I’ve been thinking the same thing for weeks, months even - UKRAINE WILL WIN THIS WAR. The question is only how fast. The fight they have put up is extraordinary, and watching explosions caused by UKRAINIAN MADE missiles- idk what kind but big ones! That was awesome.
Anyway I have been working on the connection between community, story and belonging for a long time, and I’m posting about it soon (I hope), and I think a big change we could make easily and used to do it naturally - simply look each person you interact with every day in the eye. Say hello. We are not colors on a graph or words on a page. Jesus came to save souls but he healed bodies! We are humans and we need and deserve to at least be seen.
Laurie, so interesting you’d mention that about looking each person in the eye, saying hello… making a genuine connection with another soul. Over the past year I have found myself doing the same, for the same reasons, and added a bunch of times: ‘give me your hand, I need to feel the warmth of another human’ or words like that. Well it’s amazing. Once it was a Pepsi delivery guy waiting around for something and I was walking by and we had a little chat. When it was time to go I said give me your hand, man, because I really enjoyed this. And we joined hands and he looked at me and smiled so naturally. It was such a cheap & easy & enjoyable thing to do and it revived me all the day long. Pretty sure it had some affect on him, too. That was several weeks ago but you know what? I can still see his face and hear his voice.
This is the deep-seated longing for all of humanity. And, BTW, what I just wrote was redundant because the word "humanity" is simply, but profoundly, the contraction of two words: "human" and "unity." We are all connected. It is our fears and anxiety about vulnerability that dissuades us from seeing this. But when it occurs, it plays a melody, no... actually a symphony in our hearts. And this interconnectivity is not simply between humans but between all life forms, and even what is called abiotic life. This is the theory of everything. This is the philosophy espoused by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
I have felt this since childhood. My going into medicine was directed by this innermost calling. Early on, I called this Communication & Balance (CNB). I wrote about this some years ago and presented it at medical conferences on prostate cancer:
"All of life (biotic and abiotic), at every level, is directed towards unity or oneness. The common pathway biological interactions use to achieve this end-point is communication and balance (C&B).
"Communication and balance (C&B), by its very nature, evokes integrity and at-one-ness. This is the symphony that biological systems strive to attain. This symphonic drive is seen throughout the entire range of bioforms.
• When this balance and communication are achieved at the molecular level, we are in state of "health".
• When reached at an individual level, we call this "love".
• At a societal level, C&B is reflected in the word "community".
• At a global level, communication and balance manifests itself as world peace. "
• Lastly, at a universal level, this is "nirvana".
I just met the most upbeat man this morning at the city pool. He simply glowed with friendliness and yet he was as sane and cognizant as the Pope. I was in awe of his beaming personality and had a short chat with him and now here I am hours later thinking about this young man and his gratitude and energy for life. Some people have a way with the world and this young man is on his way —-or maybe he is already there—to something purposeful and righteous. It’s contagious and human and kind all wrapped up into a beautiful person and mind.
Yes, exactly, the "individualism" we have been sold is an aberration, created by the greedy, to avoid paying their fair share. We NEED each other, and yeah, it starts with simple human kindness, I cannot even begin to descrobe how over the American, "I got mine, and fuck everyone else" attitude, the "what's in it for me" thing this place seems SO full of. Everybody's got an agenda, or appears to believe everyone else does, the commodification of every last thing, how about simply because, it's the right thing to do? We used to know what that was, somewhere along the way we lost that, and everything became about profit.
This world desperately needs a paradigm shift, from capitalism, from patriarchy, from greed, and "property" over people, from all of it. I genuinely felt like we were on the cusp of a global epiphany, that first few weeks of covid, remember that? When everything shut down, all at once, animals felt it, deer were coming out of the forest and lying down in the road, pandas were mating, sea turtles laying eggs for the first time in years, the world's "temperature" went down, you could see the skies over Dubai, and California, etc? Unfortunately, donny dumbfuck was in the WH, and shit went backwards, but it truly felt as though the epiphany was right around the corner, I think about that a lot....
Also, let's not get misty eyed. There was a LOT of division during Covid. People going mental on the bus because someone wasn't wearing a mask. People going off on one because someone took all the loo paper in the supermarket. In NZ they were implementing vaccine passports - "Ihre Papiere, bitte" - we couldn't order a coffee without 4 pointless vaccines. Even now, I'm sure the word "pointless" would have certain people going wild with righteous indignation. While we woke up to a few good things during Covid, quickly forgotten, the shitty side of human nature was on full display too. Yay for not using so much petrol though. If there was one positive, this was it.
