this question of knowledge as being a primary goal of existence
does leave us with some questions.. how is the knowledge of
god, of what is god and how to reach heaven, not an important goal,
as I have already stated...or stated another way,
why should we discount religious knowledge as oppose to other
knowledge? why do I hold that religious knowledge has less
value than other forms of knowledge, like history, science,
biology or philosophy?
we know that the environment creates the needs and desires of
a person, a people, a culture...in other words, in our modern,
technological world, we can't use rural, agricultural means of
thinking, of values...the agricultural world values doesn't support our
modern technological world.. for example, what does the ancient
agricultural world say about AI, or transhumanism or technology?
nothing... in fact, less than nothing... to practice the values of
the dead agriculture world will today, lead one into disaster...
hence the failure of conservatives today...
their values are yesterday's values and beliefs...
the values we hold must, must match the environment we live in...
so, must we recreate our values every time the environment changes?
Not necessarily.... depends on the changes and the values....
take justice for example... one of the great themes of the Enlightenment was
is a renewed focus on the concept of Justice...
one of the things that conservatives fail to see is that our right
of free speech and freedom of religion and a free press are
recent, modern rights pushed by the members of the enlightenment....
it wasn't until the declaration of Independence that even called for that...
and the declaration was written in 1776.. and that idea slowly crept
into the world... and the idea of the freedom of speech wasn't codified in
many countries until the mid 19 century... in other words, after 1800....
so the idea of free speech, free press, of the right to practice freedom
of religion are modern ideas, less than 250 years old... and part and parcel of
our modern political revolutions that occurred with the French Revolution...
you have three modern revolutions, the American, the French and the Russian...
and each of them, created new values and beliefs that have dominated
ever since....
(now some may say, England actually led the revolution
to the freedom of speech and to some extent, they are right, but think
about it, England was also the first place that had the Industrial Revolution...
and that is another landmark event that challenged and changes the values
and beliefs of an entire society, you can make the connection that it
was the Industrial Revolution, the changing of the economic society,
that change the social and political values with it, that has driven the free speech
movement of modern times)
it is the conservatives that make arguments without any historical context...
Liberalism has failed... now one has to make some historical context to that
statement to actually understand if liberalism has failed...
and that is something the conservative does a lot... make statements
without any historical context... ''diversity in a culture is wrong''...
well, you have to put that statement into some historical context to
actually make any sense of that statement....otherwise that statement
makes no sense...what do you mean by diversity and what does culture mean
and how is it wrong and compare to what, is it wrong?
the pursuit of knowledge isn't just about specific knowledge,
that the sun is 93 million miles from earth, but about what knowledge
is important and just as importantly, why is that knowledge important...
we have to explore knowledge as we would explore any epistemology
information... what does it mean epistemological to want ''free speech?"
how and why is that information important?
knowledge.. what is it and what is its value?
that is what we also need to tend to in our modern age....
Kropotkin
a reevaluation
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1743
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: a reevaluation
in a ''reevaluation'', we need to reevaluate all aspects of our lives,
not just the philosophical aspect....
and the ''revaluation'' must be holistically done, in other words, not
just isolating aspects of our lives and not looking at the individual
parts of our lives....
so, holistically, our lives is a combination of things done with each other...
so, we have work, but we must have a work/life balance... and we have
family, and we have vacations and retirement and all that other stuff to
work in....
the capitalistic system demands that we put all of that stuff second, to
working... to spend our live working and for what? to miss out on our families,
and having a life and the final destination, which is retirement...
but think about this..... if we retire at 67, which is roughly 2 years
and a couple of months for me, and statistically, my life expectancy,
is around 76, so I will have less than 10 years of retirement... and
we have to assume bad health for half of that, so, I will get maybe,
maybe 5 years of retirement.... and that is after 49 years of working...
what a terrible payoff for a lifetime of work...maybe 5 years of retirement...
and if I live to be say, 85, I run the risk of running out of money....
and at this point, I am not even sure I have enough money to last until I am
80....so, financial, I can afford to live to maybe 80... so even a long life,
is out of the question for financial reasons...
and for what, a lifetime of servitude to our corporate masters.....
if you work your entire life and barely get enough to retire till
80, I must ask, what is the point? You get a few years of retirement
and with bad health and all, you die, statistically less than 10 years
after you retire... to my mind, there is no point to spending a lifetime
of working for a fairly few years of retirement....
my father in law, retired when he was 62, he had a fair amount of money
saved up.. he died less than 5 months into his retirement... heart attack...
decades of work, and he died pretty quick into his retirement....
so, what was the point for him to work decades, to die at 62?
but one might say, but Kropotkin, he didn't know he would die that young,
no, and that is the point, he didn't know....and today, I am a few years older
than he was when he died... and so, I shall ask the question he should have
asked, what was the point of working decades for a very few years, if that,
for retirement?
from a purely cost benefit aspect, working for 40 plus years to get
maybe, maybe 10 years of retirement isn't worth the effort....
it is not cost efficient.... by any standard... we don't think
about this when we are young, but I am now 64, closer to 65,
and the question has arisen for me, decades too late, but it is here...
have I wasted my life with working for an economic system that has,
basically no point to it? the payoff is not worth the effort... but
Kropotkin, you were able to raise your family.. yes, I did, and my
daughter who makes more money than I do, and she can't afford to live
around here... the SF bay area.... the price of a house in my city,
is around 1.4 million and rents are around $3000 plus for a one bedroom
apartment...studios are around $2000 a month...
that is insane....
and honest evaluation of our lives suggests that we are working decades to get
a very few years of retirement out of it... that is pointless......and not worth
our effort... but what does that say about our current economic system?
we must find a better way to live our lives economical.....
and what of the other aspects of our life? politically, socially,
philosophically, spiritually?
we can approach each of them and find them wanting...
do we have control over our lives politically? nah, and we
haven't had that in a very long time... the golden rule says
that he who has the gold, makes the rules and that applies
to America politically... Bill Gates can call the White house
and get to speak to Biden directly and get results for his
efforts... the average person, not so much...
