Tuesday, 30 April 2024
Monday, 29 April 2024
165 days: Start a business with a free-range chicken farming model.
I have a great love for chickens, being the care taker of them as a child & also owned about 100 here at the country estate. Just seeing this gives me joy.
Sunday, 28 April 2024
Saturday, 27 April 2024
Friday, 26 April 2024
Thursday, 25 April 2024
Who is Kali the Goddess?
KALI MA
KILLER HISTORY OF DEATH AND LIFE
Typed
out for Mother God by William Bond
Kali Ma – from the book by Barbara G.
Walker, “The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets”
With Comments by Guru Rasa Von Werder
"Dark Mother," the Hindu Triple Goddess of creation,
preservation, and destruction; now most commonly known in her Destroyer aspect,
squatting over her dead consort Shiva and devouring his entrails, while her
yoni sexually devours his lingam (penis). Kali is "The hungry earth, which
devours its own children and fattens on their corpses…It is in India
RASA SAYS: PLEASE NOTE THAT KALI IS
KILLING SHIVA – SHIVA THE MALE GOD. TO ME, THIS IS A VIVID AND PRECISE SYMBOL OF MALE EXTINCTION.
Kali was the basic archetypal image of the birth-and-death Mother,
simultaneously womb and tomb, giver of life and devourer of her children: the
same image portrayed in a thousand ancient religions. Even modern psychologists
face this image with uneasy acknowledgement of its power. It seems the image of
the angry, punishing, castrating Father is somehow less threatening than that
of the destructive Mother – perhaps because she symbolized the inexorable
reality of death, whereas he only postulated a problematic post-mortem
judgment.
RASA: PLEASE BEAR IN MIND AS YOU READ ALL THIS, EVERYTHING IS ATTRIBUTED TO KALI. BUT MOTHER GOD HAS A MYRIAD OF FORMS, AND YOU CAN SEE ABOUT THE SAME THING FOR ALL HER FORMS—IT’S ALL HER IN VARIOUS APPEARANCES. BUT AGAIN, WHY IS SHE SO SPECIFIC
IN THIS APPEARANCE? IT IS WITHOUT A DOUBT THE KILLING OF MALE—ALL MEN AS SHE STANDS NOT JUST ON ONE MAN OR ONE DEMON, BUT THE GOD OF ALL MEN, THE MASCULINE GOD SHIVA, NOT GIVING HIM LIFE AS SHAKTI DOES ON TOP OF HIM, BUT GIVING HIM DEATH. TAKE
NOT THAT WHEN MOTHER GOD GIVES LIFE TO SHIVA HE IS ON THE GROUND INERT. SHE GETS ON TOP OF HIM
AND BRINGS HIM LIFE . THIS, AS KALI, IS THE OPPOSITE.
Tantric worshipers of Kali thought it essential to face her Curse, the
terror of death, as willing as they accept Blessings from her beautiful,
nurturing, maternal aspect. For them, wisdom meant learning that no coin has
only one side: as death can't exist without life, so also life can't exit
without death. Kali's sages communed with her in the grisly atmosphere of the
cremation ground, to become familiar with images of death. They said: "His
Goddess, his loving Mother in time, who gives him birth and loves him in the
flesh, also destroys him in the flesh. His image of Her is incomplete if he
does not know Her as his tearer and devourer."
Few western scholars understood the profound philosophy behind the
hideous image of Kali the Destroyer. The London Museum Om or Creative Word; Kali herself was dismissed in a brief
paragraph as the wife of Shiva and "a goddess of disease."
RASA SAYS: IMBECILIC MALES AND THEIR POLITICIZED ACADEMIA, DISCREDITING ALL FROM MOTHER GOD AND WOMEN. THEY WILL DIE FOR IT.
Certainly, as the Kalika or Crone she
governed every form of death including disease; but she also ruled every form
of life.
Kali stood for Existence, which meant Becoming because all her world
was an eternal living flux from which all things rose and disappeared again, in
endless cycles. The gods, whom she bore and devoured, addressed her thus:
RASA SAYS: NOTICE SHE BORE THE GODS.