I remember. But it seems like maybe the gods somewhere have figured out that if the oil can’t be delivered it can’t be purchased. If it lasts long enough, maybe we’ll start to see what life would be like if we just stopped
Oil seems to be at the centre of a lot of evil, and the rich and powerful oligopolies have been working for 100 years to keep it that way. During Covid we stopped using oil for a while and things began to change immediately - not just nature, but community. We spoke to our neighbors. We shared news, we helped each other out, we were in this together. Sadly the minute we realised pretty much everyone was going to get Covid, and whatever we did wasn't going to change that, we were straight back to our cars, back to work, back to tearing through our days with barely a minute to spend with our own families let alone neighbours or strangers at the grocery store.
Sally and Laurie, I am right there with you both. The relief (and sometimes shock) that I see from people when I greet them with a smile and kind, open-hearted (if that makes sense) eyes, lifts me and lifts them. I usually see a lightening of the spirit and a return smile or greeting. Every person matters! We all have a story. We all have good times and bad times and a lot of people are going through really hard times. I hope there is a change coming. We are the many, they are the few. Have a nice day.
If you are into connectivity involving community, story and belonging then your mind and soul will hum when you read the words of Wendell Berry. You might start with "It All Turns on Affection."
I just completed a book of poetry that spans 58 years of my life. If I had to sum it up with one quotation, it would be the following.
"The happiness of integrity resides within the integrity of happiness. The wholeness, oneness, balance, homeostasis or whatever else you may call it is what is sought by all biotic and abiotic life forms." — Stephen B. Strum, MD 9/17/25
When a person lives a life of integrity, kindness cannot be pushed away; it clings to integrity. And with that appreciation of the integrity (in this instance meaning integration of all of life via connections) one sees the one-ness of the creation and vision is both "orgasmic" yet painful. One sees the incredible beauty of all biotic/abiotic life and also sees how badly H. sapiens has been a steward of this pale blue dot.
Mike! I agree and for once disagree with you. I love and applaud your humanitarian instincts here, 100%. And that holds despite my disagreement, come what may. Where I think you are perhaps jumping the gun is the part where people figure out who/what is primarily to blame. I do not expect people to blame the liars, the con artists, the authoritarians and the system that’s been engineered to enslave them… just yet. I think majorities of once-democratic nations are only beginning to perceive what has happened. I think there is a LOT of hate and mindless vengeance yet to spill out from all directions (and not very coherently). I am influenced by Vlad Vexler who has slowly, gently, been educating his flock that we, the proponents of more democratic & equal societies, are headed into worse, more deceptive & authoritarian waters, probably for decades to come. And those who are poised to pick up the mantle are more wicked and more competent power mongers. I hope like hell I am wrong. I hope Vlad is high on Absinthe and hallucinating. I hope all the tRuMps & Co. die miserable deaths before next Tuesday. But my internal Accuweather says: storms likely, for the foreseeable future.
I think you are correct. Those of us who are able or open or just unable not to be overwhelmed by changes in emotional atmosphere, know that this current historical hurricane is only just beginning to hit land.
1848, the year of unpredictable revolutions across the continent of Europe seems to be the closest parallel.
Powerful dynastic families, like our modern day Trumps, Murdochs or Maxwells, always believe that they can not only ride such periods out but personally profit from the chaos.
I hope so. I really do. But I think what Mike is getting at, is there's more to this than just one idiot in the Whitehouse. There's a systemic breakdown - the way we select leaders and the way we rule our massive populations, is a deeply problematic question. Thanks to the internet, social media, the death of journalism, fake news, AI, big data, and all that, democracy - even it wasn't being systematically dismantled, is incapable of functioning in this environment. Human beings are pretty good at figuring stuff out. I don't think it's the apocalypse just yet. But we have a lot of work ahead of us, trying to figure out how we adapt and find a way to make democracy or some version of it, work in a period of exponentially accelerating change.
Yes. Change is afoot. Much is being exposed about America’s history of lies as well. This is needed for change to happen. The elite freaked out when 1960’s movements for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, environmental justice and anti-war protests dominated the news and demanded real change. The CIA publicly assassinated 3 leaders in the 1960’s who all demanded change. JFK was assassinated soon after he gave his last speech at American University about his vision for world peace, to end the Cold War. The elite would have none of that - and the early 1970’s began the elite plans to reverse what they called “excess democracy” - including the 1971 Lewis Powell memo advocating corporate takeover of American society, prompting the 1973 start of the Heritage Foundation, resulting in Project 2025. In addition, the perverse fundamentalist James Dobson published his first book in 1970, decrying the out-of-control youth destroying America and advocating for parents to use corporal punishment on their children - even as infants - to break their wills and make them obedient to authority. Dobson was beloved in fundamentalist households, leading to the nightmare we have today with apocalyptic desires for the end of the world by supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza so that Jesus will return to earth.
All of this madness - corporate and religious - is a reaction to America’s “excess democracy” perceived by elite powers over 50 years ago. Now - finally - it is all coming to light. The Epstein files have revealed the rot and many independent researchers are using those files - such as Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez - as a starting point to uncover enormous corruption across state, federal and international powers that date back to the 1940’s.
