( In response to a posting claiming other countries are less stressful at work than America- something that is only marginally true .”Fake news” Trump would say lol) We need a whole new vocabulary-like “humanly-paced work” or “minimally stressful work” or”artisan-paced work” .But then we would have to assume the cost.But since democracy/capitalism is unknowingly using an old Maoist slogan”Put the Economy in the Post of Command” ( interesting irony no?) then none of that is possible.
Our real enemies are not the Russians or the Chinese! Not even Trump and his allies.Our real enemies are the MBAs and Economists who are providing the intellectual infrastructure for this stressful oppression of workers AND management alike in all industries.
My Turkish tailor’s wife was telling me about her 43-year old cousin who had just died of breast cancer.I was telling her about all the carcinogens in our food,our water and our air and the fact that cancer has become an epidemic.She understood immediately! She elaborated by telling me about her 93-year old mother who was fine except for some arthritis in her knee.”She was from an earlier time when things were more natural”.Exactly.How come she gets it but the scientists and government officials,certainly a lot more educated, don’t!?And please don’t respond with the “economic paranoid” theory that it’s all about money.That is only part of the answer.I prefer one of my earliest teachers Steven Gaskin’s answer”A University degree is more of a bar to enlightenment(and clear vision I would add) than a bad character”.Here I would agree with the Buddhists.”The deepest sin is not greed but ignorance” And there is plenty of that to go around.
People who know me, are aware of my general abhorrence of conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, I have become gradually convinced that we are now confronting “The Evil Empire”! This empire is made up of greedy multi-national corporations, the political class that is complicit with that greed, the liberal, progressive journalists who have bought into the mythology of real democracy and “due process of the law” and scientific fascism which is used to deny the obvious toxicity of much of agricultural and construction processes and the noxiousness of electromagnetic smog . All of this contains the seeds( which have by now germinated and are growing rapidly) of our inevitable destruction. Note also that most of the so-called intelligentsia are complicit as well justifying the greed with terms like “rationalization, cost-cutting and efficiency”) and denying the extent of the dangerous pollution by putting into doubt the perception of it and marginalizing the studies that support these observations. They could call this entire Gestalt “The Perfect Storm”. Others may call it “The Apocalypse “and it is now in clear view!
N.B. One of the least useful tools for seeing this reality is reason. As the psychoanalysts have so astutely shown, most of this “reason” is actually the defense mechanism of “ rationnalaztion” designed to support any pre-existing convictions or desires. Instead we must begin developing the three doors of perception- “seeing”(basirat-inner vision”),hearing(the ring of truth) and feeling -the perceptual spparatus of the heart. That is our only hope but it requires a totally new form of education- far distant from what is offered in our universities and educational institutions.
Congratulations Europe! No,not for your meaningless World Cup Win-for fining Google billions of dollars.Anti-competitive,monopolistic practices are a veritable scourge in the modern so-called “capitalist” societies which are actually cartels of multi-national corporations that have way too much influence on government-WAY MORE than any possible Russian collusion.I have seen the effects personally,on my friends and relatives in business, who were essentially nullified by anti-competitive large firms.And our bloody governments are asleep at the watch OR on the payroll as the case maybe.Oh believers in all those various cocomanie conspiracy theories,THIS is the REAL conspiracy!And it’s right there in plain view!
Some minor cultural differences lol: For the British, “children should be seen but not heard”.Unfortunately that is also true for adults!;For Jews you can do as you like provided you accept to be blamed no matter what you do;for Germans you can do as you like provided you do it perfectly;for Arabs you can express yourself provided that you accept the terms of reference precisely;for Trinidadians you are perfectly free provided you neither expend too much energy or take “unnecessary” initiatives” and last but not least if you’re French you can do as you like provided that it’s pleasurable.Enjoy!And oh yes if you’re American it’s “exceptional” no matter what you do.You’re great by definition!
This posting from Facebook may sound funny and irreverent but I think it is deep and highly significant.I owe this understanding to my discipleship under the guidance of Sheikh Nazim Qubrusi, may his station be continuously raised, during many long years.