MOTHER GOD IS THE SOURCE OF MALE GODS.
Thou art the Original of all manifestations; Thou art the birthplace of
even Us; Thou knowest the whole world, yet none know Thee…Thou art both Subtle
and Gross, Manifested and Veiled, Formless, yet with form. Who can understand
thee?...It is Thou art the Supreme Primordial Kalika…Resuming after dissolution
Thine own from, dark and formless, Thou alone remainest as One ineffable and
inconceivable…though they self without beginning, multiform by the power of
Maya, thou art the Beginning of all, Creatrix, Protectress, and Destructress.
Brahman's assigned Kali's three functions to three male gods, calling
them Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Kali's archaic consort Shiva
the destroyer; but many scriptures opposed this male trinity as offensively
artificial. A prayer in the Tantrasara said: "O Mother! Cause and Mother
of the World! Thou art the One Primordial Being, Mother of innumerable
creatures, Creatrix of the very gods; even of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the
Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer! O Mother, in hymning Thy praise I purify my
speech!" The Nivana Tantra treated the claims of male gods with contempt:
RASA: TREATED MALE GODS WITH CONTEMPT.
INDEED. HER KIDS .
Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesvara [Shiva], and other gods are born of the body
of that beginningless and eternal Kalika, and at the time of dissolution they
again disappear in Her. O Devi, for this reason, so long as the living man does
not know the supreme truth in regard to Her…his desire for liberation can only
give rise to ridicule. From a part only of Kalika, the primordial Shakti,
arises Brahma, from a part of only arises Vishu, and from a part only arises
Shiva. O fair-eyed Devi, just as rivers and lakes are unable to traverse a vast
sea, so Brahma and other gods lose their separate existence on entering the
uncrossable and infinite being of Great Brahma and the other gods is nothing
but such a little water as is for a hollow made by a cow's hoof. Just as it is
impossible for a hollow made by a cow's hoof to form a notion of the
unfathomable depths of a sea, so it is impossible for Braham and other gods to
have a knowledge of the nature of Kali.
RASA: NO GOD STANDS BEFORE MOTHER GOD.
Even the arrogant Vishnu, who claimed to have brought the whole earth
out of the primal abyss, received the grace of enlightenment concerning Kali
and wrote a poem about her: "Material cause of all change, manifestation
and destruction…the whole Universe rests upon Her, rises out of Her and melts
away unto Her. From Her are crystallized the original elements and qualities
which construct the apparent worlds. She is both mother and grave…The gods
themselves are merely constructs out of Her maternal substance, which is both
consciousness and potential joy."
The Yogini Tantra said of Kali, "Whatever power anything
possesses, that is the Goddess." Shakti, "Power," was one of her
important names. Without her, neither man nor god could act at all.
RASA SAYS: AGAIN, LET US REMEMBER, THAT ALL THESE TERMS GO BACK TO “MOTHER GOD” AS WE IN THE WEST
UNDERSTAND IT. MOTHER GOD IS SHAKTI, DURGA, KALI, AND ALL OTHER NAMES, AND ALL THE QUALITIES HEREIN WORSHIPED AND EXPRESSED GO TO “MOTHER GOD.” MOTHER IS CALLED DURGA,
SHAKTI, KALI, ETC .
It is She as Power (Shakti) who takes the active and changeful part in
generation, as also in conceiving, bearing, and giving birth to the
World-Child. All this is the function of the divine, as it is of the human,
mother…It is thus to the Mother that man owes the World of Forms of Universe.
Without Her as material cause, Being cannot display itself. It is but a
corpse…primacy is given to the Mother, and it is said, "What care I for
the Father if I but be on the lap of the Mother?"
A Tantric scholar points out that "the poets have found much more
intimate cries of the heart when they spoke of the Deity as their 'Mother' than
when addressed themselves as God as Father." Kali's poets approached her
through love: "By feeling is She known. How then can lack of feeling find
Her/" In their view, "All is the Mother and She is really herself. 'Sa'ham'
(She I Am) the Sakta says, and all that he senses is She in the form in which
he perceives her. It is She who in, and as, him drinks the consecrated wine,
and She is the wine." She feeds him as a mother feeds her child, and he
becomes immortal: "Deathless are those who have fed at the breast of the
Mother of the Universe." The Yoginihrdaya Tantra says, "Obeisance to
Her who is pure Being-Consciousness-Bliss, as Power, who exists in the form of
Time and Space and all that is therein, and who is the radiant Illuminatrix in
all beings."
