politics in a xmas mode

Dear Folks my Christmas message  is loaded with political significance. So here goes. John G

CHRISTMAS 2013: THE CHILD AND A SACRED ECONOMICS

                             “In the beginning was the Gift…..”

    

 “Sacred Economics” is the title of a recently published book. Though the name is new to me, its essence is as ancient as humankind and so is especially present in our Christmas story when the three kings and the shepherds arrive at the crib of Jesus. The kings bring rich gifts, the shepherds, humble ones. They in turn are gifted with the love of the holy family and of an awesome sense of mystery and joy. This Christmas event continually occurs in the visions, hopes and dreams that emerge from the needy hearts of all mankind. Inspired by the Bethlehem story, Christmas can be said to be an ultimate festival of mutual gifting and so the deepest expression of a Sacred Economics,

     According to Charles Eisenstein, the author of Sacred Economics, such an economy as a mutual sharing was for centuries the daily way of life in all civilizations. Economics is inseparable from “ecology.” “Eco” means “home” and so our shared home in the universe. So our author writes, “In the beginning was the Gift,” that is, of existence itself and that of each living thing and finally we humans. Since it is all gift, then it follows that in our early societies “The most important mode of economic exchange was the gift,” beginning with our gratitude for the miracle of life. Such gifts are not always equal, so that the more rich gave to the poor and the poor provided services in return. When money became the basis of exchange, the sacred remained. Even in the Middle Ages, lenders could not charge interest for their services. And before Feudalism, the concentration of land in the few was considered perverse.    

This sense of the sacred economy was given a cosmic meaning by Silvio Gesell in his l906 book The Natural Economic Order.  Eisenstein gives us a remarkable passage from this book: ”The earth belongs to and is an organic part of  man….The earth is just as much a part, an organ of man as his head….How then can we suffer individual men to confiscate for themselves parts of the earth as their exclusive property” and so to keep us away…from parts of ourselves, to tear, as it were, whole limbs from our bodies?” Modern experts who are concerned about inequalities point out that the government must intervene to meet the needs of others for a living wage and the right to organize. Our popes since l892 have demanded of the rich that they and governments must meet these two needs. Our present Pope Francis also argues that the idea that the rich will “trickle down” their largess to the poor goes against the facts. Rather, we need increased wages and every other help that better sustains life such as health care. As a result the many will spend more and so our economy grows from “the bottom up.” This outlook is the last vestige of a sacred economics. 

     A sacred economics means a sacred community, Such a community is seriously damaged when wealthy men like the Koch Brothers (each of whom are worth 30 billion) attack programs that help ordinary people.Now, given the meaning of a sacred economy, I understand why such men act as they do.  When such people greedily accumulate wealth, two realities invariably occur: they become increasingly protective of their wealth and also are very lonely, because they have cut themselves off from both mankind and Nature. Finally, a most dire result, such as an international economic collapse of the magnitude of 2008, did occur because ignorance was combined with greed by money brokers and banks and government regulators failed to act:.  The  three wise men would have understood the depth of this tragedy, because they understood that sacred wisdom in each of us and in all of Nature is infinitely more important than cumulative wealth.

Issues of Health

Dear Folks,

Does anyone doubt that health is a political issue, given the present struggle with the Obama plan. It is political also every time you eat. In turn you eat a portion of mother earth. Like the environment, eating is certainly political when a government is responsible for protecting plant and animals as mother nature’s gifts to us. To get deeper, we need to reflect on recent research on the relationship between food and health.

In l980, Dr. Dean Ornish demonstrated conclusively that he could heal heart attacks via diet, meditation and exercise. See his book, Dr Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Attacks. See also T. Colin Campbell’s The China Study, which Ornish writes is the most important book ever written on food and health. Campbell began his studies among Chinese rural people who ate mainly vegetables and fruit, occasionally animals who were not in corporate production. He discovered this comparison with US men: the latter had l7 times more coronary diseases as rural Chinese men. (p.79)  Campbell also shows that eating plant protein does not cause cancer, whereas animal protein does (p. 59)  Both of these guys are top researchers. Campbell’s research is enormous.

