a new understanding of today, time and space.

1: Value: the regard that something is held to deserve;
the importance, worth, or usefulness of something…

2: a person’s principles or standards of behavior:
one’s judgement of what is important in life…

so, one might ask why is this important…
it tells us that values are important…

values are what? a limited list of values;

authenticity, achievement, authority, balance, beauty,
boldness, compassion, community, competency, creativity,
curiosity, fairness, faith, fame, happiness, honesty, humor,
influence, inner harmony, justice, kindness, knowledge,
love, loyalty, openness, optimism, peace, poise, recognition,
respect, responsibility, security, service, spirituality, stability, success,
status, trustworthiness, wealth, wisdom… again, basically listed
in alphabetical order…and by no means a comprehensive list…

so what are values? Values gives or creates context to experience…

we have an experience and by the use of values, we can understand
the role and function and the why of a given experience…

I marry a women… that is an action… but the action needs some
context and that context is a value… love…I love my wife, so I married
her to create a bond, a new system with marriage being stability
of the relationship/system… in other words, marriage acts like
gravity to keep and hold a system together, like the sun holds the
planets with gravity… a marriage holds the couple together and what
is that value or context of marriage? love is the value or context of the marriage…

every action taken, must have a context and values creates that context…
every experience… experienced, must have a context and values creates that context…

if we act without values, then our actions are random and meaningless…
we are isolated from any context that our actions may have…

if we make actions without context/values… we are being inauthentic
in a way that makes us alienated from society and ourselves…
an action without values means that we are acting as an completely
isolated matter outside of any given system… that randomness
threatens the system… we cannot have that type of randomness
in our social systems, ism’s and ideologies, we cannot have that randomness
in our biological systems, life and human beings and dogs and…
we cannot have that type of randomness in our natural systems like the
solar system and workings of the galaxies…

values given context to our actions… to our experiences…

without values, our actions will not make any sense or
neither will our actions or experiences have any meaning…
it is only in the context of values, do our actions/experiences
have any meaning…that is why you should give a shit about values…
it gives your life some context, some meaning… for our actions and experiences
can only have context and meaning through values…

so you want your life to have meaning? give it the context of
value or values…to create context, you must have values to make
sense of actions or experiences…

Kropotkin

so anybody who has read Nietzsche has been struck by his
“reevaluation of values” so what does that exactly mean?

we have values…Nietzsche wrote during the 1870’s and 1880’s…
so the values he saw he felt needed to be reevaluated, but why?
what was the problem with them?

once again, one must think in a historical context…
we have a series of 19th century writers who wrote about society and
culture and what it meant to be human… they wrote
from 1800, Goethe whose entire second act of Faust is a
commentary on modern man, to Kierkegaard to Marx to
Baudelaire, to Henrik Ibsen to of course Nietzsche…

Now the question becomes what historical actions were
going on at the junction of history? Why, of course the industrial revolution…
so the question now becomes, did the values of the 18th century man
create the industrial revolution or did the industrial revolution create
the values that the above writers railed against… so what came first,
the values or the action? I could be wrong, but I am guessing the action
came first and the values were created as a reaction to the historical event
of the industrial revolution…

and if this is true, then Nietzsche wanted a reevaluation of the new
values created by the industrial revolution…

the historical event, the industrial revolution created the
nihilistic and inauthentic values that infected man…

so we have the creation of new values that in turn created new
historical events, the two world wars, the holocaust, the dropping of the
bomb… all of these flow from the historical event called the industrial
revolution and the industrial revolution created values that writers
like Marx and Nietzsche fought against… and Nietzsche called for a
reevaluation of values in response to this creation of new values…

Now Nietzsche wrote about the values created by Christianity and those
those values created to weaken man, but those values had been around for over
1500 years by the time Nietzsche wrote, so why did those values suddenly become
bad? only in context to the historical event of the industrial revolution…

the idea of a slave mortality created by Christianity really doesn’t match
the rise of the new historical events because that slave mortality had
been around for 1500 years and still, we had historical events like the
Renaissance which showed us that the so called slave morality, those values,
didn’t really effect the Renaissance… but somehow did effect the values
of Nietzsche time… that doesn’t really seem to be the case, so it becomes
more likely that historical events after the Renaissance created or changed
the values of the time period and the only logical candidate is the
industrial revolution…

so perhaps Nietzsche was thinking about the fact that the industrial
revolution, about which he didn’t anything about at all, mostly
because he wasn’t looking that way…anyway, the industrial
revolution created values that manifested itself in ism’s
like Capitalism…and capitalism in pursuit of money/profits,
negates human values, this negation of human values also
removes human context… we receive our context, not from
events or experience but from values we give to
the events or experience…so if we negate human values, we
negate human context… and this leads right into the writers that
I listed… they wrote about the isolation of man, they wrote
of the alienation of man… of course man is isolated and alienated
if their values are negated by capitalism pursuit of money/profits…

without values, we have no context and no meaning… is this not
the very definition of the modern man… we have no context and no meaning…

the movement of existentialism is all about creating values and creating
context and thus meaning… if our values are negated, we have
no context, no meaning… and the battle to become human is
really a battle to create new values… to reevaluate our values…
a reevaluation of values… from the negation of capitalism to
the new values which create new context and meaning for
the human being…

so what should our new values be, what should our revaluation of values
lead us to… what should be our new values…