As a Mother, Kali was called Treasure-House of Compassion (karuna),
Giver of Life to the world, the Life of all lives. Contrary to the west's idea
of her as a purely destructive Goddess, she was the fount of every kind of
love, which flowed into the world only through her agents on earth, women. Thus
it was said a male worshipper of Kali "bows down at the feet of women,”
regarding them as his rightful teachers.
RASA SAYS: THIS LAST PARAGRAPH IS
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO WOMEN FOR THEIR MATRIARCHY AND TO MEN FOR THEIR RESTITUTION THROUGH THE WORSHIP OF MOTHER
GOD AND WOMEN.
The name Eve may have originated with Kali's Ieva or Jiva, the
primordial female principle of manifestation; she gave birth to her "first
manifested form" and called him Idam (Adam). She also bore the same title
given to Eve in the Old Testament: Mother of All Living (Jaganmata).
RASA SAYS: MOTHER GOD, THROUGH FEMALE,
GAVE BIRTH TO THE FIRST MAN THROUGH PARTHENOGENESIS. THE “OUT OF THE RIB OF ADAM ” IS A FAIRY TALE OF OLD HUSBANDS AND THEIR WISHFUL THINKING-LIES.
As the primal Deep, or menstrual Ocean of Blood at creation, Kali was
certainly the same as the biblical tehom, Tiamat, or tohu bohu, the
"flux" representing her state of formlessness between manifested
universes. As Mahanila-Sarasvati the great blue River-Goddess, she was probably
the original namesake of the River Nile . As Kundalini the Female Serpent, she resembled the
archaic Egyptian serpent-mother said to have created the world. It was said of
Kundalini that at the beginning of the universe, she starts to uncoil in
"a spiral line movement which is the movement of creation." This
spiral line was vitally important in late Palaeolithic and Neolithic religious
symbolism, representing death and rebirth as movement into the
disappearing-point of formlessness, and out of it again, to a new world of
form. Spirals therefore appeared on tombs, as one of the world's first mystical
symbols.
RASA SAYS: KUNDALINI SHAKTI IS SHAKTI,
ALSO CALLED CHITI-SHAKTI, AND REPRESENTS THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD, THE FEMININE DIVINE
SPIRIT.
Luna priests of Sinai, formerly priestesses of the Moon-goddess, called
themselves Kalu. Similar priestesses of prehistoric Ireland strait of Gibraltar Calpe , because it was considered the passage to the western
paradise of the Mother.
RASA SAYS: AHA, NOW I KNOW WHY ST. PATRICK ALWAYS BLESSES ME ON HIS DAY . I USED THE NAME KELLIE FOR MUCH OF MY LIFE , AS THE DANCER/PREACHER OF MUCH FAME , AND NAMED MY DAUGHTER KELLIE.
Indo-European languages branched from the root of Sanskrit, said to be
Kali's invention. She created the magic letters of the Sanskrit alphabet and
inscribed them on the rosary of skulls around her neck. The letters were magic
because they stood fro primordial creative energy expressed in sound – Kali's
mantras brought into being the very things whose names she spoke for the first
time, in her bold language. In short, Kali's worshippers originated the doctrine
of the logos or creative Word, which Christians later adopted and pretended it
was their own idea,
RASA SAYS: HERE IS THE EXAMPLE OF MALES
STEALING FROM WOMEN, THEN PRETENDING THEY INVENTED IT. ALL MALE RELIGIONS ORIGINATED FROM WOMEN’S TEACHINGS, INCLUDING
THE KORAN.
Kali's letters magically combined the
elements, which were previously separate as fiery-airy (male) or watery-earthy
(female) forces. The former were "cruel"; the latter
"benevolent." This distinction seemed to reflect the Tantric view of
Kali as Lady of Life and her spouse as Lord of Death.