A final reflection: the deepest basis for health is our spiritual and physical closeness to nature, of which we are a part. Consider that plants are in a deep communion with the earth, in contrast to animals. These connections, in terms of health, are not accidental. Hopefully, Obama’s plan for health maintenance will demonstrate the wisdom of these facts.

Meanwhile, if you want to see how our animals are raised, go to the documentary, Food, Inc. John G  

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Jon Stewart pissing me off

Dear Folks, Some of you may have watched Monday Jon Stewart and his cruel treatment of Kathleen Sebelius the Secretary of Health. Here is my response. John G

October 8,20l3

Dear Jon,

              I ordinarily enjoy your program a lot, you and Steve. You both have acute minds as you lead us cleverly through many political issues.  Our health care plan is one of these. It is, as you know the end of a line that has helped strengthen the health and security of people, beginning with social security, The plan had to jump many hurdles, the worst being Republicans in the Senate who used the filibuster to almost render the congress and the country defunct. We all ---as in Canada and Europe—would have wanted the single payer plan, simply by adding people to Medicare.  It is a compromise but a meaningful one, as you know. 17 million children with pre-existing conditions are now covered. Roughly six million more students are covered by their parent’s insurance until age 26. Now any woman needing health care such as birth control, testing, etc are covered, no longer can insurance co’s put a year’s limit on costs or can drop old people. Insurance companies must spend 80 percent of their income on insure needs. Over all health will be promoted,  a national health bank will reduce unnecessary interventions, companies under 50 employees will receive some government health, those over 50 must provide adequate insurance, at least 25 millions will get inexpensive insurance on exchanges, Medicaid is expanded to childless adults, as well as to poor folk who will receive Medicaid when needed in states that allow such (states can reject this provision, as set down by the supreme court,  not by the law. In Texas, for example, l.5 poor people can’t have Medicaid). Premiums from the government will go to families with up to 90,000 income and individuals up to 45,000, On another level, no citizen will ever need to go into bankruptcy or  lose a home because of impossible health costs. Over all employees will be healthier, and so our industries will be competitive on the world market.

Two problems with Obama

Dear Folks, Much as I value Obama as a complete person and worth-while president, he bothers me on two counts: (l) he talks about ending wars, but added considerably to the Afgan one. Now he considers bombing Syria. Few agree with him, Two major writers in Sunday's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman, both of whom I Admire very much somewhat disagree:  Kristof holds we should bomb in order to make a strong statement about Assad's violence (over l00,000 killed) but acknowledges he is in the minority. Friedman's title says it all, "Same War, Different  Country."   He points out that all of these Arab countries, such as Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are all in the same predicament: locked into sectarian conflicts since the 7th century and will have to work out their own divisions in order to become a pluralist democratic society. We need to help them in this process and not just bomb.

    My other ongoing problem with Obama and his administration is their unrelenting damage they do to immigrants who are not criminals but workers meeting legitimate needs in so many areas of American life. The Time's editorial discusses this issue.Republican congressional rigidity hasn't helped this situation. Still the Obama team is responsible for sending 2 million back to their countries!!!  Thank God, however, for Obama's version of the dream act.However, overall his team has done severed damage to families and our industrial needs.  Let's communicate with the white house in these regards. My view is: don't bomb, support the right rebels, work diplomatically with Syria, and stop the bloody manhandling of immigrants.John G  

Are We Dead or Alive?

Dear folks,

Are we Americans dead or alive? If alive when will we wake up? Other peoples are taking to the streets, such as in Brazil, in Turkey, in Egypt, and even in Iran to rejoice when a moderate was elected president. We should be taking to the streets in the millions, stopping traffic, yes occupying not just wall street but the offices of every Republican in Congress, every Republican Governor and state legislators who are writing acts against women, the poor, unions. immigrants, students and children.  Most of all when will we as a people say STOP to corporate and one percent folk wealth, STOP to a thirty year period in which unions have gone from 37% of the labor force to barely 9 and at same time middle class earnings have gained only five dollars in that same period?

