a new understanding of today, time and space.

[Peter Kropotkin]

if as I contend that we in America no longer has a say in government,
that because our government has been sold to the highest bidder,
we are no longer participants in the American government and as
such, we are no longer required to obey the American government
as it is no longer within our control as required in the Constitution....
if the government no longer follows the law, why should we?

we are government of the people, for the people, by the people.....
if we no longer have this, then we are no longer a govenrment of the
people, that is us, and as such we are no longer required to follow the
government.... because if we are not a part of government, we are no longer
required to obey it... we can dissent and be proud of it because the
government is no longer following the legal basis of our duly constituted
goverment......if the government has abdicated its rights, responsibilities,
and duties to the American people, then we have the right, indeed the
responsibility to reject the government as being illegal....

99% of all people will reject my arguments and that is ok,
even if every single person in the world rejected my argument, that
doesn't make my argument wrong..... and at some point, in the future,
my point will be held valid and right and the second american revolution
will begin.... once again, the goal shall be to articulate the point,
that we, we the people, hold political power in our hands and the politicans
in washington work for us, government of the people, for the people,
by the people.........

if we have no say in government, then we have no business giving our
consent to the government.... and so, I hearby remove my consent
to the government....until the point is that we the people in order to form
a more perfect union.... we the people, not big busines and not the wealthy
individuals or lobbiest, but we the people...........

this is the first step and as all first steps go, it is a small one...
larger steps will be needed if we are to regain control of the
government that no longer functions or operates under our name.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

if as I contend that we in America no longer has a say in government,
that because our government has been sold to the highest bidder,
we are no longer participants in the American government and as
such, we are no longer required to obey the American government
as it is no longer within our control as required in the Constitution....
if the government no longer follows the law, why should we?

we are government of the people, for the people, by the people.....
if we no longer have this, then we are no longer a govenrment of the
people, that is us, and as such we are no longer required to follow the
government.... because if we are not a part of government, we are no longer
required to obey it... we can dissent and be proud of it because the
government is no longer following the legal basis of our duly constituted
goverment......if the government has abdicated its rights, responsibilities,
and duties to the American people, then we have the right, indeed the
responsibility to reject the government as being illegal....

99% of all people will reject my arguments and that is ok,
even if every single person in the world rejected my argument, that
doesn't make my argument wrong..... and at some point, in the future,
my point will be held valid and right and the second american revolution
will begin.... once again, the goal shall be to articulate the point,
that we, we the people, hold political power in our hands and the politicans
in washington work for us, government of the people, for the people,
by the people.........

if we have no say in government, then we have no business giving our
consent to the government.... and so, I hearby remove my consent
to the government....until the point is that we the people in order to form
a more perfect union.... we the people, not big busines and not the wealthy
individuals or lobbiest, but we the people...........

this is the first step and as all first steps go, it is a small one...
larger steps will be needed if we are to regain control of the
government that no longer functions or operates under our name.....

Kropotkin

K: now as one reads the above post, one may react in many different ways...
oh, thats Kropotkin being Kropotkin....and wrong as usual.....

but let us become philosophical and take Kropotkin at his word...
what if, what if the government is as Kropotkin says it is... and
is no longer of the people, for the people and by the people....
what if the voice the government hears and responds to, is the voice
of the rich and powerful who has bought the government to do their
bidding and and not the voice of the American people?

What if Kropotkin is right...... now what?
now, how would you resolve finding out if Kropotkin is right?

for example, you can rely on your myths and habits and prejudices
and superstitions to tell you that Kropotkin is wrong.... but they are
teachings from your childhood by the very same government and society
that Kropotkin is attacking....you are relying on the very myths and
habits and prejudices and superstitions of the government and society
to understand if the government has abdicated in its basic and
fundamental function of being of the people, for the people, by the people....
to act in the people's name, in doing the people business....

so to honestly answer that question, one must, must answer the question
without recourse to the very myths and habits offered by the government
in its defense....we must, must look at the evidence without the bias
of myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions of that society....
to discover if the goverment has in fact, failed in its basic and primary
duty to answer to the people and be the tool of the people in doing
the people business......

if you use the myths and habits and bias and prejudices and superstitions of
the government, then you are already declaring in favor of the government....

think of it like a trial.... what evidence would you use to decide if
the government was guilty of a crime? would you use the evidence
of the very government that was on trial? no, of course not, you would
use neutral evidence to discover if the government had committed a crime
or would you use the very evidence given by the government on trial?

put the government on trial and decide if the government has in fact,
committed to those who have paid for it or does the government still
represent the people and speaks for and follows the voice of the people?

the only true way to answer this is by removing your prior myths and
bias and habits.... given to you by the very government that is on trial.....

am I being radical? yes and so what? we are no longer in a democracy....
and being radical is the only path to our return to a democracy.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

As I have been sick today, the dam bug that has been going around...

I have either been sleeping or watching TV... the show I just watch was
on Netflix, The story of Maths... by an english professor of math
Marcus du Sautoy..... and his contention is that the world, the universe
is mathematical..... but does that make our lives mathematical?
is who we are, mathematical?

now one may recall that Descartes thought that the world is motion,
and we can learn who we are by understanding motion... we can discover
not only who we are but we can learn such things as morals from the
understanding of motion......

is this the same thing? can we understand who we are from math
and can we learn such things as morals from the understanding of math?

we certainly can learn mathematical things about us, the average height
of a man in america today is 5'8.... which is taller then the average height
of an american man 20 years ago.....but does that tell us who we are
and what are our possibilities?

the questions that haunt us are not mathematical....
the questions of life and death and what to do in that time
between birth and death? many, many years ago, in my twenties,
I was haunted by death and the, I thought, impending coming of my death....

now I know I was silly and foolish, as youth is.... but
I still understand the questions of the Existentialists,
how do I live an honest, authentic life... what is the relationship
between me and god? what of that question, is this all there is to life?
and how do I find answers to this profound questions? From math?

Somehow I don't think so....but as math is about finding a method,
we are engaged in finding a method that will lead us to finding our
answers to that which engages us, the meaning of life is one such question......
who are we and what are our possibilities is another?

the questions that engage us are human questions, not math questions.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

a question I have been thinking about it this question
of how we are influenced by environment.....

if we become who we are by the pressures of the environment,
then it would make sense to create an positive and caring environment
for our children but that isn't what happening...... we have people who
falsely believe that the best enviroment for our children is a selfish,
competetive, every child for him or her self...........

we become who we are, in reaction to our enviroment....
so an enviroment that is mean and selfish would produce
mean and selfish people for that is what the enviroment is teaching.....
and in that unhealthy enviroment, only the strong survive....
is that the lesson we want our enviroment to actually teach?