Kropotkin.

so we ask ourselves, what other understanding of the
human being, could have brought about the industrial revolution?

and one possible idea comes to mind… the philosophical idea
that man is a machine…this idea that man is a machine came first
came about with the thought of Descartes when he began
his quest to create certainty about our knowledge…
his answer was the beginning of these notion that man
was a machine…by Descartes dualism, he gave room
for the understanding that man was a machine…
with each succeeding philosopher, they added bits and pieces
to this idea, Spinoza did by his reduction of everything into
one attribute of god and then Leibniz and his monads…
working along side the philosophers were the scientist like
Newton who created a very mechanical vision of the universe…

the philosopher who tied the whole thing together was
De la Mattrie… whose book in 1747, “Man as Machine”
made the greatest argument that man was a machine…

and now we become historical again… in the U.K…
we have the beginings of the industrial revolution by
1750…it is easy to conceive man as a machine
in the large factories that built the great modern
commodities of the modern era… I exist as a commodity
and machine in one such type of factory as I scan goods
day after day after long day while standing up in one spot…
that is very machine like…

so we can trace the modern era back to this notion
that man is a machine, not as a human being…
so we can now think that part of this idea of the modern
man is partly from the philosophical idea’s floating around
the 18th century and turned into life into the 19th century…

and we can see how existentialism was founded to fight this idea
of man as machine…

and we can see how the events and experiences of the last 200 years flow
from this notion of man as machine…it does make the two world wars and
Auschwitz and Hiroshima much more likely if we take the position that
man is a machine and is only useful as a too of production…

in fact, at the entrance of the concentration camps including
Auschwitz were signs saying,

Arbeit macht frei?

and what does “Arbeit macht frei” mean?

“Work sets you free”…

that is only possible if humans are machines and work is all we are capable
of… but we are human beings and we are capable of much more then just
working as machines in the factories and factories light like the supermarket…

Kropotkin

so we must think in terms of a system
to understand what values are important for us
to have…

think of the family system… regardless of how it looks,
one dad, one mom, two kids and a dog named spot…
or two moms and 4 kids and a rabbit named bugs…
or two dads and one kid named Elmo…
it doesn’t matter… what does matter is
the family and the values necessary for the family…

so, for example, lying and honesty…
which value allows the family greater stability?
as anyone who has dwelt with a liar know, lying
causes instability in a system and lying causes
a system to have more chaos… in other
word, lying causes a system to have greater problems
because lying destabilizes and create chaos within a system…

values are needed that allow a system, no matter what system,
allows a system to do what that system needs to do…

anyone who has had a dysfunctional family system, I am one who grew
up in a dysfunctional family system, will know how values
like hate and lying and dishonesty create a chaotic and unstable
family structure…values can create a positive stable family
structure and negative values can create a very messy childhood…

where appropriate, values can create a better system or a worse system…

now some systems don’t have values like a natural system like the solar system…
values play no role in many systems…your car, what values would
play a role in your car and its many systems? none, that I can tell…

but within biological systems, values can play an important role
in keeping the system operating and viable…positive values,
negative values creates chaos and instability within a biological system…

look at the man who is in denial about his excessive drinking…
he is lying to himself that his drinking is causing issues both within
himself and within his family structure…he is causing chaos and instability
within his family and inside of himself…if had the courage of an examination
of his values, of his lying, he would see the damage that his lying has caused
to himself, to his wife, to his children…but the man would rather be
dishonest about his values then face the truth…

for systems to be effective and working, values that support that system
must be in use… positive values… for negative values damage
and hurts any type of system…and this is true of us… we must
engage in and live by positive values… or we damage our own systems,
be it us or be it our family or be it our social structure, government and the like…

you want systems to work, like government and family and our general
social structure, then we must, both of us, use positive values…
it is as simple as that…negative values like hate and anger and lust
and greed and envy… among others negative values damage our
systems and positive values help and aid and benefits our
systems…

the values used determines how well systems work, be it just
you or the family or the entire social structure…

Kropotkin

negative values impact a system negatively
positive values impact a system positively…