Though called "the One," Kali was always a trinity: the same
Vigin-Mother-Crone triad established perhaps nine or ten millennia ago, giving
the Celts their triple Morrigan; the Greeks their triple Moerae and all the
other manifestations of the Threefold Goddess; the Norsemen their triple Norms;
the Romans their triple Fates and the triadic Uni (Juno); the Egyptians their
triple Mut; the Arabs their triple Moon-goddess – she was the same everywhere.
Even the Christians modeled their threefold God on her archetypal trinity.
Her three forms were manifested in many ways: in the three divisions of
the year, the three phases of the moon, the three sections of the cosmos
(heaven, earth and the underworld), the three stage of life, the three
trimesters of pregnancy, and so on. Women represented her spirit in mortal
flesh. "The Divine Mother first appears in and as Her worshipper's earthly
mother, then as his wife; thirdly as Kalika, She reveals Herself in old age, disease
and death."
Three kinds of priestesses tended her shrines: Yoginis or Shaktis, the
"Maidens"; Matri, the "Mother"; and Dakinis, the
"Skywalkers" who attended the dying, governed funerary rites and
acted as angels of death. All their counterparts in the spirit world. To this
day, Tantric Buddhism relates the three mortal forms of women to the divine
female trinity called Three Most Precious Ones.
Kali's three forms appeared in the sacred colors known as Cunas: white
for the Virgin, red for the Mother, black for the Crone, symbolizing birth,
life, death. Black was Kali's fundamental color as the Destroyer, for it meant
the formless condition she assumed between creations, when all the elements
where dissolved in her primordial substance. "As white, yellow, and other
colors all disappear in black, in the same way…all beings enter Kali."
The Black Goddess was known in Finland
RASA SAYS: CONTACT WITH SOULS IN
PURGATORY IS AN IMPORTANT FORM OF MINISTRY. I HAD IT FOR 30 YEARS, HELPED THOUSANDS OF
SOULS BY MY PRAYERS AND SUFFERINGS.
Sometimes Kali the Destroyer wore red, suggesting the blood of life
that she gave and took back: "As She devours all existence, as She chews
all things existing with Her fierce teeth, therefore a mass of blood is
imagined to be the apparel of the Queen of the Gods at the final dissolution.
The gypsies, who worshipped Kalika as a disease-causing Goddess they called
"the Aunt," clothed her in red, the proper color for gypsy funerals.
Blood was as much a part of Kali's worship as it was of the worship of
the biblical God who said blood must be poured on his altars to bring remission
of sins (Hebrew 9:22). The difference between the western God's demand for
blood and Kali's was that Jewish priests took away the meat and ate it
themselves (Numbers 18:9), whereas devotees of Kali were permitted to eat their
own offerings, as in Calcutta :
The temple serves simply as a slaughterhouse, for those performing the
sacrifice retain their animals, leaving only the head of the temple as a
symbolic gift, while the blood flows to the Goddess. For to the Goddess is due
the lifeblood of all creatures – since it is she who has bestowed it – and that
is why the beast must be slaughtered in her temple; that is why temple and
slaughterhouse are one.
This ritual is performed amid gruesome filth; in the mud compounded of
blood and earth, the heads of the animals are heaped up like trophies before
the statue of the Goddess, while those sacrificing return home for a family
banquet of the bodies of their animals. The Goddess desires only the blood of
the offerings, hence beheading is the form of sacrifice, since the blood drains
quickly from the beheaded beasts…the head signifies the whole, the total
sacrifice.
RASA SAYS: THIS HAD TO HAVE BEEN
INTRODUCED BY MEN. MOTHER GOD DOES NOT WANT US TO SACRIFICE LIVING CREATURES,
BUT WANTS US TO SACRIFICE OUR SINS; ADDICTIONS, BAD HABITS, VICES, ATTACHMENTS
TO EARTH THAT KEEP US FROM GOD. IN MATRIARCHY THEY DID NOT SLAUGHTER ANIMALS,
THEY KEPT GOATS AND SHEEP FOR MILK AND WOOL BARBARA WALKER SAYS ELSEWHERE. BUDDHA, A VERY
MATERNAL SPIRITUAL LEADER, SAID NOT TO SACRIFICE ANIMALS. THIS HAD TO BE
INVENTED BY THE MALES.