the political world has been corrupted by money... if a politician
is bribed, say gets 2 million dollars in bribes, and he makes 173,000
a year being a congressman, who exactly who is that politician
working for? it ain't the people of his district... he is effectively
working, as an employee of the person who bribed him.. look at
Mitch McConnel, a senator who makes around 200,000 a year,
which over 30 years is 6,000,000 million, and yet, Mitch
is worth over 35 million dollars... he is an employee of those
who have bribed him... he doesn't work for America or his constituents,
and all of congress, both left and right, work for those who bribe them....
politically, we have no voice in our lives... it has been sold to the highest
bidder.... an reevaluation of our lives suggests that we either accept this,
or we reject this and find another path, politically....
for we are no longer an democracy, but we have become a corporatocracy....
government of business, government by business and government for business....
nothing more, nothing less...... and what should our response be?
and this idea of corporatocracy running our lives, means that
our government is for business, businesses is running our lives,
economically, politically, and yes, even socially...for who runs the
media of this country, why the same people who own congress
and owns the economic system of America....
a reevaluation of our lives makes it pretty clear that we are not
in control of our lives, in any real aspect of it.. not politically,
not socially, not economically, we are, for all practical purposes,
disposable, unimportant, replicable... and every boss I have ever
had, has made that quite clear.... that I can be easily replaced...
that is the entire point of having millions of people on unemployment..
that is the replacement for me... those millions of people can easily replaced
me.... that is the real reason, they don't want full employment...
I become more valuable if there is no replacements for me....
that is why big business wants a depression or recession.... it creates
the one thing that they want, which is millions of people available to
replace workers... at a cheaper price...a recession only hurts a business
for a very short time... if at all.....one does notice that during the
last economic crisis, the IQ45 recession, that business value WENT
up.... not down.......... during the last economic crisis, less than
3 years ago, people wealth, went up dramatically.. people next worth,
the very wealthy anyway, went from being billionaires, to becoming worth
hundreds of billions of dollars... the IQ45 recession didn't hurt them one bit...
and so, what is their incentive to avoid a recession or even a depression?
their net worth went up last time, so, what to stop their net
worth going up, during an even worse economic crisis?
nothing......
an reevaluation reveals to me that I have no say in my life,
not economically, not politically, not socially....
recall that only 6 companies own 95% of all the media in America....
so, what are we to do? as the Kantian questions ask,
''what am I to do?" ''what can I know?'' ''What can I believe in?"
''what can I hope for?"
In light of our situation, what am I, we to do?
that is the question...
Kropotkin
not just the philosophical aspect....
and the ''revaluation'' must be holistically done, in other words, not
just isolating aspects of our lives and not looking at the individual
parts of our lives....
so, holistically, our lives is a combination of things done with each other...
so, we have work, but we must have a work/life balance... and we have
family, and we have vacations and retirement and all that other stuff to
work in....
the capitalistic system demands that we put all of that stuff second, to
working... to spend our live working and for what? to miss out on our families,
and having a life and the final destination, which is retirement...
but think about this..... if we retire at 67, which is roughly 2 years
and a couple of months for me, and statistically, my life expectancy,
is around 76, so I will have less than 10 years of retirement... and
we have to assume bad health for half of that, so, I will get maybe,
maybe 5 years of retirement.... and that is after 49 years of working...
what a terrible payoff for a lifetime of work...maybe 5 years of retirement...
and if I live to be say, 85, I run the risk of running out of money....
and at this point, I am not even sure I have enough money to last until I am
80....so, financial, I can afford to live to maybe 80... so even a long life,
is out of the question for financial reasons...
and for what, a lifetime of servitude to our corporate masters.....
if you work your entire life and barely get enough to retire till
80, I must ask, what is the point? You get a few years of retirement
and with bad health and all, you die, statistically less than 10 years
after you retire... to my mind, there is no point to spending a lifetime
of working for a fairly few years of retirement....
my father in law, retired when he was 62, he had a fair amount of money
saved up.. he died less than 5 months into his retirement... heart attack...
decades of work, and he died pretty quick into his retirement....
so, what was the point for him to work decades, to die at 62?
but one might say, but Kropotkin, he didn't know he would die that young,
no, and that is the point, he didn't know....and today, I am a few years older
than he was when he died... and so, I shall ask the question he should have
asked, what was the point of working decades for a very few years, if that,
for retirement?
from a purely cost benefit aspect, working for 40 plus years to get
maybe, maybe 10 years of retirement isn't worth the effort....
it is not cost efficient.... by any standard... we don't think
about this when we are young, but I am now 64, closer to 65,
and the question has arisen for me, decades too late, but it is here...
have I wasted my life with working for an economic system that has,
basically no point to it? the payoff is not worth the effort... but
Kropotkin, you were able to raise your family.. yes, I did, and my
daughter who makes more money than I do, and she can't afford to live
around here... the SF bay area.... the price of a house in my city,
is around 1.4 million and rents are around $3000 plus for a one bedroom
apartment...studios are around $2000 a month...
that is insane....
and honest evaluation of our lives suggests that we are working decades to get
a very few years of retirement out of it... that is pointless......and not worth
our effort... but what does that say about our current economic system?
we must find a better way to live our lives economical.....
and what of the other aspects of our life? politically, socially,
philosophically, spiritually?
we can approach each of them and find them wanting...
do we have control over our lives politically? nah, and we
haven't had that in a very long time... the golden rule says
that he who has the gold, makes the rules and that applies
to America politically... Bill Gates can call the White house
and get to speak to Biden directly and get results for his
efforts... the average person, not so much...
the political world has been corrupted by money... if a politician
is bribed, say gets 2 million dollars in bribes, and he makes 173,000
a year being a congressman, who exactly who is that politician
working for? it ain't the people of his district... he is effectively
working, as an employee of the person who bribed him.. look at
Mitch McConnel, a senator who makes around 200,000 a year,
which over 30 years is 6,000,000 million, and yet, Mitch
is worth over 35 million dollars... he is an employee of those
who have bribed him... he doesn't work for America or his constituents,
and all of congress, both left and right, work for those who bribe them....
politically, we have no voice in our lives... it has been sold to the highest
bidder.... an reevaluation of our lives suggests that we either accept this,
or we reject this and find another path, politically....
for we are no longer an democracy, but we have become a corporatocracy....
government of business, government by business and government for business....
nothing more, nothing less...... and what should our response be?
and this idea of corporatocracy running our lives, means that
our government is for business, businesses is running our lives,
economically, politically, and yes, even socially...for who runs the
media of this country, why the same people who own congress
and owns the economic system of America....
a reevaluation of our lives makes it pretty clear that we are not
in control of our lives, in any real aspect of it.. not politically,
not socially, not economically, we are, for all practical purposes,
disposable, unimportant, replicable... and every boss I have ever
had, has made that quite clear.... that I can be easily replaced...
that is the entire point of having millions of people on unemployment..
that is the replacement for me... those millions of people can easily replaced
me.... that is the real reason, they don't want full employment...