I knew there was a formula somewhere in there…

Kropotkin

so when the Nazi’s began their campaign in the years after World War 1,
their call for negative values affected the country…when they put
those values into use, that affected the country… values of hate,
anger, lust, greed, envy, intolerance, those values, those negative values
impacted Germany negatively and we can see the results in May 1945…

when the GOP advocates negative values like hate and anger and greed
and lust and envy and intolerance, that affects the country negatively…
and when they put those values to use with Bush 43 and IQ45,
we can see the results… those negative results…
compare bush 43 with Clinton and IQ45 with Obama, we
can see the results…values that are positive and used
positively impact the country positively, just as Clinton
and Obama used positive values to impact the country positively…

and we see bush and IQ45 promote negative values
and then use negative values, we can see how those negative
values impact the country…negatively…

what values are you promoting?

Kropotkin

So, what you’re saying is. ‘We’ need stability? I guess, somewhere along this forum ‘we’ll’ learn That trait.

This quote of yours Peter. I can’t grasp entirely. Had everybody as an equal not learned what they always wanted and could as which is so easily available with our apparent technology? It’s only so much wisdom to be grasped. Yet I feel we have reveled on this topic for far too long. :neutral_face: :question: now i’m a lost wittle wamb

You know our morals never did speak for the entire world. All that which ‘we’ (ourselves) can learn is only half the battle. I tend to observe, learn, and research. It’s really the only power of my mind. Yet, I have a question for Peter, have you ever heard of the Heinz dilemma? Ethics as one knows will never have been explained even amongst the murals of the Egyptian Pyramids to all the people in the Earth. Clear as day for everyone to view. It takes time to get to reach those points of certain realization in learning and getting to curb and get around logic. We’ll all have to acquire certain knowledge that’ll have pragmatic methods to obtain truths, proofs, and facts. Yet there are parts of life which teach a human when something is wrong and when something is right? I never understood that morality. Reason being is there are situations in this life in which we must surrender to this actuality of emotional standards of living to perceive reality in our own way of existence. Certain situations may teach a person something totally different from which another may have learned. Yet who’s right and who’s wrong is still up for discussion. False freedoms being sold at a reasonably cheap psychological perspective from only one person’s understanding to another. All of this can easily be prevalent to mankind yet we don’t but sit down with one person at the end of it all.

Although, this isn’t even enough to change all the minds which by the real evidence is laid. ‘Lead and they follow.’? Politics taught us that. I believe we’ll have had closure with even our mental-abstract-perceptions before ever explaining our life. This and the entire universe which all of us are apart of like an experimental observational clinic. Can come to terms together through visible conclusions. It’s funny how people think as one person they can change a bunch of minds. But it’s not enough to learn, think, and study. We’ll have to eventually foretell certain circumstances to those around explaining where in life our life lead us. And in all of this we have this Earth as an example to give off whatever our accurate and cognitive sense of apprehended Logic and Knowledge we learned in this world and preserve it by historical means. Left behind in ancient sands of time and space to become more evidently obvious. By everybody. As with the pyramids.

(Our object of desire isn’t to change current belief systems or complicate already convoluted streams of information; we’re not trying to even prove ourselves in anyway. We’re just human beings similar to yourself. Not superior, the same. Ancestors of the lost world. The conflicts of beliefs you face in your world, are not only the conflict of self yet life, we cannot compel such conflicts to other’s will for any self-benefit. The true goal reached here is there is nothing we can say nor do that can convince anyone else of what they don’t know for themselves already. And, when the time calls, and you are ready, the barriers of awareness will expand and such confirmed information will be easily perceived, and known to them! Allow them to seek and find out when they are prepared. All will arrive to light in no time.)

I am coming back to P-C comments later…

values… there are not just personal values but collective values
of religion for example… a church for example, is a place
of collective values that come from some source, usually
from revelation of some sort…bible, koran, Talmud…

in return for accepting those values, the believer is given
salvation and a one way ticket to heaven…

from my friends at wiki:

“religious values are ethical principles founded in religious traditions,
text and beliefs. In contrast to personal values, religious-based values
are based on scriptures and a religion’s established norms”

we see for example, the Christian values… which are shorthanded
as “family” values…

these values are seen to be Christian values:

Love of god…

fidelity in marriage…

renunciation of worldly goods…

renunciation of vengeance…

forgiveness of sins…

unconditional love…

the ten commandments for example are a listing of values…

thou shall not…

1: you shall have no other gods, but me

  1. you shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it
    or worship it…