Let ‘er rip!
So - yes, Mike - “the times they are a’ changin’” (Dylan).
It's an extraordinary realization. and too few are sufficiently informed to received it, The great mass did not create what's happened and what's coming; they just let it happen, and understandably don't understand why they can't have their old normal back. But being uninformed is the flip side of the destructive forces that have abandoned them for this end.
Those who produced this catastrophe deliberately shifted the ground under our feet and lied about all of it, caring only that scarfing all the benefits were all that mattered. Fro the corporate transformers of an economy of need to an economy of want, to the "masters of the universe" who hoovered up the proceeds, they played to everyone's fantasies and lied about known costs, believing they could outrun them, thermodynamics be damned.
The meek are inheriting this unwelcome disaster, from Overshoot to Climate Change. We are all the poorer for it. The most enlightened among us have seen this coming, and know that an alternative is out there. They have spent the better part of the last century trying to get our attention, to little avail. Consequently, we are way overbuilt, under-prepared, and still at sea with misunderstanding. A huge number have hitched their wagon to resentment and grievance, fully prepared to foil meaningful approaches to deliverance, from sheer spite.
All the money in the world is in a few hands, and it is worthless. The major power in the world is wielded by misfits, creatures of crappy parenting and absolute assurance. Their decisions will kill off at least half of us in the next generation unless we rise up and take it away. How to organize the uninformed?
The few clear-headed need to re-create the conditions that work; they're still out there, but be forewarned: they will be tested by half-wits and bobbleheads raised by neglectful and abusive parenting, rendering philosophy to a useless, steaming pile. Your mission, everyday people, is, as Mike notes: help people, show kindness, be the ballast; remember who lied and who told the truth.
Can you expand on what you see as crappy parenting? I had no children because I married very late in life, but I have a feeling that you have nailed a crucial issue. To repair our torn humanity seems too overwhelming to address unless it is done by each family at a time.
In a nutshell, a 4 year old kid with their own iPad watching Tiktok in their pram. School kids not being taught history or having an interest in politics. And before a frazzled teacher jumps in to defend, this is NOT on teachers. This is a societal problem where we reward crooked financiers with billions and let them run convoluted scams while teachers and nurses are underpaid, understaffed and overstressed. We've rewarded all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. No wonder our kids want to smash their faces with hammers so they can be the next Look Max influencer. Who wants to teach history? Or join the debate club? Crickets. THIS is bad parenting. It's not even parents themselves, it's society a whole that's at fault.
I totally agree. But why have we ended up being a society so fixated on wealth, status and self pleasure that adults have been sucked dry of much of their capacity to have an unselfish pleasure in interaction with their children?
Thank you: in child psychology, this is getting better understood all the time. A few key points: human evolution produced birth at an early stage of gestation (most of physical atttibutes, programmed to grow), but at at early stage of neural completion, in order for the head to fit down the birth canal; and also evolved the capacity for culture, unique in nature. It's hard to appreciate the process of layer upon layer of neural networks laid down in the crucial coordinative midbrain, which enables consciousness and full coordination of physical/emotional capacities. Attentiveness of caregivers is crucial to this development. Consider next that every animal that ever lived has built in threat responses, and that human babies, helpless as they are, have nearly everything out of their control and thus potentially threatening; it's up to caregivers to respond and to discover the child's unique traits (famously hard, but lovingly found). Many parents were poorly raised themselves, and don't have the patience or understanding to meet the child halfway and end up neglecting and disciplining children out of frustration, which causes the threat response. Coming full circle, under threat, normal functions (including growth of the neural system), cell by cell, are blocked at the chromosomes, while "fight/flight" responses are substituted. Threats normally pass, and the cells return to normal, but persistent threat can yield persistent blockage, directly diminishing the fulfillment of the complex neural development linking our sensory awareness with our self-regulation (emotional maturity) and therefore our full intelligence.
I have never imagined that a piece with the title 'catastrophe has come' would be so full of hope to me. The time has come for what I have always perceived as a curse, reading the situation clearly, to be my best asset. It's scary to not know what is on the other side but I can't wait to be there.
Wow. The best advice you’ve delivered so far. And so simple. Minimal looping and swirling crescendo like most of your work, though present in an effective way. But for you, short, sweet and to the point.
Thank you for your courage, Mike, and for your vision. And thank you, too, to those who comment here.... Look people in the eye, make connections, heal, be open-hearted, return a smile, have integrity.... We all understand that the problems we face are not going to disappear with a smile, but the smiles -- and, more important, the thought behind them -- these say to the world, we are not going to give in to hate and fear. Integrity and genuine love, expanding exponentially, is what will prevail. We are playing the long game. Keep up the good work.