Beheading or throat-cutting were common methods of sacrificial killing
in the western world too. "Kosher" killing for Yahweh consisted, and
still consists, of draining the animal's blood, because blood was the special
food of deities. Kali demanded sacrifice of male animals only, for they were
expendable – a custom harking back to the primitive belief that males had no
part in the cycles of generation. Shiva himself, as Kali's sacrificial spouse,
commanded that female animals must never be slain at the altar.
Kali was the Ocean of Blood at the beginning and end of the world, and
ultimate destruction of the universe was prefigured by destruction of each
individual, though her karmic wheel always brought reincarnation. After death
came nothing-at-all, which Tantric sages called the third of the three states
of being; to experience it was like the experience of Dreamless Sleep. This
state was also called "the Generative Womb of All, the Beginning and End
of Beings." Kali devoured Time itself. At the end of Time, she resumed her
"dark formlessness," which appeared in all the myths of
before-creation and after-doomsday as elemental Chaos.
The mystical experience of Kali was often described as a preview of
formlessness beyond the veil of death: a psychic return to the womb, to be
united with Kali's oceanic being. Thus Ramakrishna described it:
I was suffering from excruciating pain because I had not been blessed
with a vision of the Mother…I feared that it might not be my lot to realize her
in this life. I could not bear the separation any longer; life did not seem to
be worth living. Then my eyes fell on the sword that was kept in the Mother's
temple. Determined to put an end to my life, I jumped up and seized it, when
suddenly the blessed Mother revealed herself to me…the temple and all vanished,
leaving no trace; instead there was a limitless, infinite, shining ocean of
consciousness or spirit. As far as the eye could see, its billows were rushing
towards me from all sides…to swallow me up. I was panting for breath. I was
caught in the billows and fell down senseless.
RASA SAYS: I ALSO SAW GOD AS THE INFINITE OCEAN GOLD OF LOVE. I WAS GOD, GOD WAS ME. PRIOR TO THIS I HAD HAD
THE EXPERIENCE OF DROWNING IN THE OCEAN OF GRACE
Ramakrishna revitalized the worship of the Mother, as his pupil
Vivekananda said; "It was no new truths that Ramakrishna came to preach,
though his advent brought old truths to light." Vivekananda predicted the
resurgence of the Mother into the consciousness of the world's population,
after patriarchal religions had forced her into concealment in the unconscious.
"One vision I see clear as life before me, that the ancient mother has
awakened once more, sitting on her throne rejuvenated, more glorious than ever.
Proclaim her to all the world with the voice of peace and benediction. Clearly,
this Goddess was much more that the London Museum
RASA SAYS: BRAVO TO RAMAKRISHNA AND VIVEKANANDA
5 20 14 by
Barbara G. Walker, comments Rasa Von Werder
Wednesday, 24 April 2024
Tuesday, 23 April 2024
Monday, 22 April 2024
Sunday, 21 April 2024
Saturday, 20 April 2024
Friday, 19 April 2024
Thursday, 18 April 2024
Latest Article Roundup From Ajax The Great (Pete Jackson)
By Ajax the Great (Pete Jackson)
In other words, it would be a win-win-win situation for literally everyone but the 0.01% oligarchs at the top. So why aren't we doing this yesterday? Because that would make far too much sense. To quote Buckminster Fuller:
(Originally posted on the Vive La Difference! blog)
WHY TELLING WOMEN "JUST GET MARRIED" IS THE MOST TONE-DEAF ADVICE THERE IS
An excellent article by Lyz Lenz was written recently as a rebuttal to that famous viral essay on marriage published in The Cut. Lenz points out that, contrary to what some believe, marriage is NOT a panacea, nor is it really a way for Women to opt out of capitalism. And telling Women to "just get married" as the go-to solution is utterly tone-deaf and really misses the mark by a very large margin.
