ICYMI, Rasa's YouTube Channel Has New Name

ICYMI, the legendary Guru Rasa Von Werder's long-running YouTube Channel has a new name:  "Guru Rasa Von Werder:  New Religion 4 Women".  And many new videos too.

https://youtube.com/@gururasavonwerder?si=gUSOz2PfqSxzBDoG

Be sure to check it out!

Patriarchy Has A Kill Switch (Part Deux)

In a previous post a while ago, I had discussed how Women's sexual freedom would be the ultimate kill switch to end patriarchy.  But one aspect of this topic had been a bit neglected in that article, unfortunately. 

Basically, I have gotten into some online debates from time to time about the "incel" (involuntary celibacy) problem.  Many self-identified incels are of course misogynistic trolls with an entitlement complex, but not all of them are.  And even some genuine ones seem to think that the "permissiveness" resulting from the sexual revolution has made their situation worse, and give various "evolutionary psychology" arguments.  So here is my response to all of that:

First and foremost, equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are mutually exclusive, and trying to force equal outcomes on everyone by fiat has a way of backfiring hard, as many have learned the hard way throughout history.  That is true for economics as well as for sex and relationships.  So aim for equal opportunity as your North Star instead. 

And in any case, since there are really only two ways to attempt to force equal outcomes on everyone in terms of sex and relationships, either 1) treat all Women as "private property" of individual men, or 2) treat all Women as "public property" of all men collectively, that means that there is absolutely NO ethical way to do so whatsoever.  (The late Andrea Dworkin would have a field day with that!)  That is because Women are, you know, full human beings, NOT "property" in any sense of the word, period.  Capisce?

Any ethical solution must, at the very minimum, fight twice as hard for the right to say "no" as for the right to say "yes".  After all, rape culture with a smiley face is still rape culture. 

Furthermore, most "evolutionary psychology" is, in a word, BS.  With NO apologies to Jordan Peterson at all.

"Hypergamy" (dating or marrying "up") by Women is really NOT natural, but is rather a socially constructed effect of capitalism and a hangover of patriarchy, for obvious reasons.  Ditto for the bandied-about "80/20" rule, which itself is grossly exaggerated.  But to the extent that the sexual revolution has anything at all to do with it, it is basically the opposite of what the manosphere claims.  If anything, slut-shaming only makes Women that much MORE picky and/or superficial in regards to men than they would otherwise be, and thus MORE likely to prefer high-status men over low-status men, because if they are going to take such a risk, they might as well make it as "worth their while" as possible.  (After all, despite their actually higher sex drive overall, Women's demand for sex is far more "elastic" than men's is:  for Women, no sex is typically better than bad sex, for obvious reasons, whereas for men, it's typically the reverse.)

And since the sexual revolution in the Anglosphere, especially the USA, was half-assed and did NOT go to completion, thanks to the "culture wars", what has resulted is that our society is now JUST barely permissive enough for Women to go all-in with high-status men, but still NOT quite permissive enough yet for them to do the same with lower-status men, lest they get shamed for it.  And in parallel with that, when high-status or elite Women hook up with many male partners it is considered "classy", provided those men are also high-status, while many of those same Women hypocritically consider it "trashy" when lower-status Women follow in their footsteps, because reasons. (News flash: that is NOT what a sisterhood looks like, that is a CARTEL.) Thus, the real solution is NOT to roll back the sexual revolution, as that would only further deepen this quagmire, but rather to let it finally go to completion like it largely has in the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, and also Brazil to some extent. 

(Now, the Nordic countries are NOT perfect by a long shot, of course.  Three out of the five Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, and Iceland) currently practice some flavor of the Entrapment Model for sex work, and one of those three (Iceland) even bans strip clubs.  And like all societies, they all have their own set of problems too.  But otherwise they seem to be the healthiest in terms of sexuality as well as economics, especially Denmark, the land that the temperance movement, and their ideological descendants, forgot.)

There are indeed lots and lots of otherwise very prosocial and community-minded Women out there who are unfortunately deterred from doing what they really want to do sexually, and would otherwise do largely for mutual pleasure in a sexually free society, due to all of the slut-shaming that still exists even in 2024, especially when also combined with the relative lack of a Nordic style social safety net in the USA as well.  This is yet another way that the patriarchy has a nasty habit of backfiring on men, and especially when it is combined with the brutal logic of capitalism and neoliberalism.

