Resistance Is Necessary

I’m trying to understand how we got here. What underlying thing did we miss? In my lifetime, we have gone from a reasonable country that was aiming at equality for all (1960’s and 1970’s) to a coming Fascist state (since then , most especially since 2016). Mostly what I come up with is sin in some form — We didn’t get here by doing what God wanted, so — from a theological perspective — it must be sin.

Back to the basics list: Is it:

• Idolatry?
• Greed?
• Hate?
• Media
• Powerful, but behind the scenes, people? (dishonesty?)
• “The establishment”?
• The myths and stories we tell ourselves ?
• Something new?
• Some combination of the above?

Since I start most of my thought musically, I’ll start by quoting Pink Floyd, from Dark Side of The Moon and the song Money.

Money, get back
I’m alright, Jack, keep your hands off of my stack
Money, it’s a hit
Ah, don’t give me that do-goody-good bullshit

I’m in the hi-fidelity first class travelling set
And I think I need a Learjet

That’s where we find ourselves. People like That Guy and the incoming administration are exactly that. Has anyone heard about the Kash Patel Foundation for the Homeless? No? That’s because there isn’t one. The Steve Bannon Health Group? Ditto. Even the Linda McMahon Foundation For Teenage Girls? Still nothing.

Don’t give them none of that goody-good bullshit.

Money for them is status. It is the ability to say “See what I got? Don’t you want some?”

The implication behind that is that you, I, and anyone else actual people we know can have some… We can’t. They don’t share. They have no interest in sharing.

When people talked about the stock market with AOC in her first term as a sign of how good the economy was, she said, “That’s nice. None of the people in my district have stock”.

Telling some guy in Kentucky whose family has been ravaged by opiates about the stock market is just rubbing salt in his wounds.

== > Hear this part: I love Kamala. I supported her. I still would and do. Her heart is in the right place.<==

But I wonder now if raising the most money ever and saying that proudly didn’t isolate her, if it didn’t link her with the very elite her policies were trying to cut down.

The pearls didn’t help, either, but I digress. She at least understood the problems people faced.

Both of these are primal and public responses. If this continues, Trump will be seen as the bad rich man, rather than the good rich man and governments will topple

I would propose 3 solutions so far.

1. Companies in the business of making money, not products, not services, should cease to exist.

2. Money has to stay out of elections and politics

in general.

3. We need a maximum income beyond which all

money goes into the common pot — Maybe

One billion dollars per year, so it the

idea doesn’t reek of “Communism”, or other

trigger words for the far right. This needs to be

agreed upon by all the nations of the world, so

that the richest can’t just bring their chaos/

power somewhere else.

There is starting to be a revolution out there, and it’s not the one Trump or The Press thinks is coming.

It starts in the public’s gut and has been boiling over for a long time.

==> The first example is the celebration that a CEO got shot and killed.

==> The second example is that a baseball player finally made too much money in his contract. .

The idea here is to two-fold :

1) Smoosh the pot of money into a wider pile, not a deeper one. We spend all of our time trying to raise the bottom, which means things cost more. Let’s try to lower the ceiling to make things cost less. Things brings us closer to each other, so we can relate to one another.

2) Change the way we think about money. It can no longer be a thing that gives people worth. It has to be seen as a resource — a means to an end for people that already have worth..

There are so many more complicated money-related issues to deal with, but this a start.

Resisting With Peace,

John