No, for we don't have our own families existing in such an enviroment.....
we try for loving, caring, open family structure...... we don't create
chaos or stress or hate or fear in the children we raise, so why should
we encourage chaos and stress and fear and hate in our society in
our economic system of capitalism.....

if the enviroment helps create the following generation, then
we should create an enviroment that helps the next generation,
become who they are and that is by ending the economic system of
chaos and stress and hate and fear that is inherent in capitalism....
because in capitalism, the negation of values, the negation of human values
is nihilism and that is the enviroment to which we learn and react to.....

we are who we are because of enviromental aspects like capitalism
and democracy, in which democracy no longer exists because it has
been coopted by money by which the wealthy and powerful have bought
democracy with multi-million dollar payoffs for the legislative branch.....

the legislative branch works for those who have bought it and that
is no longer democracy and we must react to and learn from that...
these experiences help create who we are and what are our possibilities....

and from chaos and hate and stress and fear, what can we become?

just more of the same, chaotic and stressful and full of hate and ever fearful......
we are what our environment is.... try fitting round pegs in a square hole....
if we are kind and nice and loving and without the nihilism of the modern age,
we are round pegs in the square hole of the chaotic and stressful and hateful
and fearful modern age of capitalism....only those with the attributes of
modern capitalism succeed within capitalism.....the environment creates
its participants..........so, who are we and what are our possibilities
is linked to our environment because that environment is the only possibility
for us to act in.... and thus those who don't fit into the square hole of capitalism
fails and is doomed and is denied basic possibilities of human existence......

so to create the people we want to create, we must first create the proper
environment... so what is environment we want to create for the next
generation to succeed?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

If environment helps create who we are, and I believe it does,
then we should create a better environment to create better people.....

and by better people, I would contend that means people who
are honest and aren't violent and follows the rules...to give some
examples........ for society to exist, it must have participants who
help maintain the society.....

think of it in terms of systems... a system with too many parts not functioning,
means eventually, the system will fail... if we have too many parts, people,
not helping maintaining the system, it will fail.......

so if for example, Mars in the solar system decides to go its own way
and leave the system, the balance that is the solar system is lost
and it will destory the solar system....the smaller the system,
the more important the various parts become.... a large system like
the human system, has billions of parts, thus if thousands go and attempt
to distrupt the system, there are enough humans to help maintain the system....
but in the solar system which only has 10 basic parts plus many minor parts,
the sun, 8 planets and whatever Pluto is these days and the mulitude of
moons means we can probably deal with the loss of a couple of smaller
moons but not our moon......as it is a very large moon....

so in the smaller the system, the individual parts must help stablize the
system as they are fewer of the individual parts.... in a large, huge system,
it is less important that the individual parts help stablize the system.....
there are enough individual parts to help stablize the system....

so we can throw into jail, millions of people who cause disruptions to
the system, because we have millions more who keep the system running......

so the question becomes, at what point do the numbers of people affect
the human system? clearly in the U.S that number that affects the system
is quite large....in other words, how many people need to stop working to
derail the entire system? we know at least 50 million people at any given time
is not working, the old, the young, mothers, disable, but that is accounted for
in the system understanding......in other words, the system has already
account for at least 50 million people not working, so that number shouldn't
affect the system......so that leaves roughly, lookin it up, the claim is
that roughly 110 million people are working in the U.S.....so roughly a third
of all people in the U.S work.....

so to maintain the balance of the system, as we increase in the number of people,
there needs to be roughly a third of all people working...

as long as the balance is maintained, then the system should work.....
and if we get more people working, that strengthens the system even more....

so, we have one aspect of the environment, the balance of the system.......

as the environment is a system, we must have balance in any system.....

we cannot disrupt any system very much, for that creates an unbalance
system.......

so now we can understand what has happened in our system that has
created an unbalanced system....we have far too much wealth
at the top of the system, this creates a top heavy system and is now
unbalanced.......if 500 people have as much wealth as half the world's
population, 3.3 billion people, we have a unbalanced system.....

this is part of our environment, our system and it is no longer in balance
and this threaten to tip over the entire system.....

this is why income inequality is so dangerous.....it threatens the balance
of the system....

and this is just one part of making a better environment.... making an
environment balanced.....environment is a system.....

what we have now, is an inverted pyramid, with the wealth at top...
but small number of people and as we go lower down the pyramid, more
people but less wealth.... this threatens to topple everything because
it is not balanced....the system as is, cannot maintain because of the
unbalanced nature of the environment, the system.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

so it seems that environment is everywhere, but here is the interesting thing,
even small spaces are environments.... we have a 4 room condo...
two bedrooms, kitchen and living room....each room is it own environment.....
and in each room, is a human constructed environment...
and that is the part we miss.... we think of the environment
as being out there, but the fact is, a environment is the space around
us.... and in our actions with other humans also creates an environment.....

...... man, has work a really toxic environment....

and you know what I mean when I say this....

so environment is not also just the physical space around us, but our
relationships around us.....our interactions between us is environment....

environment is the relationship between us and anything outside of us....

so if we want to create an environment that allows people to thrive
and become who they are, we have to begin with us.... are we,
acting as human beings, engaged in our environment that allows
people to thrive and become who they are...

in other words, the very basic component of environment is us...
the way we act and the way we respond to that part of the environment
outside of us help create an environment that allows people to
thrive and become who they are....

we must begin any thought to our environment with us........

the environment is not out there but inside of us, in how we act and interact
with the other material in the universe.....we are the source of environment.....
it begins with us......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

there is a connection between the various disciplines like science
and history and law and economics, to name a few......

let us look at one, the law...... the creation of laws....

we have laws about stealing and about the right of way of pedestrians
and copyright and murder.....

now does the law presuppose an understanding of people?
in other words, is a law passed with the understanding that
people are inherently evil? or that the law passed will lead us
to some greater understanding of who we are?

or are the laws just an ad hoc means to keep people under control...
with no reference to whether people are good or bad or have a destiny
or they come from some particular frame of mind.....

if the law assumes anything, it assumes that people are rational and
can follow orders.......

or perhaps the laws assume that people are not rational because if they
were they wouldn't need laws......

the laws seem to be ahistorical in that from reading the laws you cannot
sense the past of why any given law was created... you cannot sense people
behind the laws......

so, let us say, you can only know people from the laws they create,
your only understanding of humans was from the laws they created,
what would be your understanding of people?

well that just the thing, each group of people, say the ancient Greeks to the
Romans through the Medieval times to the Renaissance, we would have
a different sense of people from their laws......for the Germans have
a different legal code then the Romans.... and what does that legal code
mean for each people?

it would tell us what they valued, for example, the Romans didn't prevent
the societies they dominated from practicing their religions.....
the Jews for example, were allowed to practice their religion as long
as they paid tribute to Rome..... whereas during the Medieval times and
for the next thousand years, the only religion allowed, legally, was
Christanity.....to be a Jew or to be an atheist or to be Muslim was to
be outside the pale.........

so the law was to give emphasis to the priority of the society......

but the legal system, the laws doesn't say anything about the future,
it gives us the prior priorities and the present priority but not the future
priorities........in other words, the laws are ahistorical....

the next aspect is, do the laws create a "moral" people?

we see today, in modern society, the laws are considered a burden to be follow,
not as an example of what we aspire to be.....

in an "ideal" society, I personally would trash all the laws and begin again....
what laws would I install? What laws would you install if you could
do so?

what is legal and what is illegal? and why?

if the laws are ahistorical, how would we go about connecting the laws
with history?