  2. you shall not misuse the name of the lord, your god…

  3. you shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy…

  4. respect your father and mother…

  5. you must not commit murder…

  6. you must not commit adultery…

  7. you must not steal…

  8. you must not give false evidence against your neighbor…

  9. you must be envious of your neighbour’s goods…
    you shall not be envious of his house nor his wife nor anything that
    belongs to your neighbor…

and yet, we see the “MODERN” Christian not only violating these
commandments but actively supporting the opposite of these
commandments, these values…

it is clear that the modern Christian along with the modern American
holds money as an idol far higher then faith in god…

the evangelical support that fuels the GOP is support for values that
are against the ten commandments and against everything jesus said…

their vote for IQ45, a person who lies and steal and commits adultery
and has mammon as his highest value… shows the bankruptcy of
modern Christian values… IQ45 is a walking, talking example of
everything jesus preached against… and yet, that doesn’t deter
the modern Christian from supporting IQ45…

at this point, we must return to existentialism as a point of reference…

the existentialist argued against an inauthentic life… where
one’s words and one’s actions were two different things…

the modern Christian words say one thing and their actions say
another thing… and this division between words and action
exposes many other division of words and actions…

the politician who claims to be for the people and yet works for
the highest bidder, politicians who are nothing but whores
in more expensive suits… they speak one thing and
act upon a different thing…

do you want to know the failure in America today?

it lies, in part, with people speaking words
and doing something different than those words…

it lies in the hypocrisy of modern life… we utter
words of forgiveness and words of love and words of
everyone is equal and our actions are of
hate and intolerance and injustice…

thou shall not kill…

and yet if you support the policemen who kill,
you are a hypocrite…

if you are a Christian and you support the death penalty…
you are a hypocrite…

if you are a Christian and you support the GOP…
you are a hypocrite…

tell me your values…
and then show me your actions…
do your words match your actions?

no, then you are a hypocrite…

so, tell me… what are your values?

and then show me your actions that support
your words…

Kropotkin

the role of religion is to make us feel good about ourselves

the role of science is to inform us about ourselves

the role of philosophy is to create uncomfortable truths about ourselves…

the truth… I say, you can’t handle the truth… the uncomfortable
truth that the modern delemma we face is not just about the events
and expereriences we face in our environment but about the
bad faith that is america today…we speak words and then
act as if we never heard those words before…

we claim to be a country of values and yet, and yet we
don’t act like we are a country of values… either personally
or collectively…

either values arer the lodestone of our actions or they are not…
and if they are not… then either the words must change to
match the reality or the actions must change to match the
reality…

the bad faith and inauthentic life of the existentialist’s
is now today’s modern reality… the words
and the actions don’t match and that dichotomy
is, in part, the source of our unreal lives…

we are leading lives of bad faith and inauthentic lives…
and that causes our modern unrest and difficulty in living
our lives…

you want peace and happiness and contentment…
then your words and actions must match…
one of the causes of American’s discontentment lies
in this dichotomy of words and actions…

perhaps here lies the modern difficulty that has
plague humans since the start of the modern age…
this difference between our words and our actions…

perhaps here lies the cause of the modern age
and its discontentment…it wars and events like
Auschwitz and Hiroshima… the dichotomy between
words and actions…

for us to become human, fully human… we must match
our words and our actions… we cannot be split
for us to claim our human heritage…

our fear has lead us to this dichotomy between words and actions
and this fear is of the lower level of instincts…not the higher level…
so, to become human you must overcome the fear to combine
the words and actions…for we hold to different words and actions
because of fear of censure from our fellow human beings…
we cannot be afraid of that…we must hold to our values
and not only speak them, but to live them… without fear or shame…

then and only then shall we take the next step into being human…

living without fear… and having our words match our actions

what words do you live by and yet your actions betray?

Kropotkin

if a thousand people were to read the above post…
999 would assume that the post wasn’t for them…
for they were the one’s whose words and actions matched…

the 999 would assume from habit, myth, custom, prejudice and superstition
that they were not hypocrites… that they were good, honest, tolerant
keepers of the values and actions that made good American’s…

those people aren’t honest enough to attempt a
an attack upon their values…

it isn’t enough for the courage of one’s convictions…
one must have the courage for an attack upon one’s convictions…

and here modern human beings fail…for who has the courage for
an understanding of the values they hold and the words they utter…

who has the courage of a true, honest reevaluation of values?

most people don’t even have the courage of examining their values…
little less a reevaluation of values…

and an examination of the words one speaks and the actions
one commits… few have that courage…

am I understood? only one in a million might and then act upon it…

Kropotkin

Pneumatic-Coma. Yet, I have a question for Peter, have you ever heard of the Heinz dilemma?

