The State of the World - Figuratively and Literally

I seem to be getting 'smoked out' recently, regarding long-standing feelings I have had about the state of the world, and what we can do about it; with world circumstances now bringing Crisis to a head, and therefore a potentially fruitful look at Opportunity being timely.

Item. An article in the current NEXUS Magazine titled 'The Community Currency Movement'; from a chapter in her book 'The Web of Debt' by Ellen Hodgson Brown, JD. It's an excellent article on the subject of local currency schemes, to supplement the international currency system as it exists to date - and which is now under such an assault, from inside the citadel of power that it created, and which we allowed to get too powerful. As attested to as well by such important tomes as Naomi Klein's 'The Shock Doctrine' and John Perkins' 'Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man'. To say: the system is rotten to its core. BY its core, actually. But to continue with this outline of the situation In Our Time, and my various responses to it.

Item. To mention here my appreciation of the work of Peter Joseph in creating the videos of 'Zeitgeist' and 'Zeitgeist: Addendum', particularly (for the purposes of this thread) in relation to the subject of Money as Debt, and for his ongoing championing of the perspective of a high-functioning world without money; the latter aspect in relation to the work of Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows as presented on their website thevenusproject.com - landing the awareness of how life CAN be, without the hampering strictures of interest-bearing and debt-creating money.

Item. The huge amount of spam on the Internet these days from bodies advertising to help people out of the terrible debt conditions that they have been plunged into. To some extent, of their own making; but essentially, by/due to the system itself. The theft of this inside job that is going on; and has been, for far too long. But perhaps it had to, to create the Opportunity we are now faced with. And now to continue with that particular point.

Item. An email response of mine (with a couple of typo corrections) to a Comment article in the (UK) Guardian national newspaper by one Seumas Milne; the gist of whose article (on August 6) can be gleaned from my response to him/it (of the same date):

"Dear Seumas,

"Re this 'historic opportunity':

"I see it as a greater opportunity than I sense you perceive it as (though you still have good thoughts on the subject). Simply put: We are on a cusp, capable now of moving beyond the training wheels of interest-bearing, fractional-reserve money and the profit motive, and into the next and higher stage of our historical evolution on this planet. With 'globalisation' now accomplished - ie, that we can perceive ourselves as so globally integrated (as we have now seen 'ourselves' whole for the first time from space, as the one human species on this lovely planet) - and with the level of technology we have and can now access (including new energy devices), the time is ripe for the landing of the concept of One World - One Humanity - One Destiny. Just not the one world of the New World Order crowd, which is a lesser, retrograde vision for humankind; does not generate the aspiration of the truly new.

"I am not, I hope it goes without saying, talking about either capitalism or communism, or any other -ism. I am talking about living our lives on this planet with full awareness of our being conscious beings in a universe of purpose, and that purpose being Good. And with that awareness, of our potential, as 'spiritual beings having a human experience', comes the only motivating factor such adult beings need: and that is, gratitude, that there IS plan and purpose in and to the universe; to, in a word, life.

"Not to go into the details here. Just to encourage you to lift your vision just a little higher than it seems you currently have. And listen and feel your inner promptings. Those same promptings that occasioned you to sense this historic opportunity; just about to slip from our grasp, in our slipping back into business as usual.

"What a shame that would be.

"Please keep helping to articulate the new; this potential we are poised on, for a maturity that will lift us out of the tired old social forms we have been incarcerated in long enough - incarcerated, by our own lack of visioning our way out. Into a world of abundance, and preparation for exploring further our corner of the universe.

"Best regards," etc.

My next 'outing' came in an email response to a comment (both on August 17) by a Bob Livingston that he made on his blog Liberty Alert, out of the US:

"Dear Bob,

"I like your comment abut 'this climax of history'. I don't 'get' that many people are backing off somewhat in & from their lives, and taking a good look at where we're at. They really need to think bigger. And realize that it's time to do away with money, as we have known it, and open ourselves up to the abundance that is just waiting for us to tap into it. So that we can move into our next stage of evolution on this lovely planet. Our spiritual evolution, that is.

"It should be obvious by now, to any even halfway observant person, that the western capitalist system, with its dual training wheels of interest-bearing money and fractional-reserve banking on the one hand and the profit motive on the other, is so corrupted as needing to be allowed to collapse (which it will soon do anyway, with the amount of debt that has been created). But the answer is not to stay on the same level as the problem, ie, the material level. The answer is to supersede either 'communism' or 'capitalism', and go up a notch: into awareness of a far more satisfying, and mature, motivating factor in life than the profit motive. And that is the full realization that the universe has purpose, and that that purpose is Good. And so we can be motivated to give of our best, in whatever we do, by gratitude for the gift of life; the gift, that is to say, of purposeful life. Where the point of the process is to grow, in awareness, and wisdom, and connection with the Love behind the exercise.