We are only now realizing the extent to which the Republicans are wed to Big Corp through an organization called ALEC, The American Legislation Exchange Council.  Check out Bill Moyer's interview from 21 June 2013 found HERE. ALEC is made up of corporate leaders and lobbyists and Republican legislators from Washington and from every state. Together they write "model" bills and plan campaigns that have now produced Republican dominance in many states that in the past have been blue. We hear that their legislation has had many goals: blocking union growth, women's needs, destroying unions, blocking student money,health care,, taxes, gun control, and have pushed the privatization of every state and city services including prisons, education, and without doubt, Chicago's parking fiasco. Why bother with Washington, they say, since, "we have now effectively stopped the Congress from functioning?"  This is a frightening picture.

We had better wake up -- ourselves and our democratic leaders including our President Obama.

Love to all,

John Giannini  

The real scandals

Dear Folks,

We live in a strange country, the hope of nations in many respects and the feared among nations in many other aspects. Our 2008 Wall Street madness has done serious damage to a world economy. Money reigns as our valued  power, both for the individual and for political gain. Recently one individual won a 600 million dollar lottery.  This is the epitome of American ugliness. How many families have gone hungry as that lottery went on when weak parents bet their week's salary?  In the same vein, how many children no longer have pre-school because of the sequester?

Even more seriously, the Farm bill is also up for continuation in both the House and Senate. In both committees,  SNAP as  part of  this bill, known as the Food Stamps Program, will be reduced so badly, according to present reports that 23 million families, made up of 43 million individuals half of whom are children will lose food subsidies.  This is utter tragedy and the great scandal if we as citizens do not speak up. Go to USA.gov to find your rep or senator.

John G

Fwd: Fwd: I've Seen Enough

Dear Folks See below.  Sign petition. I hope you are ashamed of our disfunctional government as I am. John G

What Compromise??!

Dear Folks,

We are told now that President Obama is going to "compromise" with the Republicans, "hoping" to get further "concessions" (sic ) on further taxing of the rich. This so-called compromise is absolutely hollow. Ordinary folk will lose help and money both in social security payments and medical help. This means loss of spending which is the basis of any recovery and loss of health aids and so more people going to costly emergency centers. Those of us, the 99% are asked to compromise with a Republican party that has sold its soul to the rich. We are to compromise with the l% who have grown many times wealthier in the last forty years whereas during that time the average family's adjusted income has gone up about five dollars. We are asked to compromise because the rich had a small income tax raise that was actually Bush's l0 year break for them. We are asked to compromise in the face of the great bank failures of 2008 whom we saved, in the face of the six richest banks now controlling sixty percent of our wealth and in the face of gas and oil companies who are now the richest corporations in history.

What kind of compromise is this?!  Everyone, please write to the White House. Address the president at www.whitehouse.gov/contact.
- John Giannini

Will We Wake UP

Dear Folks,

When will we as a people wake up? Women came out of their slumber in the late l9th century and early 20th and gained the vote. Slowly,  feminine power and consciousness is improving human life on every count. In the l950s and l960s blacks led by Martin L King awakened a nation to know their just needs. Blacks led by Obama are helping all of us awaken to everyon 's potential.

Now something more grounded and profound must happen for every human being in the United States. We must become united with a common voice that cries out in publications, on our streets and corporate and government offices: "WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF CORPORATE POWER; TOGETHER AS A NATION OF CITIZENS WE WILL WITH OUR COLLECTIVE MIGHT BRING YOU DOWN NON-VIOLENTLY."