The idea of "traditional" marriage as some sort of a "benevolent protectorate" for Women is really quite ironic, as under patriarchy it (like patriarchy itself) has historically been more like a protection RACKET. That is literally why the "institution of marriage" was invented in the first place, for men to control Women (and not the other way around, as men often like to claim when they think they are being clever). And while times have indeed changed, the fact remains that today's "kinder, gentler patriarchy" is still patriarchy, and can still be a trap for Women (even if it can sometimes backfire on men as well, granted). That is not to say that marriage cannot ever be repurposed by Women for their own benefit, of course. But the specious notion that it is somehow the end-all-be-all or sine qua non for everyone is woefully outdated and outmoded at best.
In other words, as Lenz says, "gilded cages are still cages". And as for it being a means of opting out of capitalism, that is also not possible as long as patriarchy and capitalism remain joined at the hip (as they have been for centuries).
Anyway, Lenz does a better job explaining it than I ever could, so be sure to read her article.
WHY WE STILL NEED A UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME (UBI) GUARANTEE FOR ALL (UPDATED RE-POST)
I have repeatedly noted before why any serious proposal for a pragmatic protopia would require some sort of unconditional Universal Basic Income (UBI) Guarantee for all. (Note that the "U" itself also stands for "Unconditional", which is VERY important.) At least as long as we still have a monetary system, of course, and it will be quite some time before money can be phased out completely. And in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdowns, and their grisly social and economic aftermath, it is more crucial now than ever before, and will be for quite some time as well.
To wit:
- First and foremost, "It's payback time for Women". Recently, a Woman named Judith Shulevitz wrote an op-ed titled thusly, arguing in favor of a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all. Her feminist argument for a UBI, which I agree 100% with, was that such a thing would provide long-overdue compensation for Women's unpaid work (i.e. housework and caregiving) that society currently takes for granted and considers a "free resource" for the taking. As the saying goes, there are two kinds of work that Women do: underpaid, and unpaid. While that is true for some men as well, it is overwhelmingly true for Women. Thus, her argument makes a great deal of sense overall, and I agree. It is indeed LONG overdue. And it applies a fortiori now in light of the fact that Women got the worst deal of all from the lockdown-induced job losses, the often triple burden for Mothers at home, the gnawing forced isolation from the support system of other Women, and the increased exposure to domestic violence during lockdown. And they are still continuing (and will continue) to suffer from the aftermath long after the lockdowns are behind us. Lockdown is patriarchy on crack, basically.
- Men are becoming increasingly redundant in the long run due to technology, globalization, and the overall ascendancy of Women. When men are no longer artificially propped up, they will fall--and the bigger they are, the harder they fall. And this will only increase in the near future. This is a potential ticking time-bomb that must be defused sooner rather than later. Men become extremely dangerous creatures under either of two conditions: 1) when they have too much power relative to Women, and/or 2) when they are desperate for money. Ever see the 1996 film Fargo? Indeed, a Universal Basic Income is one of the best ways to tackle the second one. Again, it only applies a fortiori now.
- A UBI is far more efficient in theory and practice than much of what currently passes for a social safety net these days, and would have far less bureaucracy. No means tests, no discrimination, no playing God. It's simply a basic human right, period. And it would be far less costly in the long run.
- As Buckminster Fuller famously noted, there are more than enough resources for everyone to live like a millionaire with today's technology. And he said this back in the 1970s, mind you. And the specious notion that everybody and their mother must "work for a living" is not only outdated, but is also seriously classist, ableist, and ageist, and by extension indirectly sexist and racist as well. The fact that human beings, unlike literally every other species on Earth, somehow must PAY to merely LIVE on the planet on which they were born is now totally contrived and socially constructed, and is in fact an egregious Crime Against Nature.
- Poverty is a razor-sharp, double-edged sword, spiritually speaking. Being attached to riches is clearly counter to spirituality, but then again, so is being attached to poverty. Either way, it's the *attachment* that is the problem. And poverty today is largely if not entirely man-made via artificial scarcity.