(That's simply "erotic plasticity" put another way, with no apologies to Roy Baumeister.)

As for the thinly-veiled misogynistic manosphere canard that when Women (but not men, because reasons) have many sex partners, they supposedly "lose their ability to pair-bond", kinda like how adhesive tape becomes progressively less sticky the more times it is re-used, well, that utterly specious claim of a causal link has never actually been proven.  The supposed observational evidence they cite can be very easily explained away by reverse causation, namely, those of either gender with a low capacity (or paradoxically, a very high capacity) to pair-bond to begin with are more likely to have many partners, NOT the other way around. And sometimes, you may simply need to "kiss a lot of frogs" to find the prince, as the saying goes.  Either way, we all need to stop slut-shaming, yesterday.  It serves NO valid purpose whatsoever. 

And we certainly do NOT need a "price floor" for sex.  Rather, what we need is a DIGNITY floor, where both genders treat each other as ends in themselves, not solely as means to an end, per Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative in general.  (Too bad he was so antisexual himself, otherwise he would have had a great model of sexual ethics too.)

There are also ecological benefits to sexual freedom as well.  Once the sexual revolution is fully complete, hypergamy has withered on the vine, and the "cost" of sex has thus been rightsized, maybe then the men of the sci-tech persuasion wouldn't feel the need (as much, at least) to keep raping the Earth to build more ever-larger phallus-extending "Towers of Babel" (i.e. frivolous, destructive, and/or inappropriate technologies) of mindless aggrandizement to impress Women just so they can get laid. (Even nerdy men tend to have one-track minds, lol.)  Maybe men of the warrior persuasion would be less likely to want to start wars or go to war, for the same reason.  And, God willing, maybe men in general in the rich countries would be far more willing to reduce their outsized "standard of living" (in terms of material and resource consumption) to one that the Earth can actually afford in the long run, and not one that requires multiple Earths worth of resources, for the same reason.  Conspicuous consumption as a thinly-veiled, plausibly-deniable mating ritual would thus be far more likely to desist.

And thus this whole silly game of "king of the hill" writ large will finally end, God willing.

Freud's Civilization And Its Discontents thesis has really long since jumped the shark!  It's not the 19th century anymore. 

(And to any angry incels reading this:  seriously, lose the entitlement attitude, yesterday.  It is really quite unbecoming.  Or to put in your very own lingo:  stop simping for Stacy, and give Becky a chance.  Let Stacy and Chad have each other.  And take a long, hard look in the mirror as well.  Think "internal locus of control, NOT external". Oh, and bonus points if you are fortunate enough to find an older Woman as a "mentor with benefits" willing to "show you the ropes".)

To reiterate from my previous article:

As Yuri Zavorotny himself says:

So here is our kill switch: we stop telling women when, where and with whom she is allowed to get involved romantically. Her body, her choice. And she is perfectly capable of making it a responsible choice, thank you very much.

And lest anyone misunderstand his words, read too much into it, or try to put words in his mouth:

NOTE: This is not to suggest that anyone should change their own behavior. We do whatever we are comfortable with. That, of course, includes staying monogamous, still a perfectly valid choice. But it can not be justified as a moral choice anymore -- rather, it is a personal preference.

Female sexuality (or more accurately, female-defined sexuality) is an extremely powerful force to be reckoned with, which is why the patriarchy has gone out of its way to suppress it (and/or supplant it with male-defined sexuality).  All the more reason to unleash it in like fashion, and put an end to the toxic "commodity model" of sexuality.

Until then, we will have 1) too many men chasing too few Women overall, AND simultaneously 2) too many Women chasing too few high-status men, with the latter having plenty of options and taking full advantage of such bargaining power.  And both low to average-status men, as well as Women in general, get screwed (and not in a good way!) in this stagflationary quagmire.  It's "musical chairs" both ways.  The song "Land of Confusion" by Genesis comes to mind.

So what are we waiting for?  Kill Switch Engage!  Let the planetary healing begin!