I become more valuable if there is no replacements for me....
that is why big business wants a depression or recession.... it creates
the one thing that they want, which is millions of people available to
replace workers... at a cheaper price...a recession only hurts a business
for a very short time... if at all.....one does notice that during the
last economic crisis, the IQ45 recession, that business value WENT
up.... not down.......... during the last economic crisis, less than
3 years ago, people wealth, went up dramatically.. people next worth,
the very wealthy anyway, went from being billionaires, to becoming worth
hundreds of billions of dollars... the IQ45 recession didn't hurt them one bit...
and so, what is their incentive to avoid a recession or even a depression?
their net worth went up last time, so, what to stop their net
worth going up, during an even worse economic crisis?
nothing......
an reevaluation reveals to me that I have no say in my life,
not economically, not politically, not socially....
recall that only 6 companies own 95% of all the media in America....
so, what are we to do? as the Kantian questions ask,
''what am I to do?" ''what can I know?'' ''What can I believe in?"
''what can I hope for?"
In light of our situation, what am I, we to do?
that is the question...
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1743
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: a reevaluation
at the end of the day, for most of you anyway, what does your life
look like? and ''end of the day'' is a euphemism for death,
for those who are a little on the slow side.....
anyway, as I am 64, soon to be 65, I can already see what my final
days will look like... a lot like today... the one certainty of getting older is
how the body begins to fail.. ever wonder why old people smell like urine...
that is just a small part of the body beginning to fail...I have a long ways to go,
but I can see it coming... today, I can barely bend over and then get back up....
and my body will continue to fail.. until one day, it will just stop working....
not a lot to look forward here...
and now let us look back... we are suppose to spend our lives working
and for what? to end our days in pain and being unable to do simple things
anymore...in your last day, think about it... will you be proud of how
money you created for your work? or how much money you made?
Nah, trust me, that will be at the bottom of your list... and most people
at the very end, they will say, the one thing that they think about is
the regrets.. not necessarily what they did, but what they didn't do...
will your last day be thinking about that fancy sports car you overpaid for?
nah, it will be about the human beings we met and the days we spent together....
I have seen many, many people come and go out of my life.... some by choice,
some not...and some I would like to see if for no other reason than to say
goodby.... but I am already playing the regret game....
it has been said, that the point of modern day life is to be able to
support your family..... to clothe and feed and house them....
and somehow if you don't do this, your life is, what, a failure?
I would like to point out that there have many, many different diverse
ways we have been able to support our families in our economic history....
the longest economic system in human history was the hunter-gatherer system,
that lasted, depending on who is doing the counting, over a million years...
and one might say, but they didn't have the comforts we have... like cars,
and couches and TV's... But I say, they didn't need them....
the act of survival doesn't need or require material possessions...
and even a ''good life'' isn't about what we can buy.... for those
aren't the things we will think of on our final day.... will I be thinking
about the condo we have or will I be thinking about the life I shared
with my wife.... 27 years and counting.... and hopefully many more to come...
that will be on my mind on my last day...because that is what is important...
not our titles, or how many vacation houses we have or how much
power I may or may not have, or even any fame I won't ever get...no,
that stuff is unimportant in my final day.....
what I will regret is spending my entire adult life working to gain something
that won't matter one iota in my final day... money or any of the trinkets
of existence won't matter at all in my final day and it won't matter in
your final day....
but you will regret spending your life working to make money for others
and for yourself....because there is no value in that.... for a lifetime of
working, you will get and this is generous, maybe 9 years of retirement
after working for over 40 years.. it is simply not worth the effort...
it is not cost effective....... that many years working to get a small
fraction of it back in retirement.... but don't take my word for it...
evaluate, and then reevaluate... think about your very last day... what
will it look like? and what should it look like?
I have heard work said to be, a thing that gives dignity to
our lives..... and that is a lie... a bald face lie... the only thing
that can give our lives dignity is to enjoy our lives... and to recall those
who have impacted us and made us better people in the process....
I know someone who is dying of cancer, she is younger than me... and my wife's
friend... I like her.. and she is dying and there is nothing I can do...and there
is nothing she can do... she has wealth and is/was a doctor and a loving family
and what will she remember on her last day? her job title, or where
she graduated from or perhaps that house she and Roger live in...
nah, none of that will matter in her last day... which will be very soon...
personally I doubt she will think of me, but she will think of my wife...
someone she has known for over 50 years...and how much money,
how much money will she regret making on her final day? working when
she could have spent it with her family, her husband, her friends....
that will what she will regret... working instead of being with those
that she loved....we can always find ways to support our family,
but can we get those days of working, those years and decades back?
no.... and a thousand no's.... what a waste of a life... spending it
working...
Kropotkin
look like? and ''end of the day'' is a euphemism for death,
for those who are a little on the slow side.....
anyway, as I am 64, soon to be 65, I can already see what my final
days will look like... a lot like today... the one certainty of getting older is
how the body begins to fail.. ever wonder why old people smell like urine...
that is just a small part of the body beginning to fail...I have a long ways to go,
but I can see it coming... today, I can barely bend over and then get back up....
and my body will continue to fail.. until one day, it will just stop working....
not a lot to look forward here...
and now let us look back... we are suppose to spend our lives working
and for what? to end our days in pain and being unable to do simple things
anymore...in your last day, think about it... will you be proud of how
money you created for your work? or how much money you made?
Nah, trust me, that will be at the bottom of your list... and most people
at the very end, they will say, the one thing that they think about is
the regrets.. not necessarily what they did, but what they didn't do...
will your last day be thinking about that fancy sports car you overpaid for?
nah, it will be about the human beings we met and the days we spent together....
I have seen many, many people come and go out of my life.... some by choice,
some not...and some I would like to see if for no other reason than to say
goodby.... but I am already playing the regret game....
it has been said, that the point of modern day life is to be able to
support your family..... to clothe and feed and house them....
and somehow if you don't do this, your life is, what, a failure?