perhaps a broad mission statement as to why the law has value and why
should the law be obey and followed......

we know that laws have been made that negate the value of people,
laws that practice nihilism, for example the laws allowing slavery
and the laws that allowed the Holocaust....these are just two
examples of the use of the law to negate humans beings, to create
a nihilistic society....

how do we prevent such laws from happening?

so many questions and so few answers......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

when we approach such disciplines as science and history and
law and economics..... we see them in isolation from each other
and not in connection to each other........ but the law
is a brick in human experience and history is another brick in the wall
and history is another brick in the wall of human experience and
economics is another brick in the wall....and with each passing brick
we get a glimse of the human being as we are......a look at the human experience
from the standpoint of just history is to get a false image of who we are
and to get a look at the human experience from the standpoint of the law
is just another false image and to understand human beings from the
economic is just another false tale....to understand human beings,
one must understand our need for play and that is not seen in such
disciplines as history or economics or the law... and we must understand
our need for entertainment and that is not part of history or economics or
the law......to pursue justice as a end all, be all, is to miss what is
essential in what it means to be human... to pursue history or economics
is to miss what it means to be human....and that is part of the problem....

we cannot create a system that encompasses the entirety of human experience...
no one discipline, such as history or law or economics can fully understand who we
are.....no matter how broad a theory we create, we cannot include all the possibilities
of who we are.....no matter how broad a theory, we shall miss some very important
aspects of who we are.....this means, we cannot create a theory of humans that
will include all the vital facts needed to understand the human being......

this means we have possibilities outside of any theory......
possibilities to become human, fully human.....
to foreclose the possibilities of any future advancement based
on past or current events is futile because any theory of past or
present cannot include all possibilities.....we cannot, in advance,
dismiss our improvement as human beings.... we cannot, in advance,
say what is or isn't possible for the human being.... or for society......

to say, human beings are doomed because we.......
is simply a theory which cannot include all the facts necessary
to make a conclusion.........we are open ended beings and this
is different then any other animal or creature on earth.....
a cat is just a cat and cannot be anything else beside a cat...
there is no room for growth or possibilities for a cat, individually
or collectively....

but there is room for growth for a human being, both individually and
collectively....

so what growth do we want? where have we been, where are we now
and where do we want to go? all is possible because we have no limits
to the human experience......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

as part of my study into the enlightenment, I am studying David Hume....

Now one of the things I have noticed is when discussing say, Hume's theory
of how we aquired knowledge, it is rather theoretical and abstract.....
for example, we look at a tree and we then use reason to understand
the nature of the tree........ whereas in fact, this is not how we gain knowledge
at all....we are children and we ask, hay dad, what is that thing over there?
Dad will explain, that is a tree son....Hay dad, what is that glowing thing
in the sky? Well son, that is the sun....it is bright and helps keeps us alive....
Ok, how dad? well, the sun heats us and the planet and that allows plants
and tree's and animals and us to grow.... ummm, So, dad, what about.....?
and we learn from either asking questions or being told, what a certain thing is....

to make connections between such things as tree's and us for example,
we must study and experiment and reflect on tree's and what is their purpose...
but that is after we have learned what a tree is.... Einstein worked out light and
what it is, but he had to rediscover what light actually is....he was told, very young
what light is and where it came from... now whether or not that information was
true or not, doesn't matter... it comes from the collected knowledge we humans have....
we know the earth is round.... and mathematically, we can figure it out, but,
the real understanding that the earth is round comes from those who have
traveled the earth... Sailors who sail around the globe, gave us concreate
information that the earth is round.....and they passed that information down..
and finally at some point, our dad or our school teacher will tell us that the earth is
round..... we certainly didn't work it out and our dad or school teacher didn't work it out,
that information comes from someone, somewhere who by experience, math can
help confirm it, but experience helps us understand it.......

we learn from the collected experiences of everyone who came before us...
we don't work anything out ourselves and thus lies a problem....
what if the collected information of everyone gives us information that
is somehow, in contradiction to the information we get from someone else?

science is really the collected information of people who has gone before us,
who researched that information with a method and purpose......

let us take a look at this contradiction between the collected information
and the information we see for ourselves......

let us say, that my parents told me that there is a god... (BTW, they steered
clear of theology because of different faiths, mom was protestant and dad was
catholic) but lets us think about this... and in time after many years, of
being told there is a god, I discover the problem of evil... which is how does a
perfect and good god allow evil in the world.....after some time trying to reason it out,
I may begin to read the many, many books about this issue... and after some thought,
I come to a conclusion that there is no god.....the contradiction between god and evil
is too great for me to allow belief in a god.....for whatever reason, I no longer accept
believe in god despite being told by the state and the church and my parents, that
there is a god.......I have overcome my initial teaching of biases and myths and
prejudices and superstitions...... I have gained new knowledge...
and that knowledge is from thinking and comparing experiences I have had
and other people who I read about, have had about this issue about god and evil.....

the path to knowledge is really the path of overcoming our original
source of knowledge which is this collective knowledge of humans
which was gained over a million years from hard experience of humans
in the world..... experience that may or may not be right about things....

our collective experience/knowledge of the sun for example, was
wrong..... for thousands, if not millions of years, we thought the sun was
either a god or was circling the earth or was very, very close to the earth...
our knowledge, our collective knowledge of the sun was wrong.......
it has only been recently in human existence that we have found out
what the sun was and how it operated in space.....

now some of this collective knowledge is correct... the stove is hot,
treat people as you want to be treated, don't walk into walls....

but don't think that we have gained this knowledge by some studious
application of reason and thought... most of our knowledge is from
this collective knowledge we humans have, and it may or may not be right......

the "great" human beings are great because they went beyond the
the collective knowledge we have and tried to understand the knowledge
they have with the facts as they know it......and if the collective knowledge we
have contradicts the facts we have, then one of them is wrong.....and chances
are, it is the collective knowledge we have that is wrong........

they compared the collective knowledge with the facts we have...
and often, often it becomes clear that facts conflict with the
collective knowledge we have......most people would simply ignore
the facts and go with the collective knowledge, but that is the greatness
of those human beings, they ignored the collective knowledge
and tried to make sense of the facts... which has lead them
to the theories and idea's that make them great.....