P.S.  If anyone still thinks that Jordan Peterson's idea of "enforced monogamy" is a real solution to the incel problem, well, I've got a nice bridge I'd like to sell you.  As for the jealousy problem, the best his "solution" can do is to "flatten the curve" of jealousy in the short run, while in the long run, that green-eyed monster will unfortunately still be there waiting to pop up and strike at any moment, and thus the area under the curve will be the same or even greater.  Better to deal with it head-on instead, and try one's best to sublimate it as much as possible into its antithesis, known as "compersion", or "frubbly" in the vernacular.  In other words, think "abundance mindset", not "scarcity mindset".  Liberty is like love:  the more you give, the more you get.  It's not pie.

And speaking of jealousy, for those Women who are worried about men choosing AI girlfriends and robots over them, worry not.  Remember, "it is the SPIRIT the quickens" (i.e. gives life), NOT the flesh.  And AI has neither.  Thus, any man who is even remotely worth your time and energy will not choose AI over you (unless you literally bring nothing at all to the table, but even then, they would choose another real-life Woman instead, not AI).  If anything, AI and robots would be good for keeping the misogynistic miscreant trolls happily occupied so they (hopefully) stay far away from real-life Women, and since they would be less likely to procreate, that problem is thus largely self-correcting in the long run.

ICYMI, Rasa Has More New YouTube Videos

ICYMI, the legendary Guru Rasa Von Werder has more YouTube videos on her channel.  Here are just the latest two of several, these ones specifically being on the topic of her latest spiritual journey (sadhana) to see God face to face, again:

And many more on her channel as well.

UPDATE:  Here is another one as well. A continuation of the same topic:

Enjoy 😊

Latest Book By Rasa, Featuring William and Pete, Now Published

ICYMI, the latest book by the legendary Guru Rasa Von Werder, and also featuring the great prophet and pundit William Bond and myself as well, has now been published on Lulu. The book, Can Female Power Save The Planet? Part 2, is now available to order on the Lulu website:

https://www.lulu.com/shop/william-bond-and-pete-jackson-and-rasa-von-werder/can-female-power-save-the-planet-part-2/paperback/product-57g95my.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Please be sure to check it out.

Is The Sexual Double Standard Finally Dead?

At least in Norway, it sure seems to be.

A Norwegian study from 2023 basically found that the age-old sexual double standard (which I thoroughly oppose, for the record) is currently either dead or nearly so, and sometimes even a bit reversed, at least in Norway and some other countries.  Basically, most people think others will judge them far more harshly than they actually do, so the belief in such is only because others believe it, and so on.  And that is true for both genders, surprisingly.  It is now a ghost and hangover of patriarchal history that is sustained only through "pluralistic ignorance" currently.  Looks like, far from being "natural" per evolutionary psychology, the double standard was socially constructed all along.

(Note that the largely null results of this study in terms of how people judge one another also imply as a corollary that so-called "hookup culture" is NOT really the "collective action trap" or zero-sum game that some reactionaries seem to think it is, at least not in sexually liberal societies.)

Of course, this is clearly not true in every country in the world, nor in every social circle.  But generally, in the more socially and sexually liberal countries like the Nordic countries, and even perhaps some parts of the historically stuffy Anglosphere such as the USA and UK to some extent, it is indeed trending that way, and should be a cause for celebration.  Let the planetary healing begin!

Happy Mothers Day!

First, I would like to wish a Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful Mothers out there.  You are, after all, literally the reason why the human race even exists at all, despite the fact that the work you do is grossly undervalued in so many way by our twisted capitalistic and patriarchal society.  In other words, your beautiful feminine energy is essentially what keeps the rest of us alive.  

Thank you.