I would like to point out that there have many, many different diverse
ways we have been able to support our families in our economic history....
the longest economic system in human history was the hunter-gatherer system,
that lasted, depending on who is doing the counting, over a million years...
and one might say, but they didn't have the comforts we have... like cars,
and couches and TV's... But I say, they didn't need them....
the act of survival doesn't need or require material possessions...
and even a ''good life'' isn't about what we can buy.... for those
aren't the things we will think of on our final day.... will I be thinking
about the condo we have or will I be thinking about the life I shared
with my wife.... 27 years and counting.... and hopefully many more to come...
that will be on my mind on my last day...because that is what is important...
not our titles, or how many vacation houses we have or how much
power I may or may not have, or even any fame I won't ever get...no,
that stuff is unimportant in my final day.....
what I will regret is spending my entire adult life working to gain something
that won't matter one iota in my final day... money or any of the trinkets
of existence won't matter at all in my final day and it won't matter in
your final day....
but you will regret spending your life working to make money for others
and for yourself....because there is no value in that.... for a lifetime of
working, you will get and this is generous, maybe 9 years of retirement
after working for over 40 years.. it is simply not worth the effort...
it is not cost effective....... that many years working to get a small
fraction of it back in retirement.... but don't take my word for it...
evaluate, and then reevaluate... think about your very last day... what
will it look like? and what should it look like?
I have heard work said to be, a thing that gives dignity to
our lives..... and that is a lie... a bald face lie... the only thing
that can give our lives dignity is to enjoy our lives... and to recall those
who have impacted us and made us better people in the process....
I know someone who is dying of cancer, she is younger than me... and my wife's
friend... I like her.. and she is dying and there is nothing I can do...and there
is nothing she can do... she has wealth and is/was a doctor and a loving family
and what will she remember on her last day? her job title, or where
she graduated from or perhaps that house she and Roger live in...
nah, none of that will matter in her last day... which will be very soon...
personally I doubt she will think of me, but she will think of my wife...
someone she has known for over 50 years...and how much money,
how much money will she regret making on her final day? working when
she could have spent it with her family, her husband, her friends....
that will what she will regret... working instead of being with those
that she loved....we can always find ways to support our family,
but can we get those days of working, those years and decades back?
no.... and a thousand no's.... what a waste of a life... spending it
working...
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1743
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: a reevaluation
the public vs the private....
we have two sides of being human..... the private side...
and the public side...
the private side is that which we keep hidden from others...
our hobbies, our friends, our families, the books I read and the TV
I watch... that which we do by ourselves or within a small group...
the public side of being human is work, is being on the roads,
when we go shopping, our interactions with others is our public side....
this doesn't sound very definite.. it isn't....for most of us, most,
we mix our private lives with our public lives...
I work in a grocery store.. basically at self checkout... and I see
a lot of people trying to hang onto a private life by wearing earbuds
and listening to music... I would say, easily 25% of those who go to self-
checkout, wear some sort of ear buds...and by doing so, they remain
in their own little world...that is the point of the ear buds... to stay
within one's own head... to mentally keep private and not engage
publicly....
for the public world is loud, abrasive, pushy, annoying, and unforgiving....
and one has to ask why? I believe it is because we no longer know
how to act in the world publicly.... we don't connect publicly as well
as we once did because of the rise in technology.... within the use
of technology, we can hide and avoid others... by using the computer
and the telephone and e-mail, we avoid physical contact with people...
we are connecting to others with technology, not with human
contact... seeing someone or talking to someone is a different thing,
than using technology to communicate to people...
I will give you one small example.... I wear a hearing aid... technology..
and people voices and sounds are different when I wear my hearing aid,
then when I go without.... of course without, I am deaf... but nevertheless,
when my hearing aid is in the wrong setting, I hear people very differently
then when my aid is set right... and because of the noise level, I often
have to adjust my hearing aid to overcome that noise.. and I miss the clues
people often give in the tone of their voice... and that is within communication...
much of, indeed most of communication is within the tone of one's voice, the
''stress'' within a voice, the pitch and volume of a person's voice....we can
read a person's voice without hearing the words... by the tone of a voice,
we can tell if they are angry or mad or kind, or their state of mind....
we don't need words to tell us this.... we can hear it.... but if we
spend our time in communication via technology, we can't spot these
differences... we can't ''hear'' their voice, we can't tell their mindset
in the use of technology... the very use of technology is changing how
we interact with others by changing our ability to detect how others
are responding to us...the very nature of communication has been
changed by the use of technology...
and this has changed the public side of being human... which is
the ability to communicate to others...and our ability to gather ''clues''
about others by how they communicate with us...it has been said,
that 95% of all communication is non-verbal....and as a deaf person,
I can only say, it is quite substantial the amount of communication
that is done non-verbally...
and we have to be clear as to how our modern technology has
changed our means of communication....which impacts our public self...
this question of private self and public self, has to become the basis of
how we understand both our own selves, and understand others...
it is 6:30 in the morning here... I can't see or hear any one else.. wife is
asleep... I don't need to my ''public'' self in this situation... and yet,
I work at 10:00 this morning, and I will need my public self to be
able to do my job.... my private self can certainly help my public
self in doing its job, but it isn't essential...
we are in essence, engaging in the world with our two selves...
we have one engagement with the world in our private
self, and we have another engagement with the world in our
public self....and we toggle back and forth between our private
self and our public self...
In my public self, I have to remain peaceful and calm and almost
detached from others... I set the example for others to follow in
self checkout... my public behavior sets the example for others
to act and be within self checkout.... but my private self, I
can be, if I so desire, to be loud and funny and sing songs,
mostly the Who, or read a good book and just be.... which isn't
an option in self checkout... I must engage with my public self,
not my private self in self checkout...
and we must engage with others in our public self,
not our private self... and I suspect that many don't do this
very well today... can you spot your private self, as oppose
to your public self? and what is the difference?
Kropotkin
we have two sides of being human..... the private side...
and the public side...
the private side is that which we keep hidden from others...
our hobbies, our friends, our families, the books I read and the TV
I watch... that which we do by ourselves or within a small group...
the public side of being human is work, is being on the roads,
when we go shopping, our interactions with others is our public side....
this doesn't sound very definite.. it isn't....for most of us, most,
we mix our private lives with our public lives...
