culmination of all its efforts successfully implemented to perfection. Scary isn’t it! But true.
Who is this veritable enigma to all who muse on its definitive reality? Is it the age old serpent of Genesis 3:1? Yes. That which the Greeks refereed to as Daemon? Yes. In Christianity, the self we must willingly lay down to obtain eternal life? Yes. Actually it is the play-toy of every ponderer, philosopher, writer, ad-nauseum up-to and including the current malaise of dysfunction we know of today as the field of psychology. Psychology an entire field of science devoted to an illusive entity that is as unique as each individual, and yet, as common as the human race itself.
Volumes could be written on its (the ego) chaotic role in the eb and flow of evolutionary man, but for know I would like to digress and return to the sad and unfortunate example of Janis Joplin. From a biographical account Janis was as typical as they come, typical that is,when it comes to the percentile that formulates most of the artists, musicians ,writers history records and the millenniums shroud in obscurity. In my journey through the footage available through the awesome vehicle of archival wizardry better know as Youtube, you could see the hallmarks of a ego-run-a -muck efficiently at work in Janis’s life. And I encourage you to check them out (see the links attached to this blog) What is particularly sad is that this immense talent was so short lived. The Ego at this point will be quick to point out that “It was exactly this tortured existance that created the passion that would become the music” But the truth is the talent of the artist created the music, the tortured existance? a craftily devised subliminal reflection of a juxtaposed duet being sung by dueling ego’s, yours and hers.
You truly are a cruel man, you who would take our rightful and justifiably earned suffering away, decries the Ego! Weep not for the awakened but for those that still sleep. There is an interesting exchange that goes on in Christian literature between Jesus and Satan in this triune volley the exchange begins Matthew 4:1-11 (1) In the formless expanse of our consciousness (desert) the ego often antagonistically challenges us with the postulation:”If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” (basically the ego is asserting) If there is anyone else running this show, then by all means let him (figuratively) take over. Well! I’m waiting… Against such a landscape, and in absence of the awareness of your true nature, you can but only succeed the throne to its rightful owner (The Ego) Wherein the awakened would simply respond: “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” In life there is no road-map, There is a beginning and an End, and in between there is you! That is not cruelty nor ambiguity but truth. A fresh canvas set upon a hill for you to paint your impression of the experience. Where ever that journey takes you through what ever sufferings tribulations, jubilation’s and triumphs nothing is ordered by you but merely recorded by you. The Ego would have you paint a much different picture. It would replace your brush with a weapon and pit you against the world, and fetter you with its weight, and against such darkness how could your meager light withstand? The next time you walk into a star lit night find the tiniest obscure star in the sky behind that faint glimmer hundred’s of light years away rests a giant of enormous potential, you are that giant. Far greater than the ego would have you believe. Janis could convey that in her ability and talent, but could not un-throne the beast.
(2) In our triune exchange we find Satan with the taunt: [Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. {6} “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”] How easy does the Ego cry fowl when the crystal palace it creates gets cracked obscured or comes crashing down. And as if anywhere, by any standard at anytime it was decreed that a life equals this and anything less is injustice. Jesus responded though it is written: “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Life, for all its unpredictability, hardship, seeming injustice, and ecologic harshness is life. The illusions fabricated over the millenia to placate these seeming injustices are the illusion. The illumination and elevation of consciousness is attained when we no longer harbor these illusions.
And finally (3) Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. {9} “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” History well records the Bacchanalian excesses of the roman era, the bourgeois extravagances prior to the french revolution, and the frenzy of illusioned wealth in the nineteen twenties, just to name a few. The abandoning of self and the supplanting of self interest has more than amply demonstrated the result of self will run riot. Never in the history of man has that been so evident as in today’s society. Why? “All this I will give you, if you will bow down and worship me” The sad reality is; it was already yours all that was asked of you was to seek first the wisdom to appreciate it, the benevolence to administrate it wisely and the willingness to understand its temporal existance and nature. Jesus responded: Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” {11} Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. Satan has indeed placed the ultimate barrier in the minds of modern man. For the modern man demands “Show me, give me, prove to me, and I shall believe.” wherein the truth of illumination comes when you indeed seek first the kingdom, accept first, on faith the truth, then all else shall be added unto you.
Matth 6:32-34 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day [is] the evil thereof.
Now Christianity does not hold exclusive rights to this ideology. One of my favorite Sufi parables is about a wealthy king, who on a summer evening decided to go for a walk through the local streets of his city. He happened upon a young naked boy playing in an alley-way. as he approached the young boy he noticed he had arranged many stones in a circle. Inquisitively he asked the young boy what they represented, he replied these are my subjects and I am their King. The King taken with benevolent humility took off his royal cloak offered it to the young boy saying “Then such a fine King should have a fine robe. No sir, was the boys response “For then I shall not be king”. Seek first the kingdom of heaven… and where is it found? … Within.
