On The Verge Of 78

I'll be 78 years old next month.

Is it enough to become aware of yourself? Must you share all such awarenesses with others?

What's the point of memory?

No matter where I go or what I do, it's me. It's always ever me.

What's insight? Is insight different than memory?

What is acceptance of self? What do you do once you've accepted yourself? Is there anything beyond acceptance of self?

Can you reject yourself? I imagine rejecting yourself would be hell - literally.

What's conscience? If you're an old agnostic, what's conscience beyond conclusions you've drawn about what you will and won't do?

What's consciousness?

Kathy, Zoey, Zach and I all live together. We're a family. We're a family that exists solely because we choose to be a family.

This is my only family - my intimate family - my nuclear family.

Did Zoey and Zach really choose to be part of a family with Kathy and me?

Zoey and Zach are my constant companions. They're with me all the time. They're ever vigilant. Their vigilance is clearly a matter of choice.

Kathy and I own roughly 1.5 acres of land. We designed and oversaw the building of a house on it. The house is our home on our island.

We maintain our home and our island. Maintaining is a daily process. Our maintenance actions are our daily chores. Some days we have more to do than others.

I love Kathy. I love Zoey. I love Zach. I want to be with them. Wanting to be with them is love.

I believe each of us will eventually die - cease to be. I accept our finiteness. It doesn't prevent me from loving each of them.

Loving is about being in the moment. Loving is always a matter of choice - a matter of freewill.

Loving is a choice I make every moment of everyday.

Life is being in the midst of chaos. Chaos is beyond definition. Chaos is infinite. Chaos is all there is.

Life is choosing to survive every moment of everyday. Life is love.

Kathy, Zoey, Zach and I are Earthlings. Earth is the source of our lives. Earth is our Mother.

Mother is the source of ever so many lives. I have many siblings. Everything I see, hear, experience is a sibling.

Some of my siblings would end my life if they had the chance.

Mother is beyond me. I don't get to question Mother. Mother owes me nothing. I owe everything I have to Mother. I owe my being to Mother.

I don't know if Mother is conscious. I don't know if Mother knows I exist. It's truly not important.

I'm thankful. At this moment, I'm totally thankful. I love.

Love is all you need ...

Holy Moly!

It's Either The Empire Or It's Us/U.S.

I just finished Chalmers Johnson's "Dismantling The Empire". It was written in 2010 and it's more relevant now than it was then.

I'd never heard of Chalmers Johnson until a few weeks ago. Someone on Twitter recommended I read his works. She suggested I start with this book.

I will now be looking to read 3 other of his books: "Blowback"; "The Sorrows of Empire"; and "Nemesis; The Last Days of the American Republic". These books are known as "The Blowback Trilogy" despite the fact they weren't written as a trilogy.

Chalmers is to non-fiction what Aldus Huxley is to fiction. For me that's saying a mouthful - high praise indeed.

The dystopian society Chalmers is writing about is the United States. It's real. It's showing signs of wear. It's on the verge of bankruptcy. It's descending into fascism.

I can reduce this book to a simple message. That being, Imperialism and Democracy are mutually exclusive.

I believe this. It may seem obvious, but the truth of it was never as clear to me as it is now. Chalmers presents facts - powerful facts.

The United States emerged from the Cold War as the planet's only superpower. We did that by shifting our manufacturing from one supporting a peace time economy to one based upon producing military goods while politically supporting our own global military expansion.

President Eisenhower tried to warn us about this in his farewell address.

Our military bases now form a web around the planet. Building, sustaining and supporting them requires us to go into more and more debt.

We spend more on our military than any other country. In fact, we now spend more that the next nine countries spending the most on their militaries combined.

The post World War II rise of our intelligence gathering agency - the CIA - coupled with the increasing privatization of our military and intelligence gathering services has weakened our Legislative branch while strengthening our Executive branch.

By spreading our military manufacturing across our states, we have created a national workforce dependent upon manufacturing for the military.