K: I did some research on this and reject it…it is a false dilemma…

my entire point is that the druggist has responsibility…
not all the responsibility lies with Heinz… and this is the basic
problem with capitalism…this dilemma exposes the problem with
our modern society and capitalism… the druggist thinks
only of his needs and his greed and his selfishness… and
the failure within society lies with the druggist and those who
support greed and envy and lust… the path of the druggist
is the path to failure…until we understand that, we too are heading
toward failure…it is a question of values and the druggist is following
the wrong values and in this, society has failed for supporting the druggist…
instead of supporting life… and this is the point… in this instance,
society and the druggist has put money ahead of life… the money
the druggist is going to make is put before Heinz wife…

to support the druggist is to support money/profits over life…
and that is wrong…and a societial failure…

that is the true lesson to be learned here… not some phony
understanding of what Heinz should do, but what society should
do about the druggist and what he stands for…that is the real
question here… is it right for the druggist to
engage in selfish behavior over the live and death of Heinz’s wife?
that is the only question this dilemma offers… what about the druggist?
that is the question… for an answer there tells us about what Heinz should
do…what are the values of the druggist? and start there…

Kropotkin

upon further reflection, see what the druggist values are
and see what Heinz values are…

Heinz is acting from love of his wife… he wants to save her life…
he is acting nobly and honorable, doing anything he can to save her…

and what is the values of the druggist? he is acting from greed and lust
and thinking only about what is best for him regardless of the cost…
and the cost is a person’s life and he doesn’t care… it is all about profit
for the druggist… nothing else matter’s…what a perfect story about
capitalism and it effect on people’s life… and the cost of capitalism
on Heinz’s wife and on Heinz…

if you focus on Heinz, you miss the point of the story…
focus on the druggist and you see the point…

Kropotkin

let us look at this story from another standpoint…

the law is totally with the druggist and not with Heinz…
the law is following Locke and Hume and other thinkers
who believe that the point of the law is to protect property…
and yet here the law is wrong… it is protecting an inanimate
object before life…it is putting property before a person’s life…

the law is wrong… when it protect property before life

what values are named when the law protects property
before life? certainly not the higher laws of love and peace
and life… here the law protects the lower instincts of greed
and lust, envy…why should a law protect a person’s greed
before life? why is the individual greed and lust protected before
a human beings life? the very law is about values and here
the law is protecting the wrong values… and the wrong person…

life before property… life before money/profits…

and the law should reflect this…

as the laws are made by human beings whose values are warped by
greed and lust… perhaps the laws should be amended to reflect
life before property…but those in whose best interest is
all about property and money won’t ever allow laws that
put life above their own personal interest which is property
and money before human beings and life… Nihilism at
its best…the negation of the human beings and their values
by the lower values of greed…

Kropotkin

a reevaluation of values… of life before money/profits
of life before property… of the human being before nihilism…

Kropotkin

I am working this out as I go, so bare with me…

any understanding of life begins with the simple thought, I will die…

the young don’t believe it and the old try to pretend it isn’t there…
and when I die, what can I take with me? nothing…
born into the world naked, die out of the world naked…

many hold to the thought of some god or heaven or even hell…
but I cannot know that…I cannot experience it before it happens…
the more likely explanation is death is just like falling asleep…
conscience one moment and then nothing…

I exist as one of several billion people…
I am not unique or one of a kind… I am simply another…
a long line of humans existed before me… and I can only assume
that a long line of humans will exists after me…but I cannot know…

when making a journey, one must not only have the starting point,
but one must have the destination, the goal in mind…
and no matter where we start, the end is going to be death…

this must be where we begin our understanding of life…
that life must end… not all life, just my life…

so in light of this… what values should I hold?

I cannot take “it” with me, whatever “it” is…
so, no matter what I do, it is temporary…
no matter what I build, it is temporary…
no matter how much I buy or sell, it is temporary…

the massive consumption that fuels our current existence,
it won’t change my existence because it too, is temporary…

I suffer personal losses… family, friends, loved ones… they too will die
and I must grieve… but I still exist… until it is my time…

cars and couches and TV and refrigerators, books, stoves,
water bottles, wife’s and daughters all come and go from our life…

and yet, I still exists…until it is my time…

we search for the permanent because nothing is permanent…

so what should my values be in a world that has its individual pieces
come and go… individual pieces like cars and couches and tree’s and human beings…

I cannot influence the past… it can only impact me…time flows in only one
direction…

I cannot change the right here and right now because it would be like
trying to stop the earth in mid rotation…I cannot…

so what is left is, from here on…

from this moment to the next…I can change that…

so, we must understand that the immediate present I cannot change,
but I can change from this second into the future…

so we must devote our energies from this moment into the future…

and once again we ask… what values should we hold from this moment into
the future?