I would also like to note and lament how, for all the shallow platitudes America likes to throw around about "Mothers and apple pie", we are still a nation that perpetually continues to screw over Mothers and pregnant Women in so many ways.  Years ago, the legendary Guru Rasa Von Werder shared with us a poignant and in-depth article from Vox (see here) with us that illustrates the various ways in which that is true.  This article should truly be food for thought indeed.  Our patriarchal and capitalistic society clearly has a "cult of motherhood", in which the "ideal" of motherhood is so highly vaunted, worshipped even, but in practice actual Mothers themselves get about as much genuine respect as Rodney Dangerfield.  Both during and after pregnancy, so many Mothers are routinely discriminated against, overworked, underpaid, and even outright criminalized in many cases.  And meanwhile, there is to this day a powerful faction of mostly male politicians that is doing everything in their power to deny Women their right to choose whether or not to get (or stay) pregnant in the first place.  Indeed, the rank hypocrisy of our utterly misogynistic, hypocritical, and pharisaical system is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Meanwhile, old Buckminster Fuller (who, not coincidentally, believed that Women should rule the world) must be spinning in his grave right now.  With today's technology and innovation, there is literally no legitimate reason why we as a society need "everybody and their mother" (literally!) to "work for a living" unless they really wanted to.  There are more than enough resources in the world for everyone on this planet to live like a millionaire, but the greedy oligarchs who control such resources apparently don't want to share.  Combined with the outdated scarcity mentality that men tend to favor (as opposed to the abundance mentality that Women tend to favor), those same oligarchs have also done everything in their power to sabotage any alternatives (i.e. free and renewable energy) to their own evil system that they force upon the rest of us.  So why make them even richer?

Additionally, just as we should "dispense with the absolutely specious notion that everybody needs to earn a living" (in Bucky's words), so too should we jettison the equally specious and outdated idea that "everybody must procreate" as though it were a civic duty.  Not only does today's technology make much useful human labor redundant, but the world is grossly overpopulated and will only get more so in the coming decades, and despite the abundance of the world's resources we are chewing through them like there is no tomorrow while destroying the planet.  And the main cause of that overpopulation is--wait for it--MEN.  Because they are the ones who, both historically and today, force, coerce, deceive, and/or brainwash Women to have kids that they otherwise would not want or are not yet ready for.  Men like to "get 'em while they're young" and then use them as serial breeding slaves, essentially, and all the euphemisms in the world do not change that fact.  It is really no coincidence that the two most effective (and ethical) ways to reduce overpopulation and excessively high birthrates are 1) female empowerment and 2) poverty reduction, while everything else is a mere sideshow.  Because when Women actually have a free and genuine choice on when or whether or not to reproduce, they usually make the right choices overall.  After all, they are the ones who have the most "skin in the game".  So let the planetary healing begin!

(And ICYMI, all of this applies a fortiori in the wake of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which is now fully in the rearview mirror and rapidly fading from view.  Mothers have clearly faced a whopping triple burden thanks to all the lockdowns, school closures, job losses and stuff like that, followed by persistent shortages in, and high prices for, childcare availability after reopening.  Don't ever let the powers that be try to gaslight anyone into thinking otherwise, or memory-hole it.)

MAMASTE

Reactionaries Coming Full Circle

At this moment in history, it is safe to say that we are currently living through a counterrevolution (both sexual and otherwise) of epic proportions.  Most of the "conservatives" of today are actually reactionaries, and it goes way beyond Trump.  The overturning of Roe v. Wade was just the beginning, alas.  In 2021, and perhaps even earlier, some pundits and commentators were already predicting this trend, but now it is becoming increasingly obvious.  And if left unchecked, it will very easily lead to Margaret Atwood's worst nightmare.  Slopes are MUCH slippery than they appear.

Read this piece of writing, for example.  It looks like it could easily have been written by any one of today's increasingly regressive reactionaries, but it was actually written by a famous pastor, theologian, and Confederate soldier and chaplain in 1871. The similarities are truly uncanny!

People often say that voting doesn't matter since all elections are rigged. While they are rigged to one degree or another, the fact remains that if enough people vote, it becomes that much HARDER to rig.  If nothing else, voting is one of many ways to put positive energy and vibrations out into the Universe.  Keep that in mind this (and every) November. 

Still More New Videos From Guru Rasa Von Werder

Here are some more new videos from the legendary Guru Rasa Von Werder:

Happy May Day / Beltaine, Everyone!