I have loved Janis Joplin since my musical interests first surfaced. Listened to her pound out countless soul intoxicating melodies, I will never tire of. I just wish I could have seen her grow gracefully over the ages, as I have seen so many other pop icons grow. But the Ego is a formidable opponent, we will most likely never meet an individual who has the capacity to manipulate us, the way our Ego’s can and do. If there ever was a challenge presented an individual, especially in today climate, mastery of the ego has to be top of the list. But it is a soul journey, one that can not be approached in a laissez faire fashion. Nor can it be fast tracked or skimmed over. The apostle Paul quoted from Philippians 2:12 stated
Php 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Now to those that have issues with the concept of God, or reference to the bible as a form of legitimate discourse in human evolution, I would say to you address the issues you have with rightly ordering the place of Ego in your lives, and you will then find that your tolerance for scriptural associations will expand dramatically, as will it in many other facets of your life.
When individuals learn to manage themselves (and there are many selves to us), when they do this, even in this basic fundamental step, a life altering mechanism is set in place. When the Ego is dismantled into the sum of its parts, we empower ourselves for greatness. We acknowledge our state of mind, and then we choose to alter it. We are no longer at the mercy of our emotional states, we are the manager of them. Certainly not perfect, always a work in progress, but an individual engaged in the activity of evolutionary growth, not a simply a twig on the evolutionary tree being tossed to and fro by the winds of emotion, at the whim of the Ego. That is the challenge, the reward the kingdom laid before you. Not the emperor presenting his new clothes, But the little child in no need of them.
Thank you for listening and God bless you Janis where ever you are playing now.
I rarely send messages like this but I thought it was too important not to share.
I’m very concerned about how universal health care could be affected by a Conservative win on May 2.
Regardless of your politics and mine, quality accessible health care is something we all value and depend on.
In those moments when a loved one gets sick. Or has to be rushed to hospital. We just want to know we’re getting the best care possible.
In that moment, we have to put our trust in a health system we have built together. A system that is only as strong as the values of the government and leader we elect to protect it.
I am scared that in a few years, if the Conservatives get their way, when you walk into an emergency room in Canada you’ll have to pull out your credit card.
That’s not an exaggeration. Here are the facts.
Harper hasn’t spent a cent on health care that wasn’t already committed by a Liberal government. And now he says he’ll cut $11 billion in government services but won’t say on what.
Stephen Harper has refused to meet with the provinces on health care, because he says the Federal government should play no role in protecting and improving the health care system.
During the Leaders’ Debate on April 12, 2011, Stephen Harper said “we’re not going to wave the finger at provinces because they experiment with different delivery.”
And he has said on the record in the House of Commons that he is open to “private, for profit” health care in Canada.
I know this election may seem like one of too many we’ve had in the last few years. But it is the prime minister we elect on May 2 who will negotiate the next health accord in 2014.
Michael Ignatieff was first to commit to continue the 6 percent funding escalator on health transfers to the provinces, and has said he’d bring First Ministers together within 60 days of forming a government to begin work on a new funding agreement for health care.
My mind is made up. I’m voting to protect health care.
That’s why I’m calling on you to please vote Liberal on May 2, and support the only Party that can form a government which will protect universal health care for future generations.
Yours,
MrVisions
Dec
28th
Tue
The Grand Barn clothing optional camping and recreation,your ultimate freedom destination. (mirror) http://ping.fm/Xfqsw
Well Fantino managed to squeak in, I would not call it a victory over the Liberals at only 31% voter turnout, no vote rigging was necessary, He basically stole it. Funny how these things transpire. sort of how the Harperian dynasty squeaked in, and the Bush empire squeaked in. Harper will be elated, what with the all the intel Fantino must have from all those years of wiretaps and surveillance. The thing about the organised crime that is now federal politics, is once you have been the head of your own family, and tasted that respect that comes with the turf. It’s hard if not impossible to become just another cappo in another family, especially in a family that when the Don Harper speaks you act or get whacked. This should prove entertaining, if next year Canadians are still lulled into complacency by one too many conservative cannoli’s, and not kick this menace to the curb. 31% Canada pretty pathetic.
I had posted this to CTV’s comment section, but they did not approve it, they seldom do.
Oct
5th
Tue
A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan . One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a member of the ACLU. One day the professor shocked the class when he came in he looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, ‘God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes.’ The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, ‘Here I am God. I’m still waiting.’ It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him, knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold! The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked, stunned, and sat there looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, ‘What the heck is the matter with you? Why did you do that?’ The Marine calmly replied, ‘God was too busy today protecting American soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot. So, He sent me.’