With Darwin for example, evolution was in the air and had been
in the air for hundred years before he wrote his book in 1859....
but Darwin didn't just accept the collective knowledge that was
there..... Man came about because god created the heavens and earth
and man....... No, Darwin saw the collective information and the facts
were in contradiction.. they didn't agree with each other....so, does
Darwin just simply accept the collective wisdom/information/ knowledge
of his culture/people? no, tried to make sense of this conflict between
the collective information/knowledge of his "tribe" and researched it
for himself.... he tried to rise about the knowledge given to him by
his parents, the state, the church....the collective knowledge of
his time was wrong......and he didn't just accept it like most people.....

he was able to make connection between objects, living and inanimate
objects.... connections that lead him to his theory........
and the means he used was experience... his experience of his travels
and of his breeding of birds......and of other people experiences.......

his research wasn't theoretical or abstract... it was practical and
immediate experiences..........

so, how do you understand knowledge?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

let us further explore this idea.....

hay dad, what is that thing over there?
Why son, that is a tree?
hay dad, what is a tree?
Why son, a tree is a living thing that grows in the ground...

ummmm, what is a living thing?

now at this point, most dad's would say, ask your mother?
but we are left with a question, what is a living thing?

how would you explain to a child of two or three, what a living thing is?
you would point to something and say, that tree is living and you are living
and I am living and your mother is living.....

so, in your itty, bitty mind, you are trying to make some connection
between a tree and your dad or yourself......

that tree doesn't look like dad.... the tree is hard, again you only
learn this from experience....and the tree is taller then you dad...
ummmm, what connects this tree with your dad?

and we learn in school, what is the connection between living things....
they grow and they exist by consuming matter and they recreate themselves....
at this point, our collective knowledge of living matter, tells the tale of
what living matter is......

and that collective human knowledge is relatively correct...
the details will come more and more to the front as we
age and our schooling becomes more detailed......

we soon learn the direct connection between the tree/tree's and
the earth.... how they benefit each other and are connected in direct
ways with rain and sun and interconnections with other living matter...

but that is way after first learning about living matter,
high school or even later, do we learn exactly how the tree and earth interact.... ....

Hay dad, what is that thing? that son is a tree.....
and that is all we learn because at that very young age,
we are unable to make the necessary connections that would allow
us to really understand the connections between tree's and the earth....

and sometimes, people don't ever make the connection between
the tree's and the earth....

what is wisdom/knowledge? the understanding of connections
between objects, both inanimate and living....

want to be wise? understand how things are connected.....

it is not enough to say, son, that is a tree....

you have to explain why a tree is living matter and what
the tree's connection to you and to the earth and to the sky......

the tree has to be place into context and context is simply
another word for experience.....

so place your life into context.....with what experience should
I place my life? and you have the point......to make sense of the
tree, you have to place the tree into context/experience of living
matter and what is the tree connection to the earth.....

so place your life into context.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

last night, I was just free thinking, which is just thinking
without any goal or purpose or boundries and nothing censored....

I got to thinking about how I studied philosophy when I was younger...

I just read whatever looked cool... really... nothing organized or planned...
If it looked interesting, I explored it..... so, I would come across some
reference to a writer and if it looked interesting, I would read that author....

then later if something else came up, a totally different subject with totally
different writers, I would look that up...so I would bounce from Philosophy to
physics to poems to novels to political science and back again...I would
read Nietzsche then William Blake to Plato then to some Russian Novelist like
Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky where I would read several books of Dostoyevsky in a row....
then I would head back to philosophy or economics.....no rhyme or reason to my
readings,.........

so, when I thought about which Philosophers influenced me the most, it is
clearly the existentialist thinkers that has influenced me the most......
not the logical thinkers like the logical positivist, the Vienna circle.....

I believe in writers who tried to understand where we fit into the map of existence.....
I tried to connect humans with other humans and where we fit into "nature" without
realizing that we are "nature".... humans interacting with each other is nature....
we just don't see it as such.......by our interactions, we create an environment and
that environment is nature......an environment is a system.... and every single
natural system is open and we ourselves are a system, existing within systems,
creating systems via our interactions with other living matter, creating
environments, creating nature with every single interaction........

Now I study philosophy with a goal, with a purpose... looking for an
understanding of how philosophy went wrong.... looking at how we can
return philosophy to the people..... which is a common theme with me.....
I look at political philosophy as returning the government to the people,
for the people, by the people and I see philosophy the same way,
philosophy of the people, for the people, by the people..........

and I see economics the same way, economics/wealth of the people,
for the people, by the people.........

a common theme in my life.......

how do you philosophize and what is your common theme?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I have written often of the nihilistic economic society
where profits/money is valued higher then both human beings
and the values of human beings.... and we shouldn't wonder
why people consider life to be cheap..... because society at large,
considers people having less value..... or to be blunt, people
having no value.....

but this continues when after a school shooting or a concert shooting,
when people rush to the defense of gun ownership before the bodies
are cold......what are we to make of a world where the possession of
a gun is more important then a human being? that is nihilism.....
just like our economic system where money has more value then a human being....


if material goods like guns and/or money are more important to you
then human beings, we no longer have a difference of opinion...
we have a different morality.....and your morality is human beings
have less value then guns and money....... this nihilism of yours is
the cause of the deaths of millions... from income inequality which
leads to hunger, malnutrition and starvation... to the rise of pollution which
is from corporations that believe as you do, that money/profits have more value
then human lives....to rolling back regulations that cost companies millions but
save lives and lives are less important then costing companies millions.....

if you claim to be pro-life... you lie... because you have already stated that
money/profits are more important then people's life and that is not pro-life..
that is pro-profit

to claim that cutting of taxes is more important then human lives is not pro-life..
it is pro-money.... for the cutting of taxes directly costs people their lives.....
giving billionairs tax cuts, tell me how is that more important then feeding
families or lower the cost of necessary medicine or giving families shelter during the
winter months.....billionire's tax cuts, that is not pro-life.... that is pro-money......or said another way,
if giving billionair's tax cuts or promoting economics that put profits before people,
or putting guns before people's life... you are anti-life... anti-people......

and therein lies the failure of America..... we are an nihilistic, anti-life society
that considers profits or money or guns before people lives........

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

The question of man, who are we and what is our possibilities...

we have had many different answers....the Buddha said we are about
suffering and some have said we are about self-interest and others have
said we are about god and some have said, we are about the search for
knowledge......

but these are all secondary possibilities....

they are not the primary answer to who we are and what is our possibilities...

the first and foremost answer to the question of who we are and what
are our possibilities is simply this, we are social creatures......

you don't think about humans alone, no, you think about human in
as they are... in groups or a society or a family....

we do not and cannot exist alone... that is where we must first
start with any understanding of the human creature......

we exist within a group....we are social creatures who need and must
exists within a group.....

that is the beginning of understanding who we are and what are our possibilities....

we are group creatures and we can only find our possibilities within a group...

we can only find out who we are by the comparison and contrasting
ourselves with other human beings.....we measure ourselves, as it were,
with other human beings... and in that measurement we see, where we are
as human beings....this comparison between us humans is one way
we find out who we are.......

bob is a friendly guy....it is only by comparison can we understand that
bob is a friendly guy..... we can find out if we are fast or smart or
clever or tall only by comparing, measure ourselves against someone else....
that doesn't mean life is a competition.... competition is just another way
to measure ourselves against other human beings....

let us look at a particular circumstance..... what if we all acted
with only self interest in groups... say the family group...
what if families members acted only with self interest....
that family would fail.... a group only works when
enough members act within the group context....
take a basketball team... what if every member of the team played
only with their self interest in mind? that team wouldn't win one
game...for a group, any group to succeed, you must have the group individuals
act with the group in mind..... not with every member acting only with
their own self interest in mind...you cannot name me one group
situation where the group succeeds where the individuals members
of the group only have their self interest in mind....

and yet, believers in capitalism would have us believe that
capitalism succeeds because of the individual members
having their self interest fulfilled..... why does a rule that
doesn't work anywhere else, work here?