It needed to be said Mike. And you said it. The most powerful man in the world is insane. I can only hope the MAGAtards figure that out before he burns down the economy and the planet. Those poor puppets have made the most fundamental intellectual mistake possible - they’ve confused their map for the territory.
Totally best result is that the Islamic Republic of Iran in fact "wins" the trump/Bibi war of choice...yes, rooting against this country and its military, time for administering some lessons that still haven't taken...Vietnam, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan...not enough? Fine, then add this latest FUBAR to the growing list of failures.
What actually does it take for you people here in the US to recognize that you've continually got it bloody wrong? I mean, how many times does your government and your sainted military get bashed in the face to acknowledge that the old ways are kaput? Hmmm? Seriously.
I am for Iran too. They have the moral high ground. They were not harming the US and were also allowing free passage through the Strait. Israel resented them mightily because they supported $ Hamas and Hezbollah. They did not start these resistance militias, however. The Palestinians and the South Lebanese were going to fight back against their Occupation and destruction by the Israelis no matter what—with kitchen knives and stones if that were all they had. They looked for support and then got it from Iran—as Israel gets it in far greater amounts from US taxpayers. Listen to the great historian of Israel, Ilan Pappe, to learn the facts and the truth. So Israel has been name-calling and propagandizing against Iran ever since, and against all who fight back against their entitled takeover of Arab lands and subjugation/destruction of these people. Let’s get it straight.
The moral high ground? Any government (Iran) that murders its own protesters in the streets by the thousands has no moral high ground. I’m not on either side. Trump is wrong to start this war and to tear up the joint agreement the Obama administration put together with Iran. And Iran is a theocratic murdering regime. Sorry, I could never be on their side.
Yep. Agree. And same with China. They do some morally hateful stuff for sure. But boy, America is doing a great job of drowning that out and becoming the bad guy. Certainly, when it comes to Iran, nothing they've done justifies this war. Every time I read one of their diplomatic responses to Trumps ALL CAPS tirades, they sound less extreme and more like grown-ups. When Trump says there's peace talks, and Iran says no there isn't, who do you believe? We're in the strange situation of trusting what Iran says vs what the so-called leader of the free world spews out on social media. I get it, you can't back Iran, but there was a better way to approach their extremism than bombing. That just tops up their hatred and gives them more reason to resort to terrorism.
I’m 100% against this war and have been since day one. Trump tore up the nuclear agreement with Iran so he is at fault for all of this. I simply think any government that murders and tortures its protestors is its own kind of evil.
Not the people of Iran. But their government. Sinus Chiba, Russia, NK etc. And Netanyahu in Israel.
Mike, will we still b able to storm the castle? This is what terrifies me the most - that those mfs will b unreachable. If we cannot bring justice to them that would b unbearable. I could live through collapse but not that.
Now is the time, be the change you want to see, capitalism has outlived its usefulness, this isn't "late stage capitalism" any longer, it's closer to "end stage capitalism". I feel like we're at a point where the world either becomes more egalitarian, or it ends...
“Blessed are the Meek, for they shall inherit the Earth” … an inheritance wrought from the malignant, dying hands of the arrogant. How much of our birthright is left for us to inherit is directly proportional to how many of us choose not to give ourselves and our political power to those who would oppress us.
That which is unsustainable ultimately will not be sustained. The question for all of us is, “When are we going to step away from the conflagration and build something independent from it?”
Until we do, we will continue to just be fuel for the fire.
We can be firewood for the arrogant or we can be a living garden of something better, and more humble, and more humane. But it won’t happen using the same tools that got us here.
To your beautiful line starting “We can be firewood for the arrogant or we can be a living garden…” I would extend the metaphor of the garden to the good earth and sun and weather that it needs—And what are these:
A grounding in the truth, and a deep orientation to reality on every level. But our culture and the $ Winners had begun to believe they could dispense with all that. Instead, they could make up their own reality and make the world conform to it! This is why narcissists became so attractive and powerful in American culture, because this was their credo and nature to a T. They could invent their own reality! And for awhile it seemed to work. But eventually their flying ships of fantasy and wishful thinking were going to strike the mountains of reality and crash. Iran is helping us see this, if only we could take the point and desist from our foolish and deadly course, not only for their sake but for ourselves. For a long time they were telling us nicely and politely, and kept the door open for us to stop and restore respectful relations. But when Trump showed them he would not deal honestly and respectfully at all, but only dishonestly and exploitively—not to mention arrogantly and insultingly—they are turning up the”heat” and the consequences to all of us. But what is this “heat”, it is not just a military retaliation, it is Reality itself replying to us.
I’ve been thinking the same thing for weeks, months even - UKRAINE WILL WIN THIS WAR. The question is only how fast. The fight they have put up is extraordinary, and watching explosions caused by UKRAINIAN MADE missiles- idk what kind but big ones! That was awesome.