Today, May 1, is May Day, also known as the Celtic and Neopagan holiday of Beltane.  It has a rather long history and symbolizes many things, but it is most notably a day to honor the Goddess, which includes the Goddess in every Woman.  Elephant Journal describes it rather nicely in their article a few years ago about the holiday:

Halfway between the Vernal Equinox and the Summer Solstice falls May Day—the original holiday of sex and abundance.  If you’ve ever wondered, as I used to, what the hype was around May Day—as in why I always heard about ‘May Day’ but never seemed to witness anyone actually celebrating, here’s why. It’s deeply rooted in pagan nature and hedonistic sex worship and celebrations. As Christianity spread and the Church extended its reach and control, these pagan and Divine worships of masculine and feminine equality had to be forgotten.  May 1st is Beltane in the Northern Hemisphere, the day we honor nature’s oldest love story.  And we all love a love story.   This is a holiday of union, between man and woman, God and Goddess—a celebration of the divine balance in the union of Divine masculine and feminine. Because once upon a time, the two were honored as sacred parts of the one Divine balance.

Indeed.  And among Neopagans today, Beltane is (usually) primarily about honoring the Divine Feminine, where as Samhain (October 31) is primarily about honoring the Divine Masculine.  Thus, I propose that we shift International Women's Day (currently March 8) to May 1, and shift International Men's Day (November 19, coinciding with World Toilet Day, lol) to November 1.  The latter, of course, should not be seen as a day to celebrate men, but rather as a day of atonement for the evil that men do, and have done for thousands of years now--a sort of all-male equivalent of the Jewish holy day Yom Kippur to essentially apologize to the Divine Feminine.  

Honestly, it's the least us fellas could do.

Another holiday I would like to propose is Waterloo Day, on April 30, the day before May Day.  That would symbolize the (hopefully) eventual surrender of men to Women, which I had once personally predicted will occur on April 30, 2030--the end of an error.  (Current events have made me far less sanguine about that prediction,  and it is most likely much farther away than 2030, at least 2040 or 2050.)  Just as that day symbolizes the end of the "darker half" of the year and the beginning of the "lighter half", so too shall it symbolize the end of the 7000 years of darkness known as patriarchy and the beginning of the new earthly paradise known as Matriarchy.  Note too that April 30, 1975 was also when the Vietnam War officially ended, and also in 1945 when a certain little painter from Austria did the world a huge favor by offing himself.  And the song "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath was originally going to be called "Walpurgisnacht", which is another name for May Eve, or April 30.  One idea for how to celebrate Waterloo Day would be for the men to get up on a platform or podium, give a concession speech as though stepping down from power, and have all the Women heckle and throw rotten tomatoes at them.  

It also happens to be International Worker's Day as well.  Workers of the world.....relax.

More New Videos From Guru Rasa Von Werder

ICYMI, more new videos from the legendary Guru Rasa Von Werder:

ICYMI, Guru Rasa Von Werder Is Back On YouTube

The legendary Guru Rasa Von Werder is now back on YouTube again.  Here are the first and second videos from her new series:

First video:  "Introduction to the new Podcast: Guru Rasa Von Werder preaches & teaches what she knows about God"  https://youtu.be/CXQAh5RO2Ls?si=AmY-7M-2gQ6F4T3P

Second video: "Who & What Is God? Guru Rasa Has Finally Solved the Mystery" https://youtu.be/PFqKXCWwLcQ?si=_lYunocJlgN3DMGs

And here is the link to her YouTube channel in general:  

https://youtube.com/@KellieEverts--conductsNightTra?si=j1KJjCi1ghpe2-FH

Enjoy, and don't forget to subscribe!

UPDATE:  Rasa also has posted a third video in the series as well, about, among other things, the crucial differences between the shady "Prosperity" preachers and false prophets versus the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ:  https://youtu.be/sTJWau2ED-M?si=ukQWMW8Fo0nQb-50

And a fourth one as well, also about those shady preachers and false prophets and their false doctrines:  https://youtu.be/qw_5-iCmO0g?si=YBV9XJZ7sCbTZfZn

Why Telling Women "Just Get Married" Is The Most Tone-Deaf Advice There Is

An excellent article by Lyz Lenz was written recently as a rebuttal to that famous viral essay on marriage published in The Cut.  Lenz points out that, contrary to what some believe, marriage is NOT a panacea, nor is it really a way for Women to opt out of capitalism.  And telling Women to "just get married" as the go-to solution is utterly tone-deaf and really misses the mark by a very large margin.