it doesn't..... .... and the failure is self-evident in massive
wealth inequality and the widespread suffering in the
capitalist world....here suffering is not the cause of things,
but the result of things......as suffering is not a cause but
a result.........

every team, family, work situation that has more then 1 person,
is a situation where one must engaged in working for the team and not
achieving personal self interest before the team, family or work situation....

we must begin with understanding, that we are social creatures and that
we can only exist within a group situation and in any group situation,
we cannot have members of the group practice their own self interest
before the group because that will lead, sooner or later to group failure.....

these are the beginning of the understanding of who we are and what are our possibilities.....

so let us look at what are our possibilities.....

achieving our possibilities is only possible within a social context, within
a group... we cannot achieve anything within a personal, individual context....
I can only understand how far I have come as a human being within the context
and comparison with other human beings..... am I a good person? only comparing myself
to other people can I learn that answer.....I am better then some and not as good as others...
I can use the ones who are good people to become my teachers and I can learn to become
a better person using those better people as a model of how to be good.....

thus the value of a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi or a Socrates.... we can compare
and contrast ourselves with these good people and then begin to understand who we
are and what is possible for us.....

I may not be able to run a 4 minute mile, but I can follow Socrates or Descartes
or MLK and become a better person...... I can follow philosophy and learn what it
means to pursue wisdom.... but it is only in context and comparison that I can learn
who I am and what possibilities exists for me......... I can join a team of
people who are trying to discover who they are and what is possible for them.....
just another group of humans.... and that is all we are and all we can ever become..
group of people........ that is the beginning and the end of our understanding of
who we are and what can we become...the group.. be it a large group, millions or a small
group, a family.... but not individually.... we cannot learn who we are alone.....

it requires a group, a society, a city, a state, a culture, a team for us to learn
who we are and what is possible......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

as noted before, so much of the enlightenment arguments,
was based on their readings of the Greeks and Roman writers....

their ideal of morality was based on Cicero, for example....

and their idea's about toleration and not using authority as a basis
of their idea's also came from their readings of the Romans/Greeks....

so, on whose idea's should we base our idea's upon?

the Greeks, Romans, medieval, Renaissance, or the enlightenment?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

i have commented upon this idea of myths and biases
and prejudices and superstitions.....and I have commented
upon them negatively.....but why? what does it matter that
we have such codes... in fact, these things, myths and biases
and prejudices and superstitions are a good thing...
they help us follow the past and in doing so, we don't get
carried away with modern notions that have no basis in
traditions or facts or logic.....the old ways, the old myths
are the basis of our society and we should always follow them
for they are the only true basis of society that is possible....

the traditionalist argues from the basis of, the past having served
as the collected experience of our ancestors, are the true basis
of society.... in other words, the past, because it works and has
work well, is experience we should follow because it did work well....

the new stuff hasn't been tried and lacks experience and thus is theoretical...
it hasn't been tried and true like the past experiences which are embodied
in our institutions and politics and history...... this stuff works, which
is why we should keep and maintain the past, knowledge of
the past which is based on experience is better then will oh wasp of
modern thinking that is based on unproven and untested theories......

the theory is because the past worked for our fathers and grandfathers,
it will work for us.....the past being our laws and institutions and political
methods and ways of doing things... stick with these things, says the conservative,
because they have worked in the past......the new is unproven and untried.....

so the conservative argues from the principle of experience.... we have experience
with the old ways which have worked, so let us stick with them because we
know they do work... look at society today... it works.... that is the conservative
argument......

the liberals says, look around you.. see the conflict and damage done by
the old ways... it can be improved... and it must be improved because
we evolve in such things as technology and science and we have such
a growth of population that we must, we must engage in the evolution
of idea's and in the improvement of laws and institutions and
political methods to match the evolution of our society and culture....

we must engage in the evolution of our activities because they have
evolved...... we no longer exists in a world of horse drawn carriages
or of authority given by the church.... we must change and adapt to
the current environment we find ourselves in......

the conservative says, no, the old way was good enough for my father and
it is good enough for me.........neglecting the fact that your father
also adapted his institutions and society and actions due to the changing
environment and changing conditions..... and we must do the same....
as the environment changes, we must change....

one of the things that conservatives fall trap to is this......
because of their faith in habits and myths and biases and
superstitions and that they don't challenge or attack them....
they see things through the eyes of those habits and myths and
superstitions......

what does this mean? well, let us try this......
one argument for god is, every tree is an example of god
creating the world... when I see a tree, I see god....
that is childhood training and habit working.....
we see things through the eyes of our childhood habits
and myths and biases and prejudices and superstitions....

we see something and we interpret it in terms of our childhood
myths, habits, bias, prejudices and superstitions....
if we are taught that liberals are evil or troublemakers or
wrong.... we see liberals through that lens of the myths
we were taught.... some around here have proclaimed
that "being liberal is a mental disease"..... those are not
responding to liberals, but they are responding to their
childhood training... they see liberals in terms of their
childhood bias and prejudice and myths and habits....

they haven't freed themselves of their childhood biases and habits....
and everything is seen through the lens of their childhood habits and beliefs
and biases.......Liberals are evil.... and they were taught this as children.....
and they see liberals and liberalism throught this lens........

"it is not enough for the courage of your convictions,
you must have courage enough for an attack upon your convictions"

and conservatives don't have the courage for an attack upon their
convictions.....

they see life through their myths and habits and prejudices of childhood...
and not through eyes that have been opened by new realities and the
evolution of such things as technology and science and the ever changing
enviroment we find ourselves in.....

we must adapt and change with the new realities of our life..
we must evolve or we will die..... that is the lesson of nature...
if animals don't evolve to adapt to the changing enviroment,
the animals die.... it is just that simple...... and we too must
evolve and adapt to our ever changing conditions.... and that means
seeing our evironment without the preconceived notions of childhood
myths and habits and biases and prejudices and superstitions we were
raised with.... to see our world with eyes not prejudice with old
habits and superstitions.....for if we do see with eyes of
habits and myths and superstition, we will see the world wrongly
and with the prejudices of ages past....to see the black man as
inferior, is to see the black man with the prejudices and superstitions of the past...

we must see everything with new eyes and eyes that haven't been
determined by past myths and habits and biases and prejudices
and superstitions of the past......

to see clear, we must see with eyes of experience that
aren't clouded by the myths and biases of the past......

my experience is that the black man is equal to me in every respect
and that women are equal to me in every respect and
any bias or superstition from my past that says otherwise, is wrong.....

but to see without bias or habit or myth or prejudice, we must search
who we are and we must see with new eyes and we cannot accept without
understanding where this habit or this myth comes from......we must
engage in understanding who we are and this self engagement is hard
and lenthy and not without risk... but it must be done........

for to be human means we must engage without our past
myths, habits of childhood giving us a wrong understanding of what we see.....

to see clear is hard.. but to see wrong is to see and act upon
information that is bias and prejudice is even harder, for it
leads one to have the wrong information and the wrong course of action.....