the next question becomes, what do I care about future generations once
I am gone? I am gone… why should I care what happens after I am dead…

if, if we admit the fact that we cannot take it with us…whatever
it is, then we can understand, that our possessions, that our own personal
goals, that everything about us, is gone… then what is left?

the fact is, that my own personal existence has no point by itself…
were I to disappear in the next 2 minutes, few would notice
and after a while, few would remember me…so given this…

what should my values be?

the only way, the only possible way, my existence would have
any value, of any kind is by the continuation of the human species…

if the human species ended, then my life and your life and Descartes life
and anybody else you can think of, would have no value…

to understand the value of human life doesn’t mean the value
of our cars and couches and TV’s and stoves… the value of human existence
lies with something other then our material possessions…
for material possessions come and go… we have had 10 different couches
in the time my wife and I have been married… it doesn’t matter what kind
of couch we have… the value arises in the fact that we are the matter that
continues to exists… what that means is, my wife and I are the only
aspect that remained the same after so many couches… we are the
continuity, not the couches… our human lives… which presided over
so many couches… it that which remains has the value, not the
material objects itself for they come and go…

so, it is not my life that has the value, for I am another one who will
die and as every single person alive now… will die
it is not our individual lives that matter… we are simple the couches
that come and go… but that which continues has the value…
the only thing that will continue is the existence of human beings…
after me, will come billions more… that is the continuation of human existence
and that is the meaning of life… not the individual, but the species…
that which remains has the value…

think of human existence as a river… and I am just one drop in
the long flowing river… the value is not the one drop but
in the continuation of the river… and we must have values
that allow the river to continue to flow… those are the values
we must hold…

now is that river specifically American or catholic or white
or gay… no, look at a river, you cannot see the individual
drops of water… it doesn’t matter if the drops of water
are shades of gray or black or believes in this ism or that ism…
you can only see the river… the flow of the water…
that is the human species… stand far enough away
and you cannot see the individual drops…you cannot see me…
and I exist within that river and soon, I shall no longer be a part
of that river… but if the river continues to exist… then I
have played some role in keeping the river flowing… a very small
part granted, but a part nevertheless…

our values must be values that allow the river to continue to flow…
our values must be values that allow the human species to continue on…
but we don’t exist within a vacuum… we exist within a system…
the human race is tied to and connected to the earth… we are a part
of the earth and the earth is part of us… we cannot separate out
which is earth and which is human…human beings
exist as part of a river of life that has flowed for over 2 billion years…

look at that river… do you see the human race? no, you just see a river
of life… all life flows in that river… like the mighty Mississippi…
as it flows down from Minnesota to the gulf of Mexico… you cannot
see any individual part of the river… you cannot see any individual
drops of water… you can only see the river as a whole…
and that whole is also the whole of life as it flows down…
and when it reaches the gulf of Mexico, it doesn’t just disappear…
it flow into the gulf where it becomes part of an even larger body of water…

can you tell the specific water that came from the Mississippi from
the water that flowed from the Missouri river or the water that
flowed from the Amazon river or the water that has been there
all along? no, if you look over a large body of water, you see WATER,
but you don’t any individual water, any drops of water… you see
water as it reflects the sun light…and you see the waves and you
might see the birds and sea life as it moves above and on and below
the water… we are that sea… we are the individual part of the water
and we are part of the sea as it flows to an ever bigger sea

we individual parts of the human existence flow into life itself
we are the Mississippi and we flow into life itself which is the
gulf of Mexico which connects into ever larger bodies of water…
life… the tree’s and grass and birds and plants and dogs
and elephants and the air itself… all parts of the sea of life
which flows into an ever bigger sea which is the earth…

does that river of life take note of the color of the drops of water
or the sex of the drops of water or the religion or wealth of those drops of water…

no, it doesn’t matter in that river or sea what the individual drops do
or feel or believe in or hold sacred… what matters is the river or
the sea…the individual drops are just that, individual drops…
and it doesn’t matter if the drop are American or white or catholic
or not religious at all… that is why the debate over what beliefs
we should have or what country is the greatest or if some colors
are superior to other colors… it just doesn’t matter…if we are
just drops in the river of life… who cares that America is the greatest
country on earth…because America at one point didn’t exist…
and at some point in the future will no longer exist…
religions come and go… as the believers in Ra…can’t find any, can you…
and did the greatness of the Aztec’s count for much today?

all those we things we take very seriously, like country and religions
and faith and color of the race… really doesn’t matter because
in the end, they all just flow into each other and become something
else…a river flowing down to the sea…

take the long picture of life and our petty arguments over
race, creed, sex, color don’t amount to anything…

does the river care if two drops of water are fighting over which
belief is the “right” belief?

take the long term view of the species and much
of what we do, no longer makes any sense…

think about the world after you die…

did it matter that you got some promotion or
a raise or fell down and broke you arm? or believed
in this god or this country or in the purity of race?

no, it doesn’t matter… so what beliefs should you hold?

what should your values be?

