The song says, “what the world needs now is love,” but we may have gone way beyond that. Love is a natural emotion that comes and goes as situations change, but usually becomes easier to muster when things are going well and the world seems to be a beautiful place.

Haven’t posted anything in a while because it just didn’t seem worth it with all the propaganda going on. It felt like a losing battle to add my two cents into the fray on this little blog. I thought, “why would anyone trust what I have to say when all this spinning was going on in the media and in the halls of Congress?”

As I thought harder about it, it dawned on me that what’s wrong in the world, I mean the real underlying problem is a severe lack of trust. Or perhaps to put it even clearer . . .

What the world needs now is something to trust in!

It’s so great when the majority of the world’s population rallies around a tragedy, like what happened in Haiti. It shows we really do have it in us to come together and work for a particular cause when the situation at hand is real.

Tragedies, although terrible, are trustworthy. They can’t be faked on such a scale, and so people know for sure anything they do to help will actually make a difference for the victims. The magnitude of the help provided in these types of situations also tell us how much people want something trustworthy enough to participate in.

However, when we turn our attention away from places like Haiti and Louisiana after Katrina, what else is there to trust in?

From religion, to government, and right down to the products we need to survive, all we get is spin, corruption, and deceit. It’s gotten to the point where most people expect to get screwed over every time they get out of bed.

It’s going to take a while to get us to the mindset where we can trust again, but “something’s gotta give,” and someone big is going to have to step up and begin putting people ahead of profit.

More on this later.

Technorati Tags: trust, trust issues, trusting, what the world needs now, world needs

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems very few people ever get killed in marijuana related car accidents, or many who get arrested for domestic abuse due to being under the influence of pot. Neither are there many cancer deaths from smoking marijuana, or liver problems, or anything like that. So maybe it is just me, but if something doesn’t hurt you, and in many cases actually helps people, why on Earth would it be illegal?

Some may make the argument that, because of all the drug cartels making a fortune on it, the government couldn’t support legalizing it. But isn’t the very fact of it being illegal give rise to these profits from shady groups? Certainly none of the shops in California where medical marijuana is legal go to these cartels for their supplies, do they?

In fact it stands to reason, if marijuana was fully legalized, new farm businesses could open up and put these shady characters on the run. People could start growing their own supplies, sure, but that wouldn’t cut into tax revenue any more than the people who make their own beer in their bathtub.

Another argument against legalizing marijuana might be, if you legalize pot, then you’ll be on a slippery slope to legalizing the real, harmful drugs. However, there’s one important difference here. Marijuana is actually an herb, not a drug. It’s only called a drug by those seeking to keep it evil. For centuries it was an herb, and it remains so regardless of its legal classification.

So simply declassify it and let it take its rightful place among all the other helpful herbs we know of. All the other substances known as drugs are created or modified in a lab. Marijuana is grown in a garden or field and is harvested just as it is with no modification. Even alcohol, a far more damaging substance, is processed. Thus its not a real long shot risk to merely call marijuana what it really is, and be done with all that slope talk.

After all, if it doesn’t hurt anybody, and there’s documented medicinal benefits to it, with the worst it might do is contribute to obesity because of the “munchies” that come with it, then why keep marijuana illegal? Just doesn’t seem right, does it?

Technorati Tags: legalization, marijuana, medicinal value, pot, Society

When Christopher Columbus landed in the New World, his most important discovery was that the people he met were, in his words “in dios,” or like God. They had no tenets or moral codes to follow, but rather were naturally inclined to living a peaceful, hospitable life. When explorers go into the Amazon region, they too meet up with indigenous people who have no inclinations towards hostility or savagery in any way. So we need to ask ourselves, have indoctrinated morals replaced the natural inclination of humans, and is this a good thing?

It may be interesting to note, while Columbus and his crew came from a society with a strict moral code imposed by the Church, they had no problem taking advantage of these so called savages. These peaceful people were almost immediately subjected to brutal treatment like slavery, rape, murder, their homes were claimed for the crown, their resources exhausted, and were left for dead when Columbus finally decided to leave.

It seems then, the concept of living by a moral code, imposed and enforced, becomes an inclusive entity that demands comparison to other moral codes, or a lack of one. The level of authority that set a moral code in place also tends to imply class distinction and a greater abhorrence to anything “other” a different group may be governed by.

Columbus noted the indigenous people had no moral code when it came to nudity, thus they were “lesser” in his eyes. They had no army, and thus were weaker. Had no currency, and so were poverty-stricken, helpless creatures.
All of this, observed through his own moral code gave him the impression of “sub-human” when he viewed the habits of these people. His perception of superiority was a direct result of his having a code of morality instilled in him from the society he lived in. It gave him the authority and justification to act harshly.

On the other hand, the indigenous people certainly must have seen these visitors as strange and very uptight people. Hostility was a foreign concept to them, and history shows that it took quite some time before they even realized they should be protecting themselves from it. Their natural inclination was to share, claiming no ownership to anything. So in their eyes, Columbus and his crew must have had a great need, otherwise why else would they be taking everything?

So while it would be a natural thing to have two people, separated by an enormous ocean, find themselves with totally different lifestyles, an established moral code proved to be the most divisive element between them. And we can clearly see how different moral standards among the people of the Earth remains an extremely divisive force. More than 95% of all wars fought throughout history have been caused for religious and moral reasons.

But could we as a society live without imposed morals now? Would we be better off to just let our natural inclinations take over? Or would that, as some suggest, create chaos and anarchy?

Perhaps we’re all too far gone to go back. Or perhaps the world is slowly beginning to see the artificial aspects of a morality written down in a book, yet rarely lived.