Anyway I have been working on the connection between community, story and belonging for a long time, and I’m posting about it soon (I hope), and I think a big change we could make easily and used to do it naturally - simply look each person you interact with every day in the eye. Say hello. We are not colors on a graph or words on a page. Jesus came to save souls but he healed bodies! We are humans and we need and deserve to at least be seen.
Laurie, so interesting you’d mention that about looking each person in the eye, saying hello… making a genuine connection with another soul. Over the past year I have found myself doing the same, for the same reasons, and added a bunch of times: ‘give me your hand, I need to feel the warmth of another human’ or words like that. Well it’s amazing. Once it was a Pepsi delivery guy waiting around for something and I was walking by and we had a little chat. When it was time to go I said give me your hand, man, because I really enjoyed this. And we joined hands and he looked at me and smiled so naturally. It was such a cheap & easy & enjoyable thing to do and it revived me all the day long. Pretty sure it had some affect on him, too. That was several weeks ago but you know what? I can still see his face and hear his voice.
This is the deep-seated longing for all of humanity. And, BTW, what I just wrote was redundant because the word "humanity" is simply, but profoundly, the contraction of two words: "human" and "unity." We are all connected. It is our fears and anxiety about vulnerability that dissuades us from seeing this. But when it occurs, it plays a melody, no... actually a symphony in our hearts. And this interconnectivity is not simply between humans but between all life forms, and even what is called abiotic life. This is the theory of everything. This is the philosophy espoused by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
I have felt this since childhood. My going into medicine was directed by this innermost calling. Early on, I called this Communication & Balance (CNB). I wrote about this some years ago and presented it at medical conferences on prostate cancer:
"All of life (biotic and abiotic), at every level, is directed towards unity or oneness. The common pathway biological interactions use to achieve this end-point is communication and balance (C&B).
"Communication and balance (C&B), by its very nature, evokes integrity and at-one-ness. This is the symphony that biological systems strive to attain. This symphonic drive is seen throughout the entire range of bioforms.
• When this balance and communication are achieved at the molecular level, we are in state of "health".
• When reached at an individual level, we call this "love".
• At a societal level, C&B is reflected in the word "community".
• At a global level, communication and balance manifests itself as world peace. "
• Lastly, at a universal level, this is "nirvana".
— Stephen B. Strum
I just met the most upbeat man this morning at the city pool. He simply glowed with friendliness and yet he was as sane and cognizant as the Pope. I was in awe of his beaming personality and had a short chat with him and now here I am hours later thinking about this young man and his gratitude and energy for life. Some people have a way with the world and this young man is on his way —-or maybe he is already there—to something purposeful and righteous. It’s contagious and human and kind all wrapped up into a beautiful person and mind.
It's these people who should be in charge. Not the evil bastards we currently have.
Yes, exactly, the "individualism" we have been sold is an aberration, created by the greedy, to avoid paying their fair share. We NEED each other, and yeah, it starts with simple human kindness, I cannot even begin to descrobe how over the American, "I got mine, and fuck everyone else" attitude, the "what's in it for me" thing this place seems SO full of. Everybody's got an agenda, or appears to believe everyone else does, the commodification of every last thing, how about simply because, it's the right thing to do? We used to know what that was, somewhere along the way we lost that, and everything became about profit.
This world desperately needs a paradigm shift, from capitalism, from patriarchy, from greed, and "property" over people, from all of it. I genuinely felt like we were on the cusp of a global epiphany, that first few weeks of covid, remember that? When everything shut down, all at once, animals felt it, deer were coming out of the forest and lying down in the road, pandas were mating, sea turtles laying eggs for the first time in years, the world's "temperature" went down, you could see the skies over Dubai, and California, etc? Unfortunately, donny dumbfuck was in the WH, and shit went backwards, but it truly felt as though the epiphany was right around the corner, I think about that a lot....
Also, let's not get misty eyed. There was a LOT of division during Covid. People going mental on the bus because someone wasn't wearing a mask. People going off on one because someone took all the loo paper in the supermarket. In NZ they were implementing vaccine passports - "Ihre Papiere, bitte" - we couldn't order a coffee without 4 pointless vaccines. Even now, I'm sure the word "pointless" would have certain people going wild with righteous indignation. While we woke up to a few good things during Covid, quickly forgotten, the shitty side of human nature was on full display too. Yay for not using so much petrol though. If there was one positive, this was it.
I remember. But it seems like maybe the gods somewhere have figured out that if the oil can’t be delivered it can’t be purchased. If it lasts long enough, maybe we’ll start to see what life would be like if we just stopped
Oil seems to be at the centre of a lot of evil, and the rich and powerful oligopolies have been working for 100 years to keep it that way. During Covid we stopped using oil for a while and things began to change immediately - not just nature, but community. We spoke to our neighbors. We shared news, we helped each other out, we were in this together. Sadly the minute we realised pretty much everyone was going to get Covid, and whatever we did wasn't going to change that, we were straight back to our cars, back to work, back to tearing through our days with barely a minute to spend with our own families let alone neighbours or strangers at the grocery store.