(In response to a question about my opinion of soccer) Ambivalent as usual. I’m enjoying the World Cup a lot but I hate the idealization of this essentially stupid sport in which you use the brain to bash the ball and aren’t allowed to use your hands, which are one of the key evolutionary features of Homo sapiens.Another European conspiracy -to make this defective sport the most popular in the world, the same group that made Christianity , a theologically defective tradition, into the most popular religion and the Age of Rationalism, a defective philosophy, as the default philosophy of the entire world.Most conspiracy theories now center on America and the Jews but the real conspiracies come from Greece and Rome via their successors in England, France and Germany lol
Bureaucrats always act on principle which is regularly off-base in reality. But who cares(as Melania’s jacket said)?! They are following procedures. So when they say “a society built on the rule of law” you should be terrified rather than reassured. Anyone who has been through a serious legal process knows what I mean
NONE of the governments really want free trade.Only the people want that! They all want trade manipulated to Their advantage or the advantage of a select group of their supporters.So Trump points out that this manipulation has actually favoured countries like China AND Canada.He may be right,actually.The fact that America and Canada and Europe, for that matter, may actually be exploiting the cheap labour in Third World countries doesn’t seem to be part of that calculation.The governments of those Third World countries are more than happy to oblige in that exploitation as they are working as well for the privileged sectors,whether oligarchs or government party members and their friends,of their own society.What a mess! What injustice and inhumanity in all of this!There may,in fact, be only one viable solution.Roll back the Industrial Revolution and bring back local artisanal production,a much more satisfying process on all levels including the human one.( I love my shirwal/kameez suits made by a local Pakistani tailor and they are less expensive than those other ‘suits’ out there lol) But that shift is not likely to occur.So we wait patiently for the coming Apocalypse lol
Interesting tid-bit about our legal system.Michael Cohen’s lawyers are costing $1000-$1500/hour .Fifteen of them are working adding up to $500,000 /week.And they have the chutzpah(gall) to talk about “Due Process of the Law”.Really?! Who can afford that kind of due process anyway?!These people and here I mean the most highly -placed politicians and jurists in the land are WAY bigger liars than Trump.And they have no awareness of it either.Disgusting and scary at the same time!
The Michael Cohen case should manifest to us all the folly of our so-called justice system which should be renamed our “injustice system”. The claims of the politicians and the lawyers is that the system is fair,objective and systematic.Due process of the law,no?Instead we see that it is arbitrary(Cohen has been doing these shady deals for decades and only when he gets hooked up with Trump are there indictments pending):manipulative(designed not to get justice about Michael Cohen but to push him to stool on his boss),vindictive(designed to get back at Trump although they will never admit it but I have heard about it it numerous times in courts where the judges are petty and biased)and perhaps worst of all outrightly cruel(completely unconcerned that on top of the serious consequences of the charges ,they often push the defendant who wants to get competent counsel into bankruptcy plus the long delays that are designed to give people nervous breakdowns).The politicians and lawyers should be seriously ashamed of what the courts have become but as they say”There are none so blind as those who will not see”!
Modern societies have become so complex that even highly trained so-called experts don’t know how it works. I just spent two days trying to make my retirement fund (as meagre as it is)to work getting sent back from the bank to the investment fund, both in the same company name , each one claiming it was the other who had the key.
When the Bush-Gore debacle occurred in the presidential election, all the constitutional experts I heard speak, said the Supreme Court would not hear the case because it was a state jurisdiction. The Supreme Court decided within a couple of hours to hear it!
One big part of the puzzle is the fact that despite the claims of politicians and jurists, the systems are not at all rational. There is a large part of arbitrariness and subjectivity involved. One of my clients who was falsely accused of sexual misconduct and cleared was told by his lawyer that he was fortunate the judge was changed as the first judge would have surely found him guilty regardless of the evidence. The lawyers and the politicians know this is going on but, for convenience to themselves, they turn a blind eye.
The Age of Reason! Due process of the law! Give me a break!
Understood and applied, any one of the posts on this site could change your life-forever!