in other words, if we hold to our childhood bias and prejudice that
black men are evil or wrong, we will be wrong in our actions in regards to
black men........or if we learn that liberals are evil, then any action we take
in regards to liberals will be wrong because it is based on the wrong information
regarding to liberals.....or said another way, garbage in, garbage out......

so, what bias or habits or myths do you act upon?
you don't even know because you have never engaged in an attack
upon your convictions... exposing the myths and habits and prejudices
you act upon every single day.........the wrong myths and wrong habits
and the wrong prejudices........which leads one to the wrong actions.....

if your map is wrong, any attempt to use that map will lead one astray because
the map doesn't have the right information to use to guide one through the area....
you will become lost... and we have become lost as a society... and this is why.....
we are using the wrong map and you are using the wrong map........

so what map should we be using? or said another way, what ideology
should we be using as our guide into life? ism's and ideologies are just maps..
so what isms and ideology should we be using?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

what I about individuals having biases and myths and prejudices
that are wrong, holds true for a society.....

we, as a society, believed that slavery was not only right, but
necessary....... we held to that myth and bias and prejudice and
superstition for many a year... until we were forced to overcome it.....

if a society holds to a myth or prejudice that is harmful or
just plain wrong, it will take actions based upon those myths or
prejudices that will then lead society to a wrong place... because
the starting place is wrong, the ending place will also be wrong....
it is the nature of a map, that any starting place that is wrong,
will lead one to a wrong place.....

so if we start with a wrong place, we will end up in the wrong place...

if we accept the myth of the second admendment which is the right to bear arms....
we have thus have given the rights to the bearer of arms over the right of
people not to be shot...... in other words, by we have given owner
of guns, rights we have denied those who are shot.......

we say that the second admendment rights are greater then the rights of
those who have been shot........

this has been dismissed by this argument......

we accept the notion, that a person cannot, CANNOT, shout fire
in a crowded theater because the ensuing panic will cause many
injuries, even deaths... thus we acknowledge that the right to be safe
overrules one's free speech protection... we cannot allow free speech
which is a guaranteed right in the constitution, to supersede our right
to be safe in a theater..... we curtailed free speech, a guaranteed right,
to allow people to be safe in a theatre.....we also can do the exact
same thing, give people the right to be safe by curtailing guns in America....
if we allow guns right precedence over our personal safety, then we can also
allow one to shout fire in a crowded theatre under the same idea....
which admendment are we going to priority to? we have given priority to the safety
of people over free speech in one case..... shall we do the same and give priority to
people's safety over the second admendment?

so shall we follow prejudice?

in another example, we claim that America is the greatest country on earth...
and we then follow this opinion with actions based upon this opinion....
we have invaded far away countries with adverse reactions here in the US.....
We suffer in part because we have taken actions based on our wrong
bias, our wrong prejudice and we are damaging ourselves in the process......

society too can suffer from having a wrong bias, a wrong superstition,
a wrong prejudice and we can tell if they are wrong because of the results
of any action taken based on the wrong bias or wrong superstition......

we must engage in a national discussion of who we are.....

we must make an attack upon our convictions to discover
who we really are... just like individuals must make the same effort....

but who has the courage for an attack upon their convictions?
and who has the courage for leading an attack upon our national
convictions?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

1 + 1..... is this a problem or a solution?

1 + 1 = 2....is this a problem or a solution?

so for most people, 1 + 1 is a problem...
and 1 + 1 =2 is a solution....

now is E = mc2..... is this a problem or a solution?

now most people won't know if this is a problem or a solution because
most people don't understand this... they can't tell if it is a problem or a solution....

now for some people, they can't tell if 1 + 1 is a problem....
how would you explain to someone that it is a problem and not
a solution?

this tells us that sometimes we can't tell what is the problem and what is
the solution.....

so we have Nietzsche eternal reoccurrence... is that a problem or is that
a solution?

now the vast majority of people have no idea if this is a problem or a solution.....

it doesn't make people smart if they know and dumb if they don't know....

so, is life a problem or a solution?

now most people won't even venture a guess because
most people don't even think in these terms.....

life just is...... it isn't a problem or a solution... to most people....

but to some people, life is a problem....to a Kierkegaard or to a Nietzsche,
life is the problem...

to an existentialist, life is a problem, without a solution.....

and to a Christian, life is a problem and death is a solution.....

so what is a problem? and what is a solution?

and what is your problem?

is life a problem or a solution?

each question determines your search parameter and each
answer determines your search parameter.....

so what is life?

so what question drives your life?

are you looking for questions or are you looking for answers?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

when talking to people.... they don't see things that are a problem
that I see..... for example, this question of who are you...
most people don't see that as a problem..... they think of themselves
as their roles... husband, wife, father, son, daughter, aunt and they
see themselves as their job... another role......
people are what their roles are....... and nothing beyond that.....

I see questions where other people see answers.....

how are we to live our lives? most people say, to be good...

but what does that mean? what actions specifically make you good?

education is meant to open one up to the possibilities of life and education no longer
does that... it is meant to create workers and producers........
education no longer educates.... so we can't depend upon education to
answer our questions.......

when other people see answers, I see questions.....

and that is a true philosopher....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

let us further look at this problem/solution situation.....

Ronald Raygun famously once said, that
"government is the problem, not the solution"....
because people have a hard time understanding the differerence
between problems and solutions..... just like they have a hard time
understanding cause and effect........
they have a hard time trying to decide if government is the problem or
is government the solution?

so is government the problem or is government the solution?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

[quote="Peter Kropotkin"]let us further look at this problem/solution situation.....

Ronald Raygun famously once said, that
"government is the problem, not the solution"....
because people have a hard time understanding the differerence
between problems and solutions..... just like they have a hard time
understanding cause and effect........
they have a hard time trying to decide if government is the problem or
is government the solution?

so is government the problem or is government the solution?



K: so we have had time to think about this......
let us understand this historically....

We have Raygun in 1981 say that government is the problem....
going back into history, this is a return to the age of the Robber Barrons...
from roughly 1880 to the start of the first world war.. again, roughly....
there they had the belief that the best government was the least amount of government...

that notion evolved as the situation changed.... people could see the harm and
havoc that arose from the "pure capitalism" that was in use during that time period....

as it was also the time period when the U.S became a international power.....
and during a time of being a power, a govenrment that is the least
amount of goverment cannot fulfill the functions of government that is necessary
to sustain that power status....the final death blow to the "pure capitalism" was
world war 1.... where the country had to moblize quickly and the only way to do
that, was by govenrmental control.....the old ideal of the least amount of
government was in place during the 1920's and look at the end result of that....
the great depression........and it became quite clear that this ideal of the least
amount of government is the best is dead.... and it was dead for 50 years until
Raygun brought it back......but under the guise of the governement being the
problem..... and "pure capitalism" being the answer..... but the modern world
is such, you cannot have a return to the least amount of goverenment... or to
"pure capitalism"..... you have an amount of complexity that precludes any
attempt to return to the old system of the least amount of goverenment......