- We would all be better off on balance, spiritually and otherwise, if material poverty were eradicated--and a UBI is the most efficient way to do so. As William Bond (and others) noted, with today's technology that is certainly doable, but for the greed of the oligarchs at the top who control the system. And that in turn is a result of patriarchy, given how men tend to see war and scarcity as inevitable, so they create a self-fulfilling prophecy as a result.
- With an unconditional UBI instead of means testing or other conditions, gone will be the perverse incentives that exist under the current system that trap too many people in poverty today.
- Negative liberty and positive liberty are NOT opposites, but rather two sides of the same coin. Indeed, one cannot be truly free if one is systematically denied the basic necessities of life. And truly no one is free when others are oppressed in any way.
- Inequality, at least when it is as extreme as it is today, is profoundly toxic to society and makes the looming problems/crises of climate change and ecological overshoot that much more difficult to solve. This is over and above the effects of poverty alone. And a UBI can dramatically reduce both socio-economic inequality as well as absolute material poverty. (And when funded by an Alaska-style tax on fossil fuels, it can also double as a Steve Stoft or James Hansen-style carbon tax-and-dividend as well.)
- We consume and waste a ludicrous amount of (mostly fossil-fuel) energy in the so-called "developed" world, and much of that wasteful consumption can be curtailed simply by making it so no one has to "work for a living" unless one really wants to. Just think of all the energy spent (and commuting to and from) unnecessary work at a job you hate, to buy stuff you don't need, to impress people you don't even like. A UBI could thus greatly reduce our carbon and overall ecological footprint in the long run.
- And finally, one should keep in mind that, as Carol Brouillet has noted, the literal and original meaning of the word "community" is "free sharing of gifts". What we currently have now under patriarchy/kyriarchy is more of a pseudo-community in that regard. And that needs to change. Yesterday. The exchange economy of capitalist patriarchy has failed us, and we need to rediscover and re-create the gift economy in its place. A UBI will make the transition much smoother and more peaceful that it would otherwise be. (Some ultra-purist radfems may disagree of course, but they are in the minority even among the radical feminist community.)
Perhaps Bucky's other prediction, that Women would take over the world, is a prerequisite for his vision to be fulfilled? Honestly, it can't happen soon enough!
In other words, it would be a win-win-win situation for literally everyone but the 0.01% oligarchs at the top. So why aren't we doing this yesterday? Because that would make far too much sense. To quote Buckminster Fuller:
We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.In fact, one could argue that two of the most toxic, outdated, and specious ideas ever conceived by the patriarchy (aside from the central doctrine of male supremacy itself and the entire "dominator" model, of course) are that "everybody and their mother must work for a living" and that "everybody must procreate." And both are now literally KILLING this very planet that gives us life. Thus, on balance, a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all is a good idea regardless. Again, it's a win-win-win situation for everyone but the oligarchs. And the only real arguments against it are paternalistic and/or sadistic ones, which really means there are no good arguments against it in a free and civilized society.
(See also the TSAP's Q&A page, "Why UBI".)
Of course, for UBI to work properly, it would have to be totally unconditional with NO strings attached, period. The Davos gang's (per)version of same, in contrast, will have plenty of strings attached, and will likely utilize Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) instead of cash, and tied to CCP-style "social credit scoring", and a critical mass of people will fall for it absent any alternative, so we need to beat them to it with a genuine cash UBI with no strings attached BEFORE they do it. They will NOT own us, and they will NOT be happy!
So what are we waiting for? Let the planetary healing begin!
(Mic drop)
WHY THE WHO PANDEMIC TREATY NEEDS SERIOUS REVISION BEFORE IT CAN BE SIGNED
(Originally posted on the True Spirit of America Party blog)
(Updated from the 2023 version)
The current draft of the WHO pandemic treaty is very close to being finalized now. And while the "fact checkers" vociferously deny that the treaty will sign over America's hard-won national sovereignty to the WHO in the event of a future global health emergency, there is still good reason for all nations, and especially the USA, to refuse to sign, ratify, OR accede to it until serious revisions are made.