Consider these fact:

1. That an entire Republican party is in the wealthy pockets of corporations. 
2. Note that no matter what we know as practical and wise behaviors and policies are being thwarted by corporate power. For example, the Dobbs-Frank Law that helps control financial excesses and the bill's most important aspect, the Consumer Protection Agency are being seriously compromised by corporate lawyers and lobbyists. 
3. Consider that even the massacre of 27 people including 20 children in Sandy Hook Elementary School is not moving Congress to institute a meaningful gun control because of the power of not just the NRA but especially by the gun manufacturers of which the NRA is their puppet.
4. Consider that the most important issue confronting our nation and the world is the environmental danger, which if not attended to in the next couple years with significant controls and manufacturing innovations will overshadow all of the above concerns. Mighty power by the very companies who create this problem, particularly the oil companies that are the wealthiest entities in the history of humankind are fighting these necessary changes.
5. Consider finally that the only political entity in the present western political world that does not believe that humankind is responsible for global warming is our Republican party. 

In a recent Sunday evening session entitled "Taming Capitalism Run Wild,"  Bill Moyer interviewed Professor Richard Wolfe, the author of "Democracy at War," and "Occupy the Economy."  Wolfe, looking at our present national situation, stated bluntly that in the history of human society, pressures of immense significance pile up that are so  damaging to ordinary folk, that a mighty collective force usually arises to heal the damage. He feels strongly that this is now the time for this to happen, first of all here in our country as a world leader then in the world at large.

Consider the significance of the world "economy" especially in the light of our environmental concern. I recently learned from one of our wise Power Politics persons, Gus Wilhelmy, that both economy and ecology (nature as one entity) come from the same root,the Greek "oikos" and "eco," both of which, according to Webster's, means "house," "settlement," "village."  We are born into a cosmic family, the universe and we live in one of her units, "mother earth" or "Gaia" as the Greeks call her. We all live in this earthly home, " which we must love as well as practically care for in an "oikonomic" way.

When and how will each of us rise to this challenge. Start at least by calling Congressional leaders, Go to www.contactingthecongress.org     John G

THE WORLD GREATEST ISSUE

DEAR FOLKS,

I WRITE  THIS IN CAPS FOR A REASON. IT HAS DO WITH THE ONLY ISSUE THAT COUNTS, ALONG WITH POVERTY. STARVATION IN ANY FAMILY IS A COSMIC  CRIME. SO IS EVEN MORE THE WOUNDING OF MOTHER EARTH.  THIRTY YEARS FROM NOW WE WILL NOT ASK ABOUT ANY OTHER ISSUE ON EARTH EXCEPT THIS ONE. THE DAMAGE WE WILL THEN EXPERIENCE IS UNIMAGINABLE IF BIG MOVES ARE NOT MADE NOW.  LIGHTS ARE SUDDENLY TURNING ON IN THIS REGARD. THE PRESIDENT HAS FINALLY DECLARED HIS CONCERN IN HIS INAUGURAL ADDRESS AND IN HIS STATE OF THE NATION. EVEN THE REPUBLICAN REP ASSA HAS JOINED IN SHOWING CONCERN.  MEANWHILE OUR GAS, COAL AND OIL INDUSTRIES ARE STILL POURING BILLIONS INTO FIGHTING THIS ISSUE. WE ALL NEED TO WRITE REPS, STATE AND NATIONAL.  VAST NEW CONTROLS AND A WORLD-WIDE GREEN INDUSTRY ARE THE ANSWERS. LET US ALL SURVIVE TOGETHER. -  JOHN G 

Chris Hedges

Posted on May 14, 2012

Dear Folks, Here a person who knows our country as a war correspondent and as a son of an evangelical father. In the first he shows the addiction of war and the second the addiction of narrow and dangerous minds. John G

By Chris Hedges

In Robert E. Gamer’s book “The Developing Nations” is a chapter called
“Why Men Do Not Revolt.” In it Gamer notes that although the oppressed
often do revolt, the object of their hostility is misplaced. They vent
their fury on a political puppet, someone who masks colonial power, a
despised racial or ethnic group or an apostate within their own
political class. The useless battles serve as an effective mask for
what Gamer calls the “patron-client” networks that are responsible for
the continuity of colonial oppression. The squabbles among the
oppressed, the political campaigns between candidates who each are
servants of colonial power, Gamer writes, absolve the actual centers
of power from addressing the conditions that cause the frustrations of
the people. Inequities, political disenfranchisement and injustices
are never seriously addressed. “The government merely does the minimum
necessary to prevent those few who are prone toward political action
from organizing into politically effective groups,” he writes.