now what would be a cynical look at this attempt to return to the least amount
of government? it would fall along the lines of criminals trying to reduce the
amount of police involvement in dealing with crime..... by reducing the government
involvement, it allows corporations and powerful individuals to escape detection and
any possible punishment....by reducing the government involvement, you in effect,
reduce any governmental actions into your business which allows one to commit
crimes undetected....... imagine what criminals would do if there was no
police department? now imagine what corporations would do if they had no
governmental oversight? same thing......and we reach what is the real
result of a reduce government oversight into corporations? and the real
attempt to reduce the government.... to allow corporations freedom to act
however they want and kill and maim and pollute to their hearts content....
with no governmental oversight, this is what will happen.....
just as we have checks and balances in government, we have oversight
and regulations to business and corporations.....and for the exact same reasons....
it has nothing to do with "personal freedom" and everything to do with
corporations wanting to act in whatever fashion they want.....
and that is the result of Raygun's attack on government..... it is simply
an attempt to hide corporate malfeasance under the guise of "personal freedom"

but that would be an cynical look at the government that function best
is the government that functions least......

heaven forbid we look at this cynically.....

so, is the government the problem or the solution?

the government is the policeman on the corner and the
worker who fixes the street and the schoolteacher in a school....

you get clean water and your garbage taken away and
the sewage disposed of and that is government......

and anyone who tell you that the clean water you have or the fireman
who is ready to put out your fire....is the problem.... is clearly confused
as to what government actually is....

to call for less government is to call for a "wild west" mentality

and we have passed beyond that, for we are a complex and integrated
society that must have rules and regulations for it to work...

for to demand less society is to ask for a return to that society imagined by
Hobbes....."life outside of society/government is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish
and short".....for this the end result of having less government........

so Raygun is wrong and bigly wrong....for his suppose solution is no solution at all....
government is not the problem..... greed and lust and hate and anger and envy
are the problems... these lower instincts which lead us to actions that damage
and hurt society........... and that is the base statement.... does this action help or hurt
society at large? and by any definition or understanding of the question.....
is the government the problem or the solution? the answer is government is
part of the solution to the problem...... how do we make an environment
that allows the most people the chance to become who they are....
and the Greeks solution was the city... and the city means government.....

and who are we to argue with the Greeks?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I have been reading a biography of David Hume, when I start
my research into a philosopher, I like to read a biography of them...
to begin to understand them, the times they lived in... what they faced....

and in reading Hume, I am struck by the fact that everyone claims he
is one of the top 3 English philosophers of all time and yet.....

as I read it, I am struck by the fact that he has good and interesting
philosophy, but for the life of me, I can't see how to translate
that philosophy into real life action.....how am I suppose to act if I were
to live my life based on his philosophy?

ok, I understand how his cause and effect works.... we act as if the past
gives us the future, but that cannot be true and.... so what?

how am I to act given this information? what is an moral action given
my understanding of Hume?

he answers technical philosophical questions which is nice but
real life questions of who am I and what are my possibilities
he doesn't answer..... it is said Hume gave an understanding of self,
but I don't see that....I see his philosophical value but not his
real life value...... what does Hume say to me that will allow me
to live my life as an complete human being?

and I run into that problem a lot with philosophy...
they attempt to answer deep philosophical questions but
fail to answer basic questions of a person's life..... what am I doing here?
the who, what, when, where, how and why questions of life, philosophy doesn't
answer those and that is part of the failure of philosophy..........

how do I become who I should become? and who is that?
what are the values I should live my life by?

philosophy has become divorced from real life....
philosophy deals with technical questions of philosophy but
doesn't deal with the questions that matter to me.....

maybe that is why existentialism was so popular... it at least
dealt with questions of who am I and what are my possibilities?
what is the meaning of life and what is the point of life?
Hume would call these types of questions "metaphysical" questions
that because of their vagueness, they lead us into meaningless
arguments and discussions that lead nowhere......

but Hume doesn't talk about how do I find value in my life.....
how do I become who I am........ he doesn't deal with questions
that we grapple with everyday... what is the right thing to do?
and how are we to do the right thing? what is the point of all this?

for Hume, these profound questions are just dismissed as pointless exercises into
meaningless babble.......

if philosophy doesn't talk about what matters to us, what is the point
of philosophy? it needs to address those questions that keep us up at night.....
or it doesn't have a point or a reason to exists......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

an honest look at "America philosophy" based not on words,
but on action.....

America claims to be the foremost follower of freedom and yet
the actions deny this claim.....for how can one be a true follower
of freedom when large segments of the population want to ban
abortions, ban gay marriage, ban pot use and ban these things based
on "moral" values....values that are part and parcel of the
"pride and prejudice" of American's....."pride and prejudice" meaning
we hold these values from the pride and prejudice of American's....

the pride comes from exporting "freedom" to obscure places like Iraq
and Afghanistan and prejudice from attempting to ban American's from the most
fundamental right of voting... by creating barriers to voting of minorities and the poor
with such things as closing polling places where minorities and the poor live and
and cleansing the polling list which disproportionately removes minorities and
poor voters....

the "pride" of proclaiming America as the greatest country on earth but
that is merely prejudice for what criteria would one use to determine such
a thing? any such creation would/could be use to easily disprove any such
notion of America being the greatest country on earth........

by any objective standard, America is not even in the top ten of the greatest
countries on earth.... but the astonishing thing is, we could be if, if we actually
practice what we preached in terms of our ideals.....

if we tried to use as much energy to export freedom and liberties to other countries,
as to our own country.... if we spent as much effort on reducing poverty in America
as we do in Africa and Asia......if we practice freedom with as much vigor as we
preach freedom........ if we practiced our idea of safety across the board instead
of selectively practice safety when it suits us....... one man tried to blow up a plane
with a shoe bomb and now every single person in America has to take their shoes off
at the airport..... one person poisoned people via opening a vitamin bottle
and now every single medicine in America is protected by a seal opening....
we have extreme safety measures based on the actions of one person
and yet school shooting after school shooting broken up by workplace
shootings and the occasional concert shooting and yet, we still allow
such things as automatic weapons.... in the name of freedom...
but we then turn about and decry that exact freedom for transgender
people and homosexuals and those who want to use the restroom for
the sex they feel the most at home with............

we don't have a unified philosophy.... we have "pride and prejudice"
masquerading as a coherent public philosophy.....our "pride and prejudice"
allows such thing as our massive income inequality and our daily
contradictions in the use of freedom for American's......among other things....

and once again, we must begin by first understanding our double
standards and phony concern over safety for American's.........
double standards like claiming to be pro-life and then denying
life the means necessary to survive.. by denying food stamps and
WIC programs to those who need it and denying benefits and the
income for the older population who need it by attempting to
reduce such things as medicare and Medicaid and Social security.....
act like this are damaging attacks to those who need these supports
just to survive..... "pride and prejudice" in pride in claiming to be "pro-life"
but actively attacking those who need it the most, that is prejudice......

our actions are not "pro-life" but pro-money and pro-materialism.....
we value our money and our taxes and our private property before
we value the lives of those less fortunate... and that is "pride" of
wealth and the "prejudice" of wealth which is believing that wealth
is the highest value to be achieved..... and we offer up rich man solutions
to a poor person problem by offering up such useless benefits as in
taking away money and vouchers and replace them with boxes of food...
a rich man solution.... replace badly needed money with boxes of food......

and too often we think in this manner.... using white man solutions
to a minority problem or a rich man solution to a poor person problem
or a man's solution to a women's problem....we take "pride" in our
solutions when they are in fact, just acts of "prejudice" for solutions.....
based on our "pride" of being rich or being a man or in being white
and thinking that because we are white or rich or a man, we have solutions
for those who aren't...... us....... we act with "pride and prejudice"
in offering solutions to those who aren't us......

so our actions betray our lack of coherent philosophy in terms of
who we are and what should be our actions instead of acting
from "prejudice and pride"............