First, the constitutionally questionable practice of it possibly even going into effect without the Senate's "advice and consent" (as is typically required to ratify international treaties), let alone the utterly specious notion that treaties can even supersede the Constitution itself, is enough to give anyone a severe case of the heebie-jeebies, or at least any serious student of history that gives a crap about the Constitution. That alone is bad enough.
But the most important problem of all, is what the treaty, by omission, does NOT require of its signatories. The following is what we believe any such treaty absolutely MUST require explicitly, in light of the three year "free" trial of authoritarianism (and often totalitarianism) from 2020-2023:
To be prohibited in any circumstances:
- All lockdowns, in theory or practice, must be strictly prohibited.
- All mask mandates outside of a healthcare setting must be strictly prohibited.
- All forced business closures must be strictly prohibited unless fully compensated by, and entirely at the expense of, whatever government imposed such closures.
- All forced school closures lasting more than ten (10) consecutive school days must be strictly prohibited.
- All vaccine mandates, passports or coercion, in theory or practice, must be strictly prohibited for any vaccine that 1) has been on the market for less than ten (10) years and/or 2) has not been conclusively proven to be truly safe and effective.
- Launching or marketing any sort of vaccine, or anything that identifies as such, without the proper safety and effectiveness testing and/or without following GMP, shall be strictly prohibited.
- Any attempt to censor alternative viewpoints shall be strictly prohibited.
- Any attempt to officially deny or censor a known effective treatment or prophylaxis shall be strictly prohibited.
- Any attempt to abolish cash shall be strictly prohibited.
- Social credit scoring shall be strictly prohibited.
- Microchipping by force or coercion of any kind shall be strictly prohibited.
To be strongly discouraged overall:
- Blanket mask mandates in healthcare settings shall be strongly discouraged.
- School closures of any kind shall be strongly discouraged.
- Business closures of any kind shall be strongly discouraged.
- Vaccine mandates, passports, or coercion of any kind shall be strongly discouraged regardless of the vaccine or how supposedly safe it is.
- Mandatory quarantine of exposed individuals without symptoms shall be strongly discouraged for any disease for which the body of research evidence does not support (i.e. influenza and coronaviruses).
- Gathering restrictions or any other restrictions on freedom of association shall be strongly discouraged.
- Travel bans and restrictions shall be strongly discouraged.
- Mass testing with PCR shall be strongly discouraged in most circumstances.
- Central bank digital currency (CBDC) shall be strongly discouraged (and shall be prohibited if it replaces cash entirely).
- Digital ID shall be strongly discouraged.
To be encouraged:
- Informed consent
- Bodily autonomy
- Human rights
- Civil rights and liberties
- Free speech
- Public health (as it was originally founded)
- Early treatment and prophylaxis
- Nutrition
- Holistic view of health
- National sovereignty
Definitions:
- "Lockdown" shall be defined as any mandatory "stay home", "shelter in place", or equivalent order lasting more than 24 consecutive hours, for all or part of the population, for any reason. Any nighttime curfew order lasting more than three (3) consecutive nights would also meet this definition as well. These must be off the table.
- "Mask mandate" shall be defined as any attempt to force or coerce anyone to cover all or any part of one's face for the purposes of disease control, or any penalties for not complying for same.
- "Vaccine mandate" shall be defined as any attempt to force or coerce any person to receive anything that identifies as a vaccine.
- "Vaccine passport" shall be defined as any identifier bestowed on a person that gives certain privileges conditional on having received anything that identifies as a vaccine.
- All other definitions have their usual meaning, and apply in theory or practice.
That should be the FLOOR for any such treaty, NOT the ceiling, as even that may be too much leeway. Then, and ONLY then, should the USA agree to any sort of WHO pandemic treaty, ever.
If there was ever a hill to die on, this is it. Because once that Rubicon is crossed, there is NO going back.
(Mic drop)
Wednesday, 17 April 2024
Monday, 15 April 2024
Sunday, 14 April 2024
Keeping A Grocery Store Lobster As A Pet
This is all the videos on Leon the pet Lobster - I shared the first 2, now on the 3rd he gets a new big tank. All kinds of adventures, it's fascinating!