Kropotkin

the problem is we see everything and feel everything up close…
we see everything as huge and what we see takes up our viewpoint…

but stand a little further away and things begin to gain perspective…

stand on the earth and it looks like it is everything… there is nothing
else but the earth…

be on a ship right outside the earth’s orbit and the earth looks so large…
it fills the entire sky…

be on the moon and the earth still looks large… but can you see
of the earths features we travel so far to see? Can you see the miracle
mile of Chicago? or pier 39 in San Francisco? or perhaps big ben in London?
or the Effiel tower in Paris…we travel for thousands of miles to see these things…
I know I have… and they look so large but travel some miles away from earth
and you can’t even see them anymore…

the U.S spends billions of dollars on the defense budget… can you see that
from outer space? no, we spend time and money and effort of building
massive things and get a few miles away from earth and you can’t even see them…

travel to mars and the earth begins to look very small…

travel to Jupiter and try to find the earth… it will be the small blue
dot very, very far away…you can’t see the oceans or the massive
continents like Asia or North America… you can’t make anything out on
earth that far away in space…all that stuff we live and die for…
you can’t see the rocks we fight and die for…you can’t see the money
that millions are willing to kill for… none of that matters when
you can barely see earth…

America is number one… American is number one…

does that even matter when you can’t even see America?

these things look so large and huge and worth living for…
…worth dying for…

are they? put some distance between you and the earth and
very little seems to be that important…

we can’t see all those billions of humans living on earth from so far away…
fighting and dying and lusting and being greedy and loving…
does any of that matter when you are so far away?

it isn’t about what we have or don’t have…

it is about our place viewing what we have or don’t have…

I have heard of people being killed over tennis shoes…

you need those so badly… take mine… shoes…

are worth living over or fighting over or dying over?

stand on another planet and tell me that tennis shoes have
any value at all… become old and what becomes important
is not money at all… it is time that becomes important…
because we have less time and that is why time becomes more
important then money…so much of what I did when
I was young, no longer matters to me…it is a waste of time…
it was a waste of time… and time is the one thing I don’t have a lot
of…depending on where one stands, shows us what is important…

my viewpoint decides what becomes important to me…

stand next to a wall and that wall becomes the largest thing in sight…

stand next to the empire state building and that becomes the largest thing in sight…

can you see the wall from the moon? can you see the empire state building from the moon?

what looks like the most devastating thing that has ever happened to a human being…
can’t even be seen from the sky…stand on the moon and the boundaries
that we fight over and kill over and spend billions upon, can’t even be seen…

the problem with our lives is everything is so big up close,…
get some distance and things gain perspective…and we gain
true wisdom and understanding…once we get away a bit…

Kropotkin

think values don’t count for much…

let us look at the issues and problems facing the world…

we have, in no particular order, global warming, income inequality,
injustice, intolerance, millions without proper food or water,
millions of Americans who exist week to week and would go homeless
if they went without a paycheck during three weeks, pollution,
this is just a top of my head listing of our current issues and problems…
I suppose had I actually tried I might be able to double this list…
anyway, we have enough to start…

so let us begin with global warming…the cause of global warming
is the actions of human beings… that much cannot be doubted unless
the entire scientific community is wrong and I doubt that…

so what drives this action of human beings that creates global warming?
the cause is simple enough, greenhouse gases… but what does greenhouse
gases have to do with values? it is the values that drive the need for the greenhouse
gases…factories driven by the value of greed, a lower instinct indeed…
cars build to increase profits of car makers sold by appealing to humans beings
ego, vanity, greed, envy…it is values that drive the actions that create greenhouse
gases…

it is the same for pollution… companies say its too expensive to take the pollutants
out of the mixture pored into the atmosphere and it will cost profits to insure
clean air or clean water… monetary value outweighs the damage pollution
causes the earth… the values of greed outweigh our need to have clean air
and clean water… to have clean air and clean water might cost us some of
our GDP…