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

[quote="Peter Kropotkin"]an honest look at "America philosophy" based not on words,
but on action.....

America claims to be the foremost follower of freedom and yet
the actions deny this claim.....for how can one be a true follower
of freedom when large segments of the population want to ban
abortions, ban gay marriage, ban pot use and ban these things based
on "moral" values....values that are part and parcel of the
"pride and prejudice" of American's....."pride and prejudice" meaning
we hold these values from the pride and prejudice of American's....

the pride comes from exporting "freedom" to obscure places like Iraq
and Afghanistan and prejudice from attempting to ban American's from the most
fundamental right of voting... by creating barriers to voting of minorities and the poor
with such things as closing polling places where minorities and the poor live and
and cleansing the polling list which disproportionately removes minorities and
poor voters....

the "pride" of proclaiming America as the greatest country on earth but
that is merely prejudice for what criteria would one use to determine such
a thing? any such creation would/could be use to easily disprove any such
notion of America being the greatest country on earth........

by any objective standard, America is not even in the top ten of the greatest
countries on earth.... but the astonishing thing is, we could be if, if we actually
practice what we preached in terms of our ideals.....

if we tried to use as much energy to export freedom and liberties to other countries,
as to our own country.... if we spent as much effort on reducing poverty in America
as we do in Africa and Asia......if we practice freedom with as much vigor as we
preach freedom........ if we practiced our idea of safety across the board instead
of selectively practice safety when it suits us....... one man tried to blow up a plane
with a shoe bomb and now every single person in America has to take their shoes off
at the airport..... one person poisoned people via opening a vitamin bottle
and now every single medicine in America is protected by a seal opening....
we have extreme safety measures based on the actions of one person
and yet school shooting after school shooting broken up by workplace
shootings and the occasional concert shooting and yet, we still allow
such things as automatic weapons.... in the name of freedom...
but we then turn about and decry that exact freedom for transgender
people and homosexuals and those who want to use the restroom for
the sex they feel the most at home with............

we don't have a unified philosophy.... we have "pride and prejudice"
masquerading as a coherent public philosophy.....our "pride and prejudice"
allows such thing as our massive income inequality and our daily
contradictions in the use of freedom for American's......among other things....

and once again, we must begin by first understanding our double
standards and phony concern over safety for American's.........
double standards like claiming to be pro-life and then denying
life the means necessary to survive.. by denying food stamps and
WIC programs to those who need it and denying benefits and the
income for the older population who need it by attempting to
reduce such things as medicare and Medicaid and Social security.....
act like this are damaging attacks to those who need these supports
just to survive..... "pride and prejudice" in pride in claiming to be "pro-life"
but actively attacking those who need it the most, that is prejudice......

our actions are not "pro-life" but pro-money and pro-materialism.....
we value our money and our taxes and our private property before
we value the lives of those less fortunate... and that is "pride" of
wealth and the "prejudice" of wealth which is believing that wealth
is the highest value to be achieved..... and we offer up rich man solutions
to a poor person problem by offering up such useless benefits as in
taking away money and vouchers and replace them with boxes of food...
a rich man solution.... replace badly needed money with boxes of food......

and too often we think in this manner.... using white man solutions
to a minority problem or a rich man solution to a poor person problem
or a man's solution to a women's problem....we take "pride" in our
solutions when they are in fact, just acts of "prejudice" for solutions.....
based on our "pride" of being rich or being a man or in being white
and thinking that because we are white or rich or a man, we have solutions
for those who aren't...... us....... we act with "pride and prejudice"
in offering solutions to those who aren't us......

so our actions betray our lack of coherent philosophy in terms of
who we are and what should be our actions instead of acting
from "prejudice and pride"............

K: we act on our pride which is based on our prejudices....


Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I finally have a few days off......and I take
a self inventory.....

I am exhausted beyond belief....work has been pretty bad....
and because I am always at work, I don't spend anytime at home with
the family....work has been an very toxic and nihilistic place....
and that has worn me out....I feel empty and...... alienated from
my life.......and this is certainly due to the environment at work....
and environment is the key.......

each of us exists within an environment... an environment where
we must interact with and are part of.....my emptiness and alienation
and nihilism are a reaction to my environment.......

we tend to separate out work from any environmental concerns and
yet we spend more time at work then we do at home or anyplace else,
for that matter......if work is toxic and nihilistic and empty....
we are reacting to negativity that is bound to influence us and who we are....

our environment influences who we are and modern corporations are
presenting values like nihilism and toxicity and emptiness....

whose soul can survive under such an assault of such destructive values?
I feel the weight of society and its influences on me like I have never before.......
I am tired.....and worn out....I now know what Sisyphus felt like.....
eternal punishment for crimes unknown.....is death my only freedom from
pushing that rock uphill? for over 40 years have I pushed that rock uphill?
how much longer? it is my birthday today and I feel no joy, no passion,
no happiness, just being tired, that is all I feel....the years are weighing heavy upon me.....
and I see no end in sight.... so I return to my rock... and begin again.......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

ok, we have the enlightenment which is trying to free
human beings from myths, habits, prejudices and superstitions......

and the last 200 years has done just that.... and yet, we haven't seen
any noticeable improvement in human beings or in their environment.....

the old myths of superstitions like belief in god are dying......
and we haven't seen anything that would suggest we have been improved in
any way since the loss of this myth in particular.....

so, what happened?

I believe what happen is this.... as we have lost the old myths and habits
and prejudices and superstitions, we haven't replace them....

we have an empty spot where the old myths and the old superstitions used
to reside...and we have nothing to put into that empty spot......

nothing positive anyway.... what is now in the spot of those old myths and old habits
are the current negative ism's.......

Nihilism exists in that spot.... and the pursuit of money/profit is in that spot.....

or said another way..... we are not guided by negative values instead of positive ones....

the rise of negative values like fascism and Nazism and capitalism are fueled by
this emptiness of our souls.... the place where god and habit and superstitions like
the devaluation of man exists... devaluations like the black man is inferior to the white
man and a women is worth less then a man.... and where Jews run the world....

superstitions like this used to have a spot in human beings heart and because
of the loss of positive values the negative values have a home....

or said another way, nature abhor's a vacuum.....and in in the loss of those
values that were myths, habits, prejudices and superstitions... they are replace
by more myths, habits, prejudices and superstitions...

myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions like belief in god
and nationalism and Catholicism and in fact, any ism or ideology is
a myth or habit or prejudice or superstition...............

and what is to be done?

Kropotkin