Technorati Tags: morality, morals, morals vs. natural inclination, natural inclination, Religion, Society

The Right thinks if we don’t continue the neocon’s programs in dealing with the rest of the world, we’ll be losing the edge in foreign policy. But is this true? Is the “we’d rather bomb you than talk to you” approach the best chance we have for world order? Or is President Obama, our Community-Organizer-in-Chief leading us in the right direction?

Being the schoolyard bully certainly has its perks. Nobody dares take anything that belongs to you, no one would even consider standing up to you, or refusing you your favorite seat in the cafeteria. The downside is, nobody will stand up with you, or share anything with you unless you take it from them.

In other words, bullies have no real friends they can rely on!

Sure they get their way most of the time, because everyone is afraid of them. They also get a lot of space, because no one will go near them. The tough guy life is a lonely life indeed!

And this is exactly what we’ve seen throughout the Bush years. The United States pretty much had to go it alone with just a handful of nations, possessing little power of their own, tagging along. It was very costly for the nation both monetarily and in casualties. The Bush concept of “coerced democracy” left us with a wide berth in the schoolyard, and alienated itself from the rest of the world.

Now we have the “we’re all in this together if its going to work” mentality through President Obama, and the Right Wing thinks we’re a lot less safe. Yet the President is mending alliances throughout the world, including with Russia, and the world is beginning to stand together on some important issues. Sounds a lot safer this way, don’t you think?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen many a bully get what’s coming to him when the other kids finally had enough of him. Yet I never did see any kid, with the ability to come up with inclusive ideas for the whole schoolyard, get a beating.

It’s all a very simple equation really, the World is a community (whether anyone likes it or not), and all it needed was a “community organizer” to begin the process of setting things right. So if you ask me if we’re losing the edge in foreign policy with Obama at the helm, I’d have give a resounding “No!”

Technorati Tags: Community Organizer, foreign policy, Obama, Pesident Obama

I kept trying to wrack my brain about who these teabaggers reminded me of. It was something I had witnessed before, but I wasn’t quite sure where or when. Then it hit me!

It was the People’s Front of Judea! Or was that the Judean People’s Front? Splitters!!

Technorati Tags: protesters, teabaggers

Among all the FoxSpews zombies at the latest 9/12 march, there was a group who had perfect pitch. Billionaires for Wealthcare sang out the praises of letting things remain as they are. These guys were great, but its amazing how many people around them had no idea Billionaires for Wealthcare were laughing at them.

Check them out

And read more here about the Billionaires for Wealthcare

Technorati Tags: Billionaires for Wealthcare, FoxSpews, protest, tea baggers

People have been having ideas for eons. It’s what we do. “I think, therefore I am,” as the saying goes. Literally everything we now do and have came from someone thinking it up and launching it into the world. But sometimes the best concepts don’t always remain good ideas, at least as a whole. Concepts are peculiar that way.

Take for example, democracy. What we know to be democracy now isn’t the same as it was when it was born in ancient Greece. Some democratic concepts only applied to the Greek lifestyle, others just didn’t cut it as civilization grew. So democracy morphed as time went on. Some principles stayed, some were discarded, and others were changed to suit the needs of the times.

Yet its all still good. Democracy is still the best form of social structure we’ve ever had, and will remain so if we allow it to evolve with the needs of the people. Because after all, democracy is adherence to the will of the society its put in place to fulfill the needs of.

But society changes as we all time travel from the past to the present. Democracy, by its definition then, also needs to change with society. In fact, one could surmise that a great democracy would have to change more frequently than one set too rigidly, because the better the democracy is, the more liberty it dispenses. Thus, in a democracy that gives liberties liberally, people are allowed to pursue their own preferred lifestyles, which in turn gives rise to needed adjustments in the over all concept of what democracy means to that society as those lifestyles begin to impact society as a whole.

However, when a democracy refuses to be fluid enough to fulfill the needs of all its people, other concepts begin to emerge. Socialism, Marxism, and Fascism are examples of democratic offshoots brought about because the society they were born in didn’t allow democracy to bend to the will and needs of everybody.

Conceptually these ideologies weren’t terrible, but where they went wrong was, they attempted to replace democracy rather than being used to fix the problem democracy was having with run-away Capitalism.

Now the really cool thing about society is, it has the ability to learn from its mistakes. But will it?

Apparently many European nations have, including England and France. They’ve remained democracies while injecting some socialist concepts in to keep their playing fields level. Does this make them Socialist countries? Or does it make them Democratic countries using some socialistic principles to fix their problems?

What we’re seeing now in the United States indicates there’s a need for an adjustment in how its democracy handles an imbalance. Once again, run-away Capitalism with all the greed that comes with it is becoming oppressive to many of its citizens. The administration is making attempts to fix the problem, but many on the right are screaming “socialism.”

So where do we draw the line? When does a democracy become a socialist society?

Well when does a philosophy become a religion? Isn’t it when the philosophy becomes the only guideline in a person’s life? After all, you can subscribe to some Buddhist teachings without being a Buddhist, right? You certainly have the ability and the right to “take what you like and leave the rest.”

Then what’s wrong with understanding why the philosophy of socialism came about, determining if any of it might be something we’d want to “take” and use to fix a similar problem in our democracy, and “leave the rest”?

We have to remember, democracy as it was designed in the United States, fulfilled the needs of all its people at the time. If we hold to that rigidly, even though the needs have changed, we will create an imbalance in the liberties and freedoms of all the people.

Yet at the same time, changing doesn’t have to mean “throwing the baby out with the bath water.” If an idea or concept creates a better balance and thus a “more perfect union,” rejecting that idea or concept solely because of the stigma the ideology as a whole represents, would be foolish to say the least.

But on the other hand, merely calling something a democracy when its no longer for all the people doesn’t automatically make it so either.

Technorati Tags: concepts, democracy, democratic principles, socialistic society, socialsim