Sally and Laurie, I am right there with you both. The relief (and sometimes shock) that I see from people when I greet them with a smile and kind, open-hearted (if that makes sense) eyes, lifts me and lifts them. I usually see a lightening of the spirit and a return smile or greeting. Every person matters! We all have a story. We all have good times and bad times and a lot of people are going through really hard times. I hope there is a change coming. We are the many, they are the few. Have a nice day.
If you are into connectivity involving community, story and belonging then your mind and soul will hum when you read the words of Wendell Berry. You might start with "It All Turns on Affection."
WB is nourishment to the mind and soul.
Yes. Personal integrity, kindness and clear vision is needed by all now to refocus on humanity rather than power and money.
I just completed a book of poetry that spans 58 years of my life. If I had to sum it up with one quotation, it would be the following.
"The happiness of integrity resides within the integrity of happiness. The wholeness, oneness, balance, homeostasis or whatever else you may call it is what is sought by all biotic and abiotic life forms." — Stephen B. Strum, MD 9/17/25
When a person lives a life of integrity, kindness cannot be pushed away; it clings to integrity. And with that appreciation of the integrity (in this instance meaning integration of all of life via connections) one sees the one-ness of the creation and vision is both "orgasmic" yet painful. One sees the incredible beauty of all biotic/abiotic life and also sees how badly H. sapiens has been a steward of this pale blue dot.
Mike! I agree and for once disagree with you. I love and applaud your humanitarian instincts here, 100%. And that holds despite my disagreement, come what may. Where I think you are perhaps jumping the gun is the part where people figure out who/what is primarily to blame. I do not expect people to blame the liars, the con artists, the authoritarians and the system that’s been engineered to enslave them… just yet. I think majorities of once-democratic nations are only beginning to perceive what has happened. I think there is a LOT of hate and mindless vengeance yet to spill out from all directions (and not very coherently). I am influenced by Vlad Vexler who has slowly, gently, been educating his flock that we, the proponents of more democratic & equal societies, are headed into worse, more deceptive & authoritarian waters, probably for decades to come. And those who are poised to pick up the mantle are more wicked and more competent power mongers. I hope like hell I am wrong. I hope Vlad is high on Absinthe and hallucinating. I hope all the tRuMps & Co. die miserable deaths before next Tuesday. But my internal Accuweather says: storms likely, for the foreseeable future.
I think you are correct. Those of us who are able or open or just unable not to be overwhelmed by changes in emotional atmosphere, know that this current historical hurricane is only just beginning to hit land.
1848, the year of unpredictable revolutions across the continent of Europe seems to be the closest parallel.
Powerful dynastic families, like our modern day Trumps, Murdochs or Maxwells, always believe that they can not only ride such periods out but personally profit from the chaos.
History begs to differ.
I hope so. I really do. But I think what Mike is getting at, is there's more to this than just one idiot in the Whitehouse. There's a systemic breakdown - the way we select leaders and the way we rule our massive populations, is a deeply problematic question. Thanks to the internet, social media, the death of journalism, fake news, AI, big data, and all that, democracy - even it wasn't being systematically dismantled, is incapable of functioning in this environment. Human beings are pretty good at figuring stuff out. I don't think it's the apocalypse just yet. But we have a lot of work ahead of us, trying to figure out how we adapt and find a way to make democracy or some version of it, work in a period of exponentially accelerating change.
Yes. Change is afoot. Much is being exposed about America’s history of lies as well. This is needed for change to happen. The elite freaked out when 1960’s movements for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, environmental justice and anti-war protests dominated the news and demanded real change. The CIA publicly assassinated 3 leaders in the 1960’s who all demanded change. JFK was assassinated soon after he gave his last speech at American University about his vision for world peace, to end the Cold War. The elite would have none of that - and the early 1970’s began the elite plans to reverse what they called “excess democracy” - including the 1971 Lewis Powell memo advocating corporate takeover of American society, prompting the 1973 start of the Heritage Foundation, resulting in Project 2025. In addition, the perverse fundamentalist James Dobson published his first book in 1970, decrying the out-of-control youth destroying America and advocating for parents to use corporal punishment on their children - even as infants - to break their wills and make them obedient to authority. Dobson was beloved in fundamentalist households, leading to the nightmare we have today with apocalyptic desires for the end of the world by supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza so that Jesus will return to earth.
All of this madness - corporate and religious - is a reaction to America’s “excess democracy” perceived by elite powers over 50 years ago. Now - finally - it is all coming to light. The Epstein files have revealed the rot and many independent researchers are using those files - such as Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez - as a starting point to uncover enormous corruption across state, federal and international powers that date back to the 1940’s.