Response to Nation of Change's view of the election and the inauguration

Dear Folks,

Nation of Change is a powerful liberal group, now led by Chris Hedges. Here is my response to their view of the election and the inauguration. John G

Dear Folks,

I have respect for all liberal criticism. I have criticized Obama a thousand times. However, I also have a perspective none of you have, even Chris Hedges, whose acute mind is beyond mine. I am now 9l years old. I watched as FDR transformed our Italian community with his WPA and CCC, sending our young and old back to work and a regained dignity and hope. I am certain we could have torn the hell out of FDR, since he ---like you and I---are not perfect.

I am saddened as to what I read below (reference coming soon). We have another great president in the body and psyche of an imperfect man. However, none of you see any potential in this guy, seemingly. This election will stand as one of the greatest in our American history, not only because of what Obama represents but also how he and his team mobilized the American people and the people responded so nobly and courageously to vote both against tons of money and attempts to prevent their vote. I am with all of your criticisms, but I am saddened by your cynicism, including you, Chris. Your book on war and Evangelicals are great. As a convert as it were to liberalism, might not you be effected -- as Wm James once suggested of converts who come out of rigid upbringings -- with some of that rigidity as you demand perfection out of Obama?.

"Be you perfect as your heavenly father is perfect"  in Mathews -- translates now per Garey Wills, into "Be you inclusive as your Heavenly Father is inclusive." I change "Father" into "Mother." Are you capable of being inclusive, Chris, even as you acutely criticize?

- John Giannini

Did you know?

Dear Folk,

Did you know?

1. That the so-called debt cliff --- that until last year was never questioned by the congress ---, has nothing to do with lifting our debt ceiling but simply to honor expenditures already voted on by congress?
2. Did you know that our Republican party is the only political entity in the world that does not believe that humankind has caused the present environmental crisis?
3. That Obama sacrificed billions of income in this same process, not just as taxes but also as missed opportunity to remove unnecessary deductions allowed the richest companies in our industrial history?
4. Did you know that since 2005 (under Bush) no gun manufacturing company can be sued?
5. Did you know that Harry Reid has not yet led a vote in the Senate to change the filibuster rules so that any such attempt can no longer be simply a "no" and in which the nay-sayer remains anonymous?  I am certain you know that the number of filibusters under Reid's tenure is up to 350. Under Lyndon Johnson --who had similar long tenure as Senate leader ---only l occurred.  

- John G

Cloud Atlas: A New Potential Direction

by Martin Giannini

Cloud Atlas, both the film scripted by The Wachowskis (The Matrix Trilogy) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), and the book by David Mitchell, have so much to offer from excitement to dire prediction, from brilliant story-telling to deep knowledge.


All images below are sourced from: Warner Bros



For one, watching the film on the big screen was a roller-coaster ride of an experience in itself. When I wasn't one hundred percent engrossed and present, it was because I was reflecting on the fact that I was so captured (enraptured) by the film, that I didn't have time or the inclination to stop to think or analyse. Waste of time (mind) you say? I agree! Having read the book first, I had great expectations! Ah… but these are fun aren't they? A line in the book that tickled me didn't feature in the film. One of the heroines, Sonmi, reveals that she succeeded in downloading the works of "two Optimists… Orwell and Huxley." Either the author is enjoying delicious irony, as here we have two of our most famous (Western) dystopian writers, or we are to believe that their texts have been rewritten. In any case, to explore dystopia such as in Brave New World or Nineteen Eighty-Four or Cloud Atlas, can also become a practice in seeing present (and possible future) injustices for what they are, and heeding the warnings of those who speak the "True True".  More...


 


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