I work in a grocery store.. basically at self checkout... and I see
a lot of people trying to hang onto a private life by wearing earbuds
and listening to music... I would say, easily 25% of those who go to self-
checkout, wear some sort of ear buds...and by doing so, they remain
in their own little world...that is the point of the ear buds... to stay
within one's own head... to mentally keep private and not engage
publicly....
for the public world is loud, abrasive, pushy, annoying, and unforgiving....
and one has to ask why? I believe it is because we no longer know
how to act in the world publicly.... we don't connect publicly as well
as we once did because of the rise in technology.... within the use
of technology, we can hide and avoid others... by using the computer
and the telephone and e-mail, we avoid physical contact with people...
we are connecting to others with technology, not with human
contact... seeing someone or talking to someone is a different thing,
than using technology to communicate to people...
I will give you one small example.... I wear a hearing aid... technology..
and people voices and sounds are different when I wear my hearing aid,
then when I go without.... of course without, I am deaf... but nevertheless,
when my hearing aid is in the wrong setting, I hear people very differently
then when my aid is set right... and because of the noise level, I often
have to adjust my hearing aid to overcome that noise.. and I miss the clues
people often give in the tone of their voice... and that is within communication...
much of, indeed most of communication is within the tone of one's voice, the
''stress'' within a voice, the pitch and volume of a person's voice....we can
read a person's voice without hearing the words... by the tone of a voice,
we can tell if they are angry or mad or kind, or their state of mind....
we don't need words to tell us this.... we can hear it.... but if we
spend our time in communication via technology, we can't spot these
differences... we can't ''hear'' their voice, we can't tell their mindset
in the use of technology... the very use of technology is changing how
we interact with others by changing our ability to detect how others
are responding to us...the very nature of communication has been
changed by the use of technology...
and this has changed the public side of being human... which is
the ability to communicate to others...and our ability to gather ''clues''
about others by how they communicate with us...it has been said,
that 95% of all communication is non-verbal....and as a deaf person,
I can only say, it is quite substantial the amount of communication
that is done non-verbally...
and we have to be clear as to how our modern technology has
changed our means of communication....which impacts our public self...
this question of private self and public self, has to become the basis of
how we understand both our own selves, and understand others...
it is 6:30 in the morning here... I can't see or hear any one else.. wife is
asleep... I don't need to my ''public'' self in this situation... and yet,
I work at 10:00 this morning, and I will need my public self to be
able to do my job.... my private self can certainly help my public
self in doing its job, but it isn't essential...
we are in essence, engaging in the world with our two selves...
we have one engagement with the world in our private
self, and we have another engagement with the world in our
public self....and we toggle back and forth between our private
self and our public self...
In my public self, I have to remain peaceful and calm and almost
detached from others... I set the example for others to follow in
self checkout... my public behavior sets the example for others
to act and be within self checkout.... but my private self, I
can be, if I so desire, to be loud and funny and sing songs,
mostly the Who, or read a good book and just be.... which isn't
an option in self checkout... I must engage with my public self,
not my private self in self checkout...
and we must engage with others in our public self,
not our private self... and I suspect that many don't do this
very well today... can you spot your private self, as oppose
to your public self? and what is the difference?
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1743
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: a reevaluation
this notion of the public self and the private self, leads us to
another notion, in which there are public goals and private goals...
the conservative focuses on the private goal of individuals,
and the liberal tends to focus on the public goal...
a conservative: what can I achieve?
a liberal: what can we achieve?
and another, more subtle focus, is on tribe....
a long time focus has been, what is my place within the tribe?
but a new way of thinking is this, are tribes even necessary anymore?
do we have a need for tribes in our modern world?
and looking at who we are and where we are at, would suggest
that tribal thinking is a story whose time must end...
the conservative focus on the family or other small tribes, being
white or hold to a god in heaven... but we no longer have
any need for that small tribal thinking.....
in other words, we are holding onto tribal beliefs even though
there is no more need for tribal thinking in the modern world...
given the historical picture, of our movement from small groups,
we call them tribes, to larger and larger tribes, but our modern world,
which is multinational and multiculturally, the need for tribes is
no longer there.... even such large scale tribes as American or
English or Russian, we hold are in doubt....the creation of an
''us vs them'' attitude no longer fits into any future agenda...
the ''us vs them'' mentality only creates conflict and competition,
strife and war..... the current Israeli - Hamas conflict is one of
tribe vs tribe....as is the Russian- Ukrainian... conflict between
two tribes...as is the simmering civil war in America, tribe vs tribe...
if you want to remove conflict and strife, even war, we must remove
the ''us vs them'' understanding of the world... we must remove tribal
thinking...our only path into the future lays with our removal/the
elimination of tribal thinking, of ''us vs them'' mentality that is the
dominate thinking in tribal thinking...
but Kropotkin, I am comfortable thinking about other human beings in
terms of ''us vs them''.. why change what is so easy to do, so comfortable to do...
because that path no longer suits us... it creates unnecessary conflict
and strife in the world... it is thinking that no longer matches
the world we live in today... much of the worlds problem comes
from this tribal, ''us vs them'' mentality that is so prevalent in the
world today.... even the nation vs nation, ''us vs them'' mentality
is harmful and dangerous in the world today..... we must rise above
that small scale thinking...to classify human beings, not by which tribe
they belong to, but as human beings, with no tribal classification....
I am human and you are human.... we are good to go....