Let ‘er rip!
So - yes, Mike - “the times they are a’ changin’” (Dylan).
Excellent analysis!
It's an extraordinary realization. and too few are sufficiently informed to received it, The great mass did not create what's happened and what's coming; they just let it happen, and understandably don't understand why they can't have their old normal back. But being uninformed is the flip side of the destructive forces that have abandoned them for this end.
Those who produced this catastrophe deliberately shifted the ground under our feet and lied about all of it, caring only that scarfing all the benefits were all that mattered. Fro the corporate transformers of an economy of need to an economy of want, to the "masters of the universe" who hoovered up the proceeds, they played to everyone's fantasies and lied about known costs, believing they could outrun them, thermodynamics be damned.
The meek are inheriting this unwelcome disaster, from Overshoot to Climate Change. We are all the poorer for it. The most enlightened among us have seen this coming, and know that an alternative is out there. They have spent the better part of the last century trying to get our attention, to little avail. Consequently, we are way overbuilt, under-prepared, and still at sea with misunderstanding. A huge number have hitched their wagon to resentment and grievance, fully prepared to foil meaningful approaches to deliverance, from sheer spite.
All the money in the world is in a few hands, and it is worthless. The major power in the world is wielded by misfits, creatures of crappy parenting and absolute assurance. Their decisions will kill off at least half of us in the next generation unless we rise up and take it away. How to organize the uninformed?
The few clear-headed need to re-create the conditions that work; they're still out there, but be forewarned: they will be tested by half-wits and bobbleheads raised by neglectful and abusive parenting, rendering philosophy to a useless, steaming pile. Your mission, everyday people, is, as Mike notes: help people, show kindness, be the ballast; remember who lied and who told the truth.
Can you expand on what you see as crappy parenting? I had no children because I married very late in life, but I have a feeling that you have nailed a crucial issue. To repair our torn humanity seems too overwhelming to address unless it is done by each family at a time.
In a nutshell, a 4 year old kid with their own iPad watching Tiktok in their pram. School kids not being taught history or having an interest in politics. And before a frazzled teacher jumps in to defend, this is NOT on teachers. This is a societal problem where we reward crooked financiers with billions and let them run convoluted scams while teachers and nurses are underpaid, understaffed and overstressed. We've rewarded all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. No wonder our kids want to smash their faces with hammers so they can be the next Look Max influencer. Who wants to teach history? Or join the debate club? Crickets. THIS is bad parenting. It's not even parents themselves, it's society a whole that's at fault.
I totally agree. But why have we ended up being a society so fixated on wealth, status and self pleasure that adults have been sucked dry of much of their capacity to have an unselfish pleasure in interaction with their children?
Thank you: in child psychology, this is getting better understood all the time. A few key points: human evolution produced birth at an early stage of gestation (most of physical atttibutes, programmed to grow), but at at early stage of neural completion, in order for the head to fit down the birth canal; and also evolved the capacity for culture, unique in nature. It's hard to appreciate the process of layer upon layer of neural networks laid down in the crucial coordinative midbrain, which enables consciousness and full coordination of physical/emotional capacities. Attentiveness of caregivers is crucial to this development. Consider next that every animal that ever lived has built in threat responses, and that human babies, helpless as they are, have nearly everything out of their control and thus potentially threatening; it's up to caregivers to respond and to discover the child's unique traits (famously hard, but lovingly found). Many parents were poorly raised themselves, and don't have the patience or understanding to meet the child halfway and end up neglecting and disciplining children out of frustration, which causes the threat response. Coming full circle, under threat, normal functions (including growth of the neural system), cell by cell, are blocked at the chromosomes, while "fight/flight" responses are substituted. Threats normally pass, and the cells return to normal, but persistent threat can yield persistent blockage, directly diminishing the fulfillment of the complex neural development linking our sensory awareness with our self-regulation (emotional maturity) and therefore our full intelligence.
Amen. It’s designated survivor time.
I have never imagined that a piece with the title 'catastrophe has come' would be so full of hope to me. The time has come for what I have always perceived as a curse, reading the situation clearly, to be my best asset. It's scary to not know what is on the other side but I can't wait to be there.
Wow. The best advice you’ve delivered so far. And so simple. Minimal looping and swirling crescendo like most of your work, though present in an effective way. But for you, short, sweet and to the point.
Thank you for your courage, Mike, and for your vision. And thank you, too, to those who comment here.... Look people in the eye, make connections, heal, be open-hearted, return a smile, have integrity.... We all understand that the problems we face are not going to disappear with a smile, but the smiles -- and, more important, the thought behind them -- these say to the world, we are not going to give in to hate and fear. Integrity and genuine love, expanding exponentially, is what will prevail. We are playing the long game. Keep up the good work.