"The exercise of giving humans free will, and the opportunity therefore to grow therefrom.

"There has been some good thinking on this idea already, of moving beyond 'money'. (Which has become an end in itself, rather than the means it was intended to be, of exchanging goods and services without the 'heavy lifting' of a barter system.) The folks behind The Venus Project, for one source. But they haven't incorporated the missing piece yet, in their world view: the piece of the reason why humans WOULD give of their best, in love to and for the process. They seem to have merely a humanistic take on the matter. That's not good enough of a motive; is still on the level of the problem we have had. That being, that we are still trying to build a Tower of Babel. That is, trying to do 'it' simply by ourselves, with Man as his God.

"Not really good enough, to get there.

"Anyway. Just wanted to comment briefly on your astute observation.

"keep up the good work, Bob. It's helpful, for humanity to take a really good look at where we're at, on our historical timeline. And what we're faced with - ie, putting our house in order - before we can reasonably think to start going exploring in our neck of the universe. First, we need to prove ourselves as responsible beings.

"Thanks for all you do in helping us to get there.

"Best regards," (etc)

Item. Next day, comment on a blog on Capitol Hill Blue, by one Doug Thompson titled 'It's the system, stupid' (taking the point of view that it would be hopeless to think that any change could ever make it through the federal governmental system as it is currently constituted, with the power of 'the money people' being what it is):

"Well commented on, Doug. And as with so much else going on in our day and age - capitalism evidencing its inherent contradictions in the excesses of the banking system, the medical-pharmaceutical-government complex driving the health system to an absurd level of expense, the environment being trashed with the current global economic system's need for growth; etc etc - it should be obvious that it's time for a change. Real change; as someone said recently, but who can only deliver the same old.

"The change needed is a clearer look at where we're at in our historical evolution on this lovely planet, and the realization that what is needed - really needed - is the elimination of money, as a means of exchange (let alone as the end in itself that it has become; corruptly, but perhaps inevitably, given the enthronement of interest-bearing money, ie, usury. A terrible, but perhaps necessary, mistake).

"People who have a vision of what life is really all about don't need money. All they need is a motive, to provide each other with the best of their goods and services. And if we will just awaken from our materialistic slumber, and accept what life is really all about - that it is to allow soul growth, in a universe of purpose, and that purpose being Good - then we will give each other of our best, in gratitude FOR life having meaning and purpose.

"We are, then, at a turning point. We can either go - and grow - up. Or we will descend into collapse and chaos; and have a devil of a time fighting our way back out to the light.

"It's our choice. Given the role of free will in the matter, of life."

Incidentally, there has been no comment on these postings of mine. But the next one that I made - later on this same day - did occasion one. This was to the guardian/co.uk/commentisfree/green on the occasion of a debate in the pages of the Guardian between Paul Kingsnorth (author of 'Real England' and co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project') and George Monbiot (a Guardian columnist and author of 'The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order') on the subject: 'Is there any point in fighting to stave off industrial apocalypse?' Nearly 400 postings in I made my contribution:

"I've been reading through this thread (thanks for the debate, Paul and George; well established), and, except for 'undercurrent' just above, I feel that most osters are mssing a basic oint. And that is that we are embedded in a matrix of our making; a mindset that causes us to look at life in a certain way, and thus 'all is relative'. to say: If Alexander of macedon had looked at the challenge of the Gordian knot simply on the established level of doing so, he would never have 'solved' it.

"I happen to be a believer in a new paradigm where, in our time, we are here to create a world without money; at least as it has come to be. And from that basic premise, many positive things can flow.

"Seumas Milne, recently in the pages of the Guardian, characterized this time as an 'historic opportunity'. Indeed. Though I see it as an even greater opportunity than he seemed to perceive it. It is - could be - a climax period of history. Simply put: We are on a cusp, capable now of moving beyond the training wheels of interest-bearing money & fractional-reserve banking on the one hand and the profit motive on the other, and into the next and higher stage of our historical evolution on this planet. With 'globalisation' now accomplished - ie, that we can perceive ourselves as so globally integrated (as we have now seen ourselves whole for the first time from space, as the one human species on this lovely planet; a powerful meme) - and with the level of technology we have and can now access (including new energy devices), the time is ripe for the landing of the concept of One World - One Humanity - One Destiny. Just not the one world of the New World Order crowd, which is a lesser, retrograde vision for humankind; does not generate the aspiration of the truly new.

