QuickyPinion: The Orange Distraction

I was sent a cartoon where a family sits happily around a dinner table. Then someone speaks one word – “Trump” – and instantly a violent brawl erupts. My comment:

Trump is a dumb topic neither addressing our underlying problems nor their solutions – which is why the establishment keeps dangling him in front of us.

As a topic he also divides us which likewise aids the ‘elite’. (better follow Beanstock’s World and other smart outlets such as I repeatedly link to from here for deeper thoughts and brighter visions)

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DACA, DAPA, DREAM, and Dump

The way the American people is being controlled from the top involves manipulative narratives and outrageous maneuvers as two of their major weapons. They serve to distract us from the fundamentally important issues, warp our sense of reality, divert citizen activism onto roads to nowhere, disunite us, scapegoat innocents for the crimes of the plutocracy, and so forth. One of the worst versions are wanton atrocities that create problems out of nowhere, to direct us into fighting over them rather than fixing the underlying rigged system.

One of these latter is the current war on immigrants, especially the children of immigrants. Like many mind games of this sort, the perpetrators’ narrative starts out with a reasonable truism: namely that people should take care of their own pressing needs before anything else, much like medics are advised to put their own safety first lest they become hurt themselves and add to the pile of help-requiring accident victims while reducing the pool of helpers. Makes sense, right? 

The Poisonous Duopoly

Here is a simple question for everybody. We all know we are in a horrible mess in the States today. No job security. Disappearing jobs. Growing unemployment, underemployment, and insecure underpaid gigs. Disappearing benefits. Disappearing retirement. Failing health coverage. Home foreclosures and astronomic rents. Crushing student loans and credit card debts. Growing homelessness. Working people sleeping in their cars. Crumbling infrastructure. Disintegrating society. Rising fascism, government surveillance, and criminalization of dissent. Total disregard of our Constitution. The majority of the people being driven closer to or deeper into poverty…

Looking back a generation or two, America was in a Golden Age for about 30 years. Many workers earned enough for a single earner to maintain a family. They had job security. They could build or buy homes, pay their mortgages off during their working lives, and enjoy a financially secure retirement. Healthcare worked for a lot more people then than now. College was affordable or free. We sent men to the moon… 

Investing for Progress, Not Profit

An open-minded look at our world quickly reveals that our systems’ focus on profit is destroying many or most of our lives and the only world we have to live in. It is clear that humanity’s focus should rather be on optimizing its systems for human life and a healthy world.

Today I reworked last week’s post titled “World Progress Inc. – Humanity 2.0”, refining parts and adding some. I wanted to make it even clearer than before that, as nations and a species, we are at a point close to self-caused extinction where we must shift focus from elbowing each other for personal material profit at others’ expense and with no regard for negative consequences to creating a sustainable world built to let us all thrive. I also added more concrete strategies and stressed the need even for wealthy people to invest for progress rather than profit.

The time spent and improvements made warrant that I present the upgraded article for re-reading. So, without further ado, here is the link: World Progress Inc. – Humanity 2.0 (reworked)

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Ending Note: It takes me at least 100 hours a month to research and write for this site and work on my book. Please share or help any other way you can.

World Progress Inc. – Humanity 2.0

An Ashoka-related speech at the Digital-Life-Design conference of 2016 (shared by me below) inspired me to ask my own burning question for change: What if we could discuss and promote ideas for profoundly system-changing human progress so energetically as to overcome systemic resistance, establishment propaganda, and demagoguery?

I like to think that this would result in greatly accelerated generation, refinement, promotion, and realization of those game-changing ideas. I imagine it being a small step for social investors that would result in a giant leap for mankind, to roughly quote the first man on the moon. 

The Feel-Good Politics Trap

The previous piece exposed the use of language manipulation to pull people into political movements and parties which do them a disservice. I pointed to the historic fact that the aim and task of right-wing parties has always been to befuddle large segments of the population into acting against their own interests by baiting them with follies like nationalism, racism, or religion — all ways to give the gullible a sense of being special and belonging to a superior social group. I concluded that this is feel-good politics instead of make-good politics and usually at other groups’ expense.

Today I will briefly elaborate on the scam of feel-good politics and also point out that it is no longer limited to only the right wing whose sole purpose it has always been to make the most gullible portion of the people side with its oligarchy. 

Free Meme: Contempt for the Victims

Here is another free meme from me that can be shared far and wide in unchanged form. A clickable link to this site would be appreciated, but is not required.

This meme contains a great quote from the excellent blogger C.A. Matthews (How does it define us as a people if we treat those who are powerless or without privilege with contempt? How are we made “great” by making others “small”?). It is well in line with recent and upcoming topics on Beanstock’s World.

C.A. Matthews’ great line started out last Tuesday’s publication. Here is the link: The Revolution Continues 1/9/2018

Here are a few more quotes to wet your appetite: 

Beanstock’s World Meme: Those Crappy New Years

You can freely share this anywhere in unchanged form, friends. I made it for a better world.

Best wishes for 2018.

🙂 Dirk