The idea of "traditional" marriage as some sort of a "benevolent protectorate" for Women is really quite ironic, as under patriarchy it (like patriarchy itself) has historically been more like a protection RACKET.  That is literally why the "institution of marriage" was invented in the first place, for men to control Women (and not the other way around, as men often like to claim when they think they are being clever).  And while times have indeed changed, the fact remains that today's "kinder, gentler patriarchy" is still patriarchy, and can still be a trap for Women (even if it can sometimes backfire on men as well, granted).  That is not to say that marriage cannot ever be repurposed by Women for their own benefit, of course.  But the specious notion that it is somehow the end-all-be-all or sine qua non for everyone is woefully outdated and outmoded at best.  

In other words, as Lenz says, "gilded cages are still cages".  And as for it being a means of opting out of capitalism, that is also not possible as long as patriarchy and capitalism remain joined at the hip (as they have been for centuries). 

Anyway, Lenz does a better job explaining it than I ever could, so be sure to read her article. 

Why We Still Need A Universal Basic Income Yesterday (Updated Re-Post)

I have repeatedly noted before why any serious proposal for a pragmatic protopia would require some sort of unconditional Universal Basic Income (UBI) Guarantee for all.  (Note that the "U" itself also stands for "Unconditional", which is VERY important.)  At least as long as we still have a monetary system, of course, and it will be quite some time before money can be phased out completely.  And in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdowns, and their grisly social and economic aftermath, it is more crucial now than ever before, and will be for quite some time as well.  

To wit:

1. First and foremost, "It's payback time for Women".  Recently, a Woman named Judith Shulevitz wrote an op-ed titled thusly, arguing in favor of a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all.  Her feminist argument for a UBI, which I agree 100% with, was that such a thing would provide long-overdue compensation for Women's unpaid work (i.e. housework and caregiving) that society currently takes for granted and considers a "free resource" for the taking.  As the saying goes, there are two kinds of work that Women do:  underpaid, and unpaid.  While that is true for some men as well, it is overwhelmingly true for Women.  Thus, her argument makes a great deal of sense overall, and I agree.  It is indeed LONG overdue.  And it applies a fortiori now in light of the fact that Women got the worst deal of all from the lockdown-induced job losses, the often triple burden for Mothers at home, the gnawing forced isolation from the support system of other Women, and the increased exposure to domestic violence during lockdown.  And they are still continuing (and will continue) to suffer from the aftermath long after the lockdowns are behind us.  Lockdown is patriarchy on crack, basically.
2. Men are becoming increasingly redundant in the long run due to technology, globalization, and the overall ascendancy of Women.  When men are no longer artificially propped up, they will fall--and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.  And this will only increase in the near future.  This is a potential ticking time-bomb that must be defused sooner rather than later.  Men become extremely dangerous creatures under either of two conditions:  1) when they have too much power relative to Women, and/or 2) when they are desperate for money.  Ever see the 1996 film Fargo? Indeed, a Universal Basic Income is one of the best ways to tackle the second one.  Again, it only applies a fortiori now.
3. A UBI is far more efficient in theory and practice than much of what currently passes for a social safety net these days, and would have far less bureaucracy.  No means tests, no discrimination, no playing God.  It's simply a basic human right, period.  And it would be far less costly in the long run.
4. As Buckminster Fuller famously noted, there are more than enough resources for everyone to live like a millionaire with today's technology.  And he said this back in the 1970s, mind you.  And the specious notion that everybody and their mother must "work for a living" is not only outdated, but is also seriously classist, ableist, and ageist, and by extension indirectly sexist and racist as well.  The fact that human beings, unlike literally every other species on Earth, somehow must PAY to merely LIVE on the planet on which they were born is now totally contrived and socially constructed, and is in fact an egregious Crime Against Nature.
5. Poverty is a razor-sharp, double-edged sword, spiritually speaking. Being attached to riches is clearly counter to spirituality, but then again, so is being attached to poverty. Either way, it's the *attachment* that is the problem.  And poverty today is largely if not entirely man-made via artificial scarcity.
6. We would all be better off on balance, spiritually and otherwise, if material poverty were eradicated--and a UBI is the most efficient way to do so. As William Bond (and others) noted, with today's technology that is certainly doable, but for the greed of the oligarchs at the top who control the system. And that in turn is a result of patriarchy, given how men tend to see war and scarcity as inevitable, so they create a self-fulfilling prophecy as a result.
7. With an unconditional UBI instead of means testing or other conditions, gone will be the perverse incentives that exist under the current system that trap too many people in poverty today.
8. Negative liberty and positive liberty are NOT opposites, but rather two sides of the same coin.  Indeed, one cannot be truly free if one is systematically denied the basic necessities of life.  And truly no one is free when others are oppressed in any way. 
9. Inequality, at least when it is as extreme as it is today, is profoundly toxic to society and makes the looming problems/crises of climate change and ecological overshoot that much more difficult to solve.  This is over and above the effects of poverty alone.  And a UBI can dramatically reduce both socio-economic inequality as well as absolute material poverty.  (And when funded by an Alaska-style tax on fossil fuels, it can also double as a Steve Stoft or James Hansen-style carbon tax-and-dividend as well.)
10. We consume and waste a ludicrous amount of (mostly fossil-fuel) energy in the so-called "developed" world, and much of that wasteful consumption can be curtailed simply by making it so no one has to "work for a living" unless one really wants to.  Just think of all the energy spent (and commuting to and from) unnecessary work at a job you hate, to buy stuff you don't need, to impress people you don't even like.  A UBI could thus greatly reduce our carbon and overall ecological footprint in the long run.
11. And finally, one should keep in mind that, as Carol Brouillet has noted, the literal and original meaning of the word "community" is "free sharing of gifts".  What we currently have now under patriarchy/kyriarchy is more of a pseudo-community in that regard.   And that needs to change. Yesterday.  The exchange economy of capitalist patriarchy has failed us, and we need to rediscover and re-create the gift economy in its place.  A UBI will make the transition much smoother and more peaceful that it would otherwise be.  (Some ultra-purist radfems may disagree of course, but they are in the minority even among the radical feminist community.)