Kropotkin
another notion, in which there are public goals and private goals...
the conservative focuses on the private goal of individuals,
and the liberal tends to focus on the public goal...
a conservative: what can I achieve?
a liberal: what can we achieve?
and another, more subtle focus, is on tribe....
a long time focus has been, what is my place within the tribe?
but a new way of thinking is this, are tribes even necessary anymore?
do we have a need for tribes in our modern world?
and looking at who we are and where we are at, would suggest
that tribal thinking is a story whose time must end...
the conservative focus on the family or other small tribes, being
white or hold to a god in heaven... but we no longer have
any need for that small tribal thinking.....
in other words, we are holding onto tribal beliefs even though
there is no more need for tribal thinking in the modern world...
given the historical picture, of our movement from small groups,
we call them tribes, to larger and larger tribes, but our modern world,
which is multinational and multiculturally, the need for tribes is
no longer there.... even such large scale tribes as American or
English or Russian, we hold are in doubt....the creation of an
''us vs them'' attitude no longer fits into any future agenda...
the ''us vs them'' mentality only creates conflict and competition,
strife and war..... the current Israeli - Hamas conflict is one of
tribe vs tribe....as is the Russian- Ukrainian... conflict between
two tribes...as is the simmering civil war in America, tribe vs tribe...
if you want to remove conflict and strife, even war, we must remove
the ''us vs them'' understanding of the world... we must remove tribal
thinking...our only path into the future lays with our removal/the
elimination of tribal thinking, of ''us vs them'' mentality that is the
dominate thinking in tribal thinking...
but Kropotkin, I am comfortable thinking about other human beings in
terms of ''us vs them''.. why change what is so easy to do, so comfortable to do...
because that path no longer suits us... it creates unnecessary conflict
and strife in the world... it is thinking that no longer matches
the world we live in today... much of the worlds problem comes
from this tribal, ''us vs them'' mentality that is so prevalent in the
world today.... even the nation vs nation, ''us vs them'' mentality
is harmful and dangerous in the world today..... we must rise above
that small scale thinking...to classify human beings, not by which tribe
they belong to, but as human beings, with no tribal classification....
I am human and you are human.... we are good to go....
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1743
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: a reevaluation
in the course of human events, we are faced with several
''challenges''... one of those ''challenges'' is the question of
ethics/morals in a no-god universe......
in the Chistian universe, the question of ethics/morals is often
answered with the statement, "what would Jesus do?" but that
answer is predicated on someone actually knowing what is in
the bible and, AND understanding what it is Jesus is doing and why....
the Chistian message is one of, follow the laws of god, and be
rewarded by god....the problem with that message, is that our
reward doesn't come in this lifetime, but the next.... life eternal
is our reward... if, if we follow the word of god... obey the laws...
and put our faith in Jesus....our sacred prayer lays out the matter pretty
clearly...
''Our father in heaven,
hollowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
you will be done,
ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN...''
But the major assumption is that we live in a god universe,
whereas as we cannot see, hear, feel, taste or smell god,
we can't assume that a god, any god has existence....
so, in a no-god universe, where does that leave such
primary concerns as ethics and morality?
if there is no god, on what do we base our ethics/morality on?
let us start with what we know.... that I exist, that you exist,
(for in reading this, you have existence) that human beings
are social beings... we cannot exist alone... every single need
we have is met by living within a society/a state...
our biological need for food, water, shelter, love, esteem,
safety/security... can only be met by our continued existence within
a society/state....
that the continued existence of the state/society lies within the successful
practice of ethics/and morals...in other words, our state/society can only
exists if, if there is a society wide use of ethics/and morals...
without ethics/morals, our society/state will collapse pretty quickly...
we would revert back to the Hobbesian world of the ''state of nature''...
where every man is against every other man... and only the strong survive,
and the rest die or become enslaved by that strongman.....
that is not a world which I want any part of...and yet, the conservatives seem
to want to bring us back into this ''state of nature''.. by their instance of
limiting if not the actual removal of the government....the government is
what stands between us human beings and total anarchism.. ''a state of nature''
so, to this goal of keeping us as far as possible from total anarchism/state of nature,
our ethics/morals are valid attempts to keep our state and society, as strong
as possible... the point of ethics/morals is to keep the state/society functional...
so, ethics and morals are attempts at strengthening our society/state...
so, ethics/morals that keep the society/state strong includes such matters
as laws against other people...for example, murder is illegal... and why?
because murder for example, disrupts a state/society....every criminal
act, including murder disrupts and disorganizes a state/society....
think of criminal acts as acts of entropy.... in which the state/society
is the body of a human being... and violence and crime is the act of
entropy that disorganizes a body/state/society.... enough entropy
and the state/body/society falls apart.... old age is the action of
entropy... of the disorganization of the body, going from being organized
to becoming disorganized... and this path is the path of entropy...
and enough entropy in any system, be it the human body or the sun
or our society/state, will force the body/state/society to disintegrate...
and any actions that encourage this disintegration of the body, state, or the
society must be discourage...
crime, violence, lying, stealing, are a few of the actions that weaken
and increase entropy in a body/state/society...
so, basically morals and ethics are designed to prevent an increase
in entropy within our society/state.....so we are putting power, energy
into the state/society, not taking it out with violence or crime, or lying...
which takes out energy from the state....
so, we return to the ethics/morals of the bible, of god/Jesus....
in that those ''ten commandments'' are simply attempts to keep
energy in the system, which negates entropy...
if we think of the state/society as a matter of energy,
then we must do everything we can to at least maintain,
if not increase energy into our various systems, be it political
or economic or social.....
that statement is not a commentary on our systems being
corrupt or a danger to us, that sort of comment is best left to
another time.... to judge the viability of our society/state is
another matter altogether.....
and best left to another post/thread...
so what is the value of morals/ethics? to keep and increase energy
into our political, social and economic system that we have today...
Kropotkin
''challenges''... one of those ''challenges'' is the question of
ethics/morals in a no-god universe......
in the Chistian universe, the question of ethics/morals is often
answered with the statement, "what would Jesus do?" but that
answer is predicated on someone actually knowing what is in
the bible and, AND understanding what it is Jesus is doing and why....
the Chistian message is one of, follow the laws of god, and be
rewarded by god....the problem with that message, is that our
reward doesn't come in this lifetime, but the next.... life eternal
is our reward... if, if we follow the word of god... obey the laws...
and put our faith in Jesus....our sacred prayer lays out the matter pretty
clearly...
''Our father in heaven,
hollowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
you will be done,
ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN...''