By spreading our network of bases around the world, we have caused mortal harm to many peoples. We are reaping, and will continue to reap, "blowback" - the unintended consequences of our military expansion and aggression.

It's clear to me, as a result of reading this book, that we're headed toward economic collapse and authoritarian government - a government that has no alternative but to fail.

The title for this book is derived from the "10 Steps Toward Liquidating The Empire" that Chalmers outlines at the end of the book in Chapter 15, "Dismantling The Empire" an essay he wrote on 7/30/2009.

The book is actually a compendium of Chalmers' essays - each chapter being one essay - 15 in all.

During the 13 years since this book was published, our politicians have clearly ignored the perils Chalmers has been ever so eloquently, for ever so long, trying to warn us about.

We have clearly not heeded his message and the consequences are all too apparent now.

Chalmers died on November 20, 2010. He didn't live to see Donald Trump assume the Presidency. He didn't live to see the degree to which our people have become politically polarized. He didn't live to see the January 6th Insurrection, but he did his darndest to warn us of where we were headed.

Chalmers writings are not driven by partisan political concerns. He's uniquely apolitical. His concern is for us/U.S.

Holy Moly!

Makers And Takers

Mitt Romney, a child of privilege, divided our people into "makers" and "takers". In 2012, Mitt ran for President against Barack Obama. Mitt said this about voters who would vote for Obama, "My job is not to worry about those people."

Mitt was simply channeling our founding fathers, the framers of our Constitution, when he said this. Like Mitt, the framers were all white men who owned property.

Did you know 12 of our Presidents owned slaves? Thomas Jefferson, our 3rd President, the man who wrote "The Declaration Of Independence", owned over 300 slaves. George Washington, our very 1st President owned 317 slaves.

Mitt is a religious man. He's a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. His forefathers were polygamists. His great-grandfather had 5 wives and one of his great-great-grandfathers had 12.

When our Constitution was ratified slavery was legal, women were not allowed to vote or own property and only property owners were allowed to vote.

Our Constitution created an oligarchy. I describe an oligarchy as an aristocracy without a king. Southern slave owners were the wealthiest people in the country at the time our Constitution was ratified - they were true American oligarchs.

 

The 13 original colonies became the United States. Each state was a separate country with its own Constitution. The states were only "united" to protect themselves from invasion from foreign countries. They were afraid England might make a serious attempt to come back and put an end to their revolution.

So what has this all got to do with Heather Cox Richardson's "How The South Won The Civil War"? 

Heather is an historian, and her book is about United States history - our real history - our true history - white, male property owner (oligarch) history. 

I started out talking about Mitt Romney because Mitt is a modern-day American oligarch. He was accurate in dividing our population up into 2 classes - the wealthy ruling class and the rest of us.

Mitt just got his wires crossed as to who the "makers" and "takers" are. Mitt engaged in what Orwell described as "doublespeak".

The true "makers" are the actual people who do all the work - the workers - the vast majority of us.

The "takers" are the tiny percent of wealthy, white male "elites" who believe they are superior to the rest of us - the people who have "profited" from our labors - those who take the lion's share of everything we earn and leave us to divide up what's left - the crumbs.

The "takers" are those who want to oppress women and suppress democracy - they're against universal suffrage. The "takers" don't like minority and indigenous peoples. The "takers" want to prevent most of us from voting.

The "takers" buy politicians. They want to make sure our Constitution protects them as opposed to us.

"How The South Won The Civil War" documents how the oligarchs who wrote and ratified our Constitution have maintained power - right on through the Civil War - right on through various civil rights' movements - right on through election cycles - right on to today.

The "takers" manipulate and divide us. The "takers" turned a blind eye to violence against women and minorities in the past and they're continuing to do so today as well.

If we're not very careful, the "takers" are going to take us back to a feudal state. The "takers" are going to make us into serfs.

***

If you want to learn more about the "takers", try these books.

Holy Moly!