Perhaps Bucky's other prediction, that Women would take over the world, is a prerequisite for his vision to be fulfilled?   Honestly, it can't happen soon enough!

In other words, it would be a win-win-win situation for literally everyone but the 0.01% oligarchs at the top.  So why aren't we doing this yesterday?  Because that would make far too much sense.  To quote Buckminster Fuller:

We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

In fact, one could argue that two of the most toxic, outdated, and specious ideas ever conceived by the patriarchy (aside from the central doctrine of male supremacy itself and the entire "dominator" model, of course) are that "everybody and their mother must work for a living" and that "everybody must procreate."  And both are now literally KILLING this very planet that gives us life.  Thus, on balance, a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all is a good idea regardless.  Again, it's a win-win-win situation for everyone but the oligarchs.  And the only real arguments against it are paternalistic and/or sadistic ones, which really means there are no good arguments against it in a free and civilized society.  

(See also the TSAP's Q&A page, "Why UBI".)

Of course, for UBI to work properly, it would have to be totally unconditional with NO strings attached, period.  The Davos gang's (per)version of same, in contrast, will have plenty of strings attached, and will likely utilize Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) instead of cash, and tied to CCP-style "social credit scoring", and a critical mass of people will fall for it absent any alternative, so we need to beat them to it with a genuine cash UBI with no strings attached BEFORE they do it.  They will NOT own us, and they will NOT be happy!

So what are we waiting for? Let the planetary healing begin!

(Mic drop)

Strongest Evidence To Date For Ancient Matriarchy

Or, "Queens of the Bronze Age"

The Minoan Civilization was an ancient Bronze Age culture located on the island of Crete from circa 3100 - 1100 BC(E).  Long held up as an example of ancient Matriarchy, there has been a long-running debate among scholars on whether or not they really were a Matriarchy.  There has long been a plethora of denialism in general about there being any sort of precedent at all for genuine Matriarchy, of course, for obvious reasons.  Academics (of both genders, unfortunately) have often notoriously tried to obfuscate, suppress, and bury the idea of Matriarchy in a flurry of doublespeak and deception.

But more recently in 2017, a new article came out that conclusively settled that question in regard to the Minoans, as conclusive as anthropology and archaeology can ever be.  A University of Kansas researcher has put forth new evidence in favor of the idea that the Minoans were Matriarchal.  John Younger, KU Professor of classics, has analyzed several pieces of art and archeological evidence that support the idea that Women had indeed ruled the Minoan Civilization.  "Basically, this culture on Crete around 1600-1500 BCE is the closest candidate for a matriarchy that we have. That's huge," Younger said.