But the major assumption is that we live in a god universe,
whereas as we cannot see, hear, feel, taste or smell god,
we can't assume that a god, any god has existence....
so, in a no-god universe, where does that leave such
primary concerns as ethics and morality?
if there is no god, on what do we base our ethics/morality on?
let us start with what we know.... that I exist, that you exist,
(for in reading this, you have existence) that human beings
are social beings... we cannot exist alone... every single need
we have is met by living within a society/a state...
our biological need for food, water, shelter, love, esteem,
safety/security... can only be met by our continued existence within
a society/state....
that the continued existence of the state/society lies within the successful
practice of ethics/and morals...in other words, our state/society can only
exists if, if there is a society wide use of ethics/and morals...
without ethics/morals, our society/state will collapse pretty quickly...
we would revert back to the Hobbesian world of the ''state of nature''...
where every man is against every other man... and only the strong survive,
and the rest die or become enslaved by that strongman.....
that is not a world which I want any part of...and yet, the conservatives seem
to want to bring us back into this ''state of nature''.. by their instance of
limiting if not the actual removal of the government....the government is
what stands between us human beings and total anarchism.. ''a state of nature''
so, to this goal of keeping us as far as possible from total anarchism/state of nature,
our ethics/morals are valid attempts to keep our state and society, as strong
as possible... the point of ethics/morals is to keep the state/society functional...
so, ethics and morals are attempts at strengthening our society/state...
so, ethics/morals that keep the society/state strong includes such matters
as laws against other people...for example, murder is illegal... and why?
because murder for example, disrupts a state/society....every criminal
act, including murder disrupts and disorganizes a state/society....
think of criminal acts as acts of entropy.... in which the state/society
is the body of a human being... and violence and crime is the act of
entropy that disorganizes a body/state/society.... enough entropy
and the state/body/society falls apart.... old age is the action of
entropy... of the disorganization of the body, going from being organized
to becoming disorganized... and this path is the path of entropy...
and enough entropy in any system, be it the human body or the sun
or our society/state, will force the body/state/society to disintegrate...
and any actions that encourage this disintegration of the body, state, or the
society must be discourage...
crime, violence, lying, stealing, are a few of the actions that weaken
and increase entropy in a body/state/society...
so, basically morals and ethics are designed to prevent an increase
in entropy within our society/state.....so we are putting power, energy
into the state/society, not taking it out with violence or crime, or lying...
which takes out energy from the state....
so, we return to the ethics/morals of the bible, of god/Jesus....
in that those ''ten commandments'' are simply attempts to keep
energy in the system, which negates entropy...
if we think of the state/society as a matter of energy,
then we must do everything we can to at least maintain,
if not increase energy into our various systems, be it political
or economic or social.....
that statement is not a commentary on our systems being
corrupt or a danger to us, that sort of comment is best left to
another time.... to judge the viability of our society/state is
another matter altogether.....
and best left to another post/thread...
so what is the value of morals/ethics? to keep and increase energy
into our political, social and economic system that we have today...
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1743
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: a reevaluation
so, as it has been said before, let us bring this matter
down to earth...
what a practical understanding of this looks like...
political ideologies/isms do we then practice if, if we
are to bring energy into a system, which is strengthening it...
democracy brings energy into people which we can count
as a plus.... a democracy is an ideal way to create and build
energy into a people.....which drives away entropy...
and that is the entire point... to go to energy and away from
entropy...
so, Nazism, is that a plus or a minus in our understanding of energy....
it is clearly a minus... any time we divide a state/society into
''us vs them'', that is a negative in energy...
so to strengthen a state, society, we must include diversity and
inclusion, not exclusion or an ''us vs them''..
so anything that exclude, is minus, and anything that includes,
including diversity and acceptance of other values and beliefs is
a positive...
to divide, that is entropy, taking energy out of the system
to exclude gays is taking energy out of the system..
to exclude blacks is to take energy out of the system...
now, many hold that gays or trans people, in some fashion
that is never explained, somehow weaken the system... not so...
by bringing them into a system, we bring energy into a system
and that is the goal, not to make moral judgements, because
we have no basis to make moral/ethical judgements in
a no-god world and the idea of there being a god is not only
unprovable, but one I hold to be a determent to a society/state...
for believe in a god calls for an ''us vs them'' mentality... we the believers
vs those who don't believe... and that is a negative... it takes
energy out of a system.... instead of putting energy into a system...
now what about living in an already losing energy system like
Nazism or IQ45 dictatorship... what is the answer there...
and that is my next post...
Kropotkin
down to earth...
what a practical understanding of this looks like...
political ideologies/isms do we then practice if, if we
are to bring energy into a system, which is strengthening it...
democracy brings energy into people which we can count
as a plus.... a democracy is an ideal way to create and build
energy into a people.....which drives away entropy...
and that is the entire point... to go to energy and away from
entropy...
so, Nazism, is that a plus or a minus in our understanding of energy....
it is clearly a minus... any time we divide a state/society into
''us vs them'', that is a negative in energy...
so to strengthen a state, society, we must include diversity and
inclusion, not exclusion or an ''us vs them''..
so anything that exclude, is minus, and anything that includes,
including diversity and acceptance of other values and beliefs is
a positive...
to divide, that is entropy, taking energy out of the system
to exclude gays is taking energy out of the system..
to exclude blacks is to take energy out of the system...
now, many hold that gays or trans people, in some fashion
that is never explained, somehow weaken the system... not so...
by bringing them into a system, we bring energy into a system
and that is the goal, not to make moral judgements, because
we have no basis to make moral/ethical judgements in
a no-god world and the idea of there being a god is not only
unprovable, but one I hold to be a determent to a society/state...
for believe in a god calls for an ''us vs them'' mentality... we the believers
vs those who don't believe... and that is a negative... it takes
energy out of a system.... instead of putting energy into a system...
now what about living in an already losing energy system like
Nazism or IQ45 dictatorship... what is the answer there...
and that is my next post...
Kropotkin
-
Peter Kropotkin
- Posts: 1743
- Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am
Re: a reevaluation
a dictatorship like the Nazi's and the Soviet Union, begin to fall apart
because the people, those who bring energy into a system, walk out
of a system... they won't interact or bring their energy into a system...
that is the power of a democracy... it brings people energy into it until,
until they realize that the democracy has been taken over by corporations...
we have in America, at least, a severe apathy problem...
and the basis of that problem is that people don't feel engaged with democracy...
people no longer have a voice in our democracy.... so, why participate in
a system that negates your voice? the same is true for its economic
system, capitalism.... corporations simply don't care about its consumers..
that much is very clear.... try working with a corporation in some
problem with that product... customer service is designed to scare
any and all people away.... with most customer service people
being stationed in places like India or Indonesia.... try to get a live voice
that actually lives in America... good luck...
and don't even get started on terrible corporations treat their employees....
expendable parts that can be easily gotten rid of.....and that is employees
that they trust... my big box grocery store clearly hates its employees...
even more than it hates its customers... we have had employees die
and the managers never said a word about it... that employee was simple
erased off the schedule and that was that....