income inequality is not a problem… so says the wealthy man…and the shills
he buys to promote his wealth…if 500 people have as much wealth
as half the world’s population, that is a problem…you could print enough money
to give the half the world money enough, but all that does is create inflation and
inflation doesn’t help anyone…no, if so much money is tied up in the hands
of just a small percentage of people, then millions, no billions don’t have enough
resources to adequately support themselves… it is the greed and gluttony
of the wealthy to gain ever more wealth even though the billions they have
will last dozens of lifetimes…why should one man have billions and another
man live in poverty? justice demands that we all equally should share in
the bounty of the earth… for the earth isn’t about who owns it… for
who can claim to own the land on earth… and yet, people do claim so…
on what grounds can we claim to own part of earth…it is nothing more
then greed that drives the biggest factor in our list of issues and problems…
and that is the need to own… to have private property…why does one
man have 7 houses and another man lives on the street? and the defenders
of wealth and greed bring out the old and tired defense of wealth and greed…
but they fail to bring out the real reasons for wealth… luck and the fact
is that wealth is built upon the backs of the workers in wage theft… paying
workers less then they can sell the workers efforts… the wealth of bill gates
is built upon selling his products for more then he pays his workers…
it is the workers that build the wealth and it is the workers who then suffer,
suffer under capitalism… workers who toil under stress and the burden of
terrible working conditions… factories and factories lite…

it is the values of greed that has created the conditions and problems
and issues that we face today in the modern world…greed and lust
and envy and hate and anger… it is this drive to increase corporate
and individuals wealth that has damaged our planet and it inhabitants,
both human and animal… it is values that has created
poverty and pollution and income inequality and global warming
and injustice and intolerance and all those other issues and problems
facing us today and tomorrow…the negative values…
you want to save the earth… replace those negative values with
positive values… values of love, peace, justice, equality, tolerance…
and will the problems of the world vanish overnight? no, no they won’t…

but it is a start… and that is all we are aiming for right now… a start
to make life better… you want to end the problems of the earth created
by humans… start with your values and what they mean…
then the next step is a reevaluation of those values… is the answer
to our problems really Americanism or white power or hating the Jew?

those “solutions” help create the problems we have today, they aren’t solutions…
they are more of the same in the listings of what caused the issues/problems of today…

list your values and then try to understand… are those values the reason we
have such issues and problems today? for most people, the answer is yes…
the values they hold is part of the reasons for pollution and income inequality
and intolerance and injustice and global warming… for those values drive
the actions that make it possible for these issues and problems to exist…

what values do you hold?

are you sure?

Kropotkin

what is the goal here? what are we trying to accomplish?

individually, we cannot accomplish much… you, me, that weird guy
in the corner… none of us individually, can move the needle very much
either way… but together, together we can move mountains
and we can achieve greatness and we can rise above the situation
we find ourselves in… the issues, the problems, the pressing matters
which threaten to destroy us…we can rise above it, if, if we
understand what will happen if we don’t come together and become
one…

imagine a leader who says, what do we want to accomplish?
not what do I want to accomplish?

imagine a leader who isn’t concern with transactional leadership,
but with transformational leadership…

what great things we can achieve if we engage in the transformation
of our lives from being consumers/producers to active participants in
our lives… from the slavery/tyranny of the economic to the freedom
of engaging in equality and justice which includes the economic and
the political…to find ourselves, we must engage not just with who
we are and what are our possibilities, but in who we all are and what
are all our possibilities…

freedom, true freedom is not just about one person finding freedom
and justice… but in all of us finding freedom and justice/equality…

you want to make a better society… simply start with making America
more just…practice equality… which means, we must make
our goals to be about increasing justice and equality, not
increasing our GDP… or increasing our own personal wealth…
the path to a better America is the path of becoming more just…
where justice is truly blind and where equality is the standard
to follow, not wealth…

the path to freedom, true freedom lies with the practice of
justice and equality…this means we limit income inequality…
this means we reject the politics of hate, this means we
engage in the practice of justice over the call of security…
in other words, equality and justice is a higher priority then
being safe…so we reject the notion that we must
devote billions of dollars to the defense of the country…

because if we don’t have equality, that is where people’s need
are meet, if people don’t have food or water or shelter
or education or medical care, then what exactly
are we defending?

if we don’t have equality and justice, then what are we defending?

the question becomes, if we don’t have equality and justice,
then what is the value of society?

now some may object and say, what about freedom?
Freedom can only exist when there is justice/equality…
if we are living in an unjust/unequal society, then what is the point
of having freedom?

now some may say, in this uncertain world, we must be safe…
safe from what? I believe the greatest danger in the world lies
in the believe that safety/security is the goal of society… that
the only purpose of government is the safety/security of the people…

the point of government is to insure justice and equality and freedom,
for without those, what is the point of being safe and secure?

what do the PEOPLE want? they want jobs and well paid jobs at that,
and they want to have equality and justice and they want
their kids to have better lives then they had…

to engage in these goals and not personal goals of increasing one’s
wealth or to benefit the class in which one comes from…
that is the point of leadership… to engage with improving lives…
all lives, not just American’s, but lives of everyone…

to transform… to make better is the goal…
that is the goal or purpose of life…

Kropotkin