It needed to be said Mike. And you said it. The most powerful man in the world is insane. I can only hope the MAGAtards figure that out before he burns down the economy and the planet. Those poor puppets have made the most fundamental intellectual mistake possible - they’ve confused their map for the territory.
Totally best result is that the Islamic Republic of Iran in fact "wins" the trump/Bibi war of choice...yes, rooting against this country and its military, time for administering some lessons that still haven't taken...Vietnam, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan...not enough? Fine, then add this latest FUBAR to the growing list of failures.
What actually does it take for you people here in the US to recognize that you've continually got it bloody wrong? I mean, how many times does your government and your sainted military get bashed in the face to acknowledge that the old ways are kaput? Hmmm? Seriously.
I am for Iran too. They have the moral high ground. They were not harming the US and were also allowing free passage through the Strait. Israel resented them mightily because they supported $ Hamas and Hezbollah. They did not start these resistance militias, however. The Palestinians and the South Lebanese were going to fight back against their Occupation and destruction by the Israelis no matter what—with kitchen knives and stones if that were all they had. They looked for support and then got it from Iran—as Israel gets it in far greater amounts from US taxpayers. Listen to the great historian of Israel, Ilan Pappe, to learn the facts and the truth. So Israel has been name-calling and propagandizing against Iran ever since, and against all who fight back against their entitled takeover of Arab lands and subjugation/destruction of these people. Let’s get it straight.
The moral high ground? Any government (Iran) that murders its own protesters in the streets by the thousands has no moral high ground. I’m not on either side. Trump is wrong to start this war and to tear up the joint agreement the Obama administration put together with Iran. And Iran is a theocratic murdering regime. Sorry, I could never be on their side.
Yep. Agree. And same with China. They do some morally hateful stuff for sure. But boy, America is doing a great job of drowning that out and becoming the bad guy. Certainly, when it comes to Iran, nothing they've done justifies this war. Every time I read one of their diplomatic responses to Trumps ALL CAPS tirades, they sound less extreme and more like grown-ups. When Trump says there's peace talks, and Iran says no there isn't, who do you believe? We're in the strange situation of trusting what Iran says vs what the so-called leader of the free world spews out on social media. I get it, you can't back Iran, but there was a better way to approach their extremism than bombing. That just tops up their hatred and gives them more reason to resort to terrorism.
I’m 100% against this war and have been since day one. Trump tore up the nuclear agreement with Iran so he is at fault for all of this. I simply think any government that murders and tortures its protestors is its own kind of evil.
Not the people of Iran. But their government. Sinus Chiba, Russia, NK etc. And Netanyahu in Israel.
Hey, I get it. MOST of us do! But enough of the 'right people' here don't!
Mike, will we still b able to storm the castle? This is what terrifies me the most - that those mfs will b unreachable. If we cannot bring justice to them that would b unbearable. I could live through collapse but not that.
I don't know, man. Maybe. Maybe not.
Worth a read either way.
Thank you, Mike!
You nourish our soul!
Now is the time, be the change you want to see, capitalism has outlived its usefulness, this isn't "late stage capitalism" any longer, it's closer to "end stage capitalism". I feel like we're at a point where the world either becomes more egalitarian, or it ends...
“Blessed are the Meek, for they shall inherit the Earth” … an inheritance wrought from the malignant, dying hands of the arrogant. How much of our birthright is left for us to inherit is directly proportional to how many of us choose not to give ourselves and our political power to those who would oppress us.
That which is unsustainable ultimately will not be sustained. The question for all of us is, “When are we going to step away from the conflagration and build something independent from it?”
Until we do, we will continue to just be fuel for the fire.
We can be firewood for the arrogant or we can be a living garden of something better, and more humble, and more humane. But it won’t happen using the same tools that got us here.
To your beautiful line starting “We can be firewood for the arrogant or we can be a living garden…” I would extend the metaphor of the garden to the good earth and sun and weather that it needs—And what are these:
A grounding in the truth, and a deep orientation to reality on every level. But our culture and the $ Winners had begun to believe they could dispense with all that. Instead, they could make up their own reality and make the world conform to it! This is why narcissists became so attractive and powerful in American culture, because this was their credo and nature to a T. They could invent their own reality! And for awhile it seemed to work. But eventually their flying ships of fantasy and wishful thinking were going to strike the mountains of reality and crash. Iran is helping us see this, if only we could take the point and desist from our foolish and deadly course, not only for their sake but for ourselves. For a long time they were telling us nicely and politely, and kept the door open for us to stop and restore respectful relations. But when Trump showed them he would not deal honestly and respectfully at all, but only dishonestly and exploitively—not to mention arrogantly and insultingly—they are turning up the”heat” and the consequences to all of us. But what is this “heat”, it is not just a military retaliation, it is Reality itself replying to us.