I am fairly sure that if I die in a checkstand, all they will do is push
my body out of the way and write me up for abandoning my position....
and I will never be mentioned again... even after 17 years of working there...
I am expendable... my company makes that very, very clear....and if I don't create
some sort of profits, I am gone....
and the morale of the store is for shits, but my company couldn't care less...
most people I talk to in store, hate their job... as do I, but
I, as well as them are trapped into the job due to wages, or for
me, benefits and retirement... I would leave if it weren't for that...
and what happens when the workers don't bring in energy into
their jobs? that is entropy at work... the edges, the fringe aspect
of my store looks like shit, and no one cares... why should they?
there is no advantage to bring energy into the store... it changes
nothing... and my store is an example of what happens when
the system no longer has any energy.... it slowly loses its energy...
people just don't care any longer... and some actively hope the store
burns down... and the nature of this loss of energy in our system lies
in its transactional nature.... all the company offers us is money, and
nothing else... there is no loyalty or trust or sincerity from the company
to its workers...live or die... the company couldn't care less....
and turn that attitude to the state/society at large...
the Soviet Union couldn't have cared less about its citizens and that leads
to the citizens not caring about the Soviet Union... there is no energy
brought from the citizens to the state/society... and that society/state
slowly dies... the Soviet Union was doomed because of this lack of
loyalty from the state, of caring if its citizens lived or died....
and there is no point in bringing in any energy into a system that
couldn't care less... part of the strength of America laid
in the passion, the energy that its citizens brought into America....
a passion especially from its immigrants....and that is one of the strengths
of immigration... they bring a new passion, a new energy into the society/
the state..... the immigrant renews the state, the society in ways that
we can't even imagine or see....
part of the renewal of the Roman Empire came from the many immigrants
that flooded into Rome in the 3rd and 4th century... that renewal/energy
brought Rome life that given the problems of the 2nd century,
one would have thought that Rome should have collapsed around 300 AD....
but this massive migration into Rome kept it alive for over 100 years longer
than it should have lasted....
and that is what we should focus on... the renewal of energy into America
and how do we do that? by increasing people's participation into America..
by giving people a voice in their lives, socially, politically and economically...
we don't do that now and look at America today.... it is fragile and wanting...
we can turn America around...not by some fake and phony saying like
''MAGA'' no, we must make real changes and changes that bring people
a say and voice in America... a voice in the political, social and economic
part of our lives...
a reevaluation into who speaks for America...
the wealthy and powerful or does the average American
have a voice into what happens in our lives?
you want to make America great again, bring back the average American
participation into our political, social and economic life...
that would be a start...
Kropotkin
because the people, those who bring energy into a system, walk out
of a system... they won't interact or bring their energy into a system...
that is the power of a democracy... it brings people energy into it until,
until they realize that the democracy has been taken over by corporations...
we have in America, at least, a severe apathy problem...
and the basis of that problem is that people don't feel engaged with democracy...
people no longer have a voice in our democracy.... so, why participate in
a system that negates your voice? the same is true for its economic
system, capitalism.... corporations simply don't care about its consumers..
that much is very clear.... try working with a corporation in some
problem with that product... customer service is designed to scare
any and all people away.... with most customer service people
being stationed in places like India or Indonesia.... try to get a live voice
that actually lives in America... good luck...
and don't even get started on terrible corporations treat their employees....
expendable parts that can be easily gotten rid of.....and that is employees
that they trust... my big box grocery store clearly hates its employees...
even more than it hates its customers... we have had employees die
and the managers never said a word about it... that employee was simple
erased off the schedule and that was that....
I am fairly sure that if I die in a checkstand, all they will do is push
my body out of the way and write me up for abandoning my position....
and I will never be mentioned again... even after 17 years of working there...
I am expendable... my company makes that very, very clear....and if I don't create
some sort of profits, I am gone....
and the morale of the store is for shits, but my company couldn't care less...
most people I talk to in store, hate their job... as do I, but
I, as well as them are trapped into the job due to wages, or for
me, benefits and retirement... I would leave if it weren't for that...
and what happens when the workers don't bring in energy into
their jobs? that is entropy at work... the edges, the fringe aspect
of my store looks like shit, and no one cares... why should they?
there is no advantage to bring energy into the store... it changes
nothing... and my store is an example of what happens when
the system no longer has any energy.... it slowly loses its energy...
people just don't care any longer... and some actively hope the store
burns down... and the nature of this loss of energy in our system lies
in its transactional nature.... all the company offers us is money, and
nothing else... there is no loyalty or trust or sincerity from the company
to its workers...live or die... the company couldn't care less....
and turn that attitude to the state/society at large...
the Soviet Union couldn't have cared less about its citizens and that leads
to the citizens not caring about the Soviet Union... there is no energy
brought from the citizens to the state/society... and that society/state
slowly dies... the Soviet Union was doomed because of this lack of
loyalty from the state, of caring if its citizens lived or died....
and there is no point in bringing in any energy into a system that
couldn't care less... part of the strength of America laid
in the passion, the energy that its citizens brought into America....
a passion especially from its immigrants....and that is one of the strengths
of immigration... they bring a new passion, a new energy into the society/
the state..... the immigrant renews the state, the society in ways that
we can't even imagine or see....
part of the renewal of the Roman Empire came from the many immigrants
that flooded into Rome in the 3rd and 4th century... that renewal/energy
brought Rome life that given the problems of the 2nd century,
one would have thought that Rome should have collapsed around 300 AD....
but this massive migration into Rome kept it alive for over 100 years longer
than it should have lasted....
and that is what we should focus on... the renewal of energy into America
and how do we do that? by increasing people's participation into America..
by giving people a voice in their lives, socially, politically and economically...
we don't do that now and look at America today.... it is fragile and wanting...
we can turn America around...not by some fake and phony saying like
''MAGA'' no, we must make real changes and changes that bring people
a say and voice in America... a voice in the political, social and economic
part of our lives...
a reevaluation into who speaks for America...
the wealthy and powerful or does the average American
have a voice into what happens in our lives?
you want to make America great again, bring back the average American
participation into our political, social and economic life...
that would be a start...
Kropotkin