"I am not, I hope it goes without saying, talking bout either caitalism or communism, or any other -ism. I am talking bout living our lives on this planet with full awareness of our being cnscious beings in a universe of urpose, and that purpose being Good. And with that awareness, of our potential, as 'spiritual beings having a human experience', comes the only motivating factor such adult beings need: and that is, gratitude, that thre IS plane and urose in and to the universe; to, in a word, life.

"Not to go into the details here. Just to encourage people to life their vision just a little higher than it would appear many currently have. And listen and feel their inner promptings. Those same promptings that occasioned the likes of Mr Milne to sense this historic opportunity; just about to slip from our grasp, in our slipping back into the old paradigm of business as usual.

"What a shame that would be.

"May many more people keep helping to articulate the new; this potential we are poised on, for a maturity that will lift us out of the tired old social forms we have been incarcerated in long enough - incarcerated, by our own lack of visioning our way out. Into a world of abundance, and preparation for exploring further our sector of the universe. After we have set our own house in order first, and thus earned the right to.

"As for not everybody believing that there is something more than Man, in the grand scheme of things: Watch. And wait. Besides the inner promptings that will start moving more and more to this way of viewing reality, we have our minds at work as well. As our scientific technology is progressing exponentially (thanks, incidentally, to the poster for the link to the videos of Ray Kurzweil's Singularity Summit talks), so will it uncover incontrovertible evidence of such; in the evidence for out-of-body experiences, and such: the evidence for other dimensions than this one, that we have inhabited with our vision too horizontally focused long enough.

"It's time for ascension.

"Watch us grow."

(To which contribution a poster replied:

"I think I read the book as a child (pretty sure it was an Aldiss or an a [sic] Assimoff [sic], anyway one of those sci-fi chappies), is it the one that ends with us all moving herd-like across the continents before losing our corporeal form and becoming pure energy?"

to which I replied:

"Right. And your answer to the human condition, in our time, is...??"

He came back with something less than a riposte; but it all began to meander at that point, so is not necessary to this report.

I say 'he'. My experience in life is that, by and large, females are more serious about these sorts of matters than males. I think it's a macho thing.)


In sum.

"Historic opportunity"... "this climax of history"... These are the sorts of green shoots I see: thoughtful reflections looking at where humankind is at on the planet at this time; and therefore facing a golden Opportunity to move civilization up a notch, into a new stage, characterized by our essential spirituality.

As for individuals like, say, Richard Dawkins: my 'take' on the matter, of atheists or agnostics, is that they have drawn their conclusions based on an incomplete deck of facts.

What would be in that full deck?

I have alluded to one of the cards, in my reference in the Guardian thread to "evidence for out-of-body experiences..." This would imply - at the very least, tend to imply - that the brain and the mind are not one and the same thing, or incorporated so closely as to BE in effect one and the same. The mind can split off from the brain and go a'traveling. Thus, there is evidence for the persistence of something we can call 'mind' beyond the death of the physical entity.

In that same thread I mentioned another such evidential aspect: "the evidence for other dimensions than this one..." Besides examples of things appearing and disappearing 'before our very eyes' in everyday life experiences or scientific experiments, I was thinking of the likes of "hyperdimensional physics" as dealt with in Richard C. Hoagland and Mike Bara's book 'Dark Mission: the Secret History of NASA'. There is an excellent chapter therein, dealing with James Clerk Maxwell's "changing quaternion scalar potentials", and upwellings of energy at tetrahedral 19.5 degree latitudes north and south, and so forth. Clearly, we ain't seen nothing yet - or at least, haven't seen everything that exists in our physical universe, and beyond. So we really need to be a little more humble, in the face of the All.

That also seems to include the phenomenon of reincarnation; for which there is considerable evidence; and which helps lead to the basic conclusion that I have declared herein: that the universe has purpose. That that purpose is Good, one can surmise from, at the very least, the feeling of Love as opposed to Hate.

But not to go there on this particular thread. This is just to demonstrate, and declare, that we are faced with an exceptional Opportunity, in our day and age, to go well beyond our history, at this point in time, and explore the New.

And if we don't, we will have blown a golden chance.

Our choice.


As for 'evil' to get in the way:

We are in essence phototropic beings. We are attracted by and grow towards the light. Some will be more attracted than others, depending on their lifetimes circumstances. But all will ultimately bend accordingly. Our job - besides dealing with our own progress - is to continue to hold the wayward IN the light.

As difficult as that will be, sometimes.

But hey. Nobody promised us a rose garden.

In a manner of speaking.