Indeed, that is huge.  Observing how prominently Women featured in Minoan art and religious artifacts relative to men, and the manner in which they were depicted, the idea that Women were in charge is the most logical conclusion of such observations.  The shrines known as "lustral basins" (while their exact purpose was unknown, they loosely resemble the "menstrual pits" in other cultures, except that these basins were decidedly NOT sequestered) in the middle of their palaces or large halls also support the idea as well.

The island of Crete was eventually conquered by the Mycenaeans from the mainland (who were Greek), but Professor Younger has a new theory about how the Matriarchal Minoan society may have undergone a revolt from within before the Mycenaeans ultimately took over.  That is, due to the fact that practically everything on the island was destroyed except the main palace at Knossos, he theorizes that an internal revolution, presumably from men, may have occurred, even if that particular theory is not yet settled.

Exactly why men had revolted against such a presumably peaceful Matriarchy (note the absence of fortifications) still remains unclear, however.  Was it a "fifth column," perhaps?  Were the Women in charge too lenient OR too strict in regards to men?  (Much like holding sand, holding too loosely OR too tightly will ultimately cause the sand to slip away, as the famous saying goes.  It's a delicate balancing act.)  Did the men perhaps feel too marginalized or underrepresented in some way?  Was there too much division in society by gender?  Or was it a result of natural or sexual selection of the most "macho" men, who eventually became too dangerous and difficult to contain?  Or some combination of these things?  That will of course require further research to determine, and is beyond the scope of this article.

(According to Wikipedia, one common historical misconception is that the Minoan Civilization was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, but that was revealed to be false due to the fact that the eruption occurred centuries earlier than the end of the Minoan era.  Plus, the destruction was too uneven to be due to anything natural, as the palace itself was spared despite the destruction of the town of Knossos.  Thus, the end of the Minoan civilization was clearly either due to an internal revolt, conquest from outside, or both.)

Minoan texts may have been written in a language that is still not understood.  But truly a picture is worth a thousand words, and their art and artifacts tell the story well.

So take that, denialists!

Original KU article can be found here:  https://news.ku.edu/news/article/2017/06/09/art-religious-artifacts-support-idea-minoan-matriarchy-ancient-crete-researcher-says

The Four Biggest Casualties Of (Gender) War (Re-post)

Every war has casualites, and the 7000 year long gender war (which we call "patriarchy" to make it sound nicer) is certainly no exception.  There are many such casualties, and the four biggest ones are as follows:

1. The first casualty is TRUTH.  And that is not just a clichéd statement, but is practically axiomatic.  If people really knew the truth, the continuity of the war will be called into question.  So the truth is deliberately hidden and replaced with lies, half-truths, and omissions whenever possible.  Eventually it leads to a "post-truth" society and world, in which the truth becomes essentially irrelevant in what passes for discourse.
2. The second casualty is INNOCENCE.  Not as a euphemism for ignorance (for which there is still plenty), but in the most general sense, which includes the capacity for trust.  And that is a result of the first casualty, truth. Not to mention all of the actual and horrific atrocities of the war itself as well.  This results in jadedness, bitterness, and cynicism, which in the case of the gender war seriously poisons the relationship between Women and men, and also vitiates what remains of the sisterhood between Women as well.
3. The third casualty is LOVE.  And not just in the romantic sense, but in the most general sense to include all forms of love, all the way down to and including friendship.  In fact, friendship is probably the biggest casualty of all.  When both primary genders regard the other as being inherently dangerous/evil and needing to be controlled, that kinda precludes all but the most superficial and/or authoritarian relationships between the two.
4. And the fourth and final casualty is HUMANITY, in both senses of the word.

Thus, the gender war, like all wars, ultimately hurts everyone and thus needs to end yesterday.  And the only way to end it (without the entire planet being killed) is for us fellas to, paraphrasing the late Emperor Hirohito, "accept the unacceptable" and surrender to Women.  The sooner we finally cap the game, the better.  So what are we waiting for?

If men stop fighting, there will be no more (gender) war.  If Women stop fighting, there will be no more Women, and thus no more humanity.  The choice couldn't be more obvious. 

Happy International Women's Day!

Today is International Women's Day, a day to honor and celebrate the better half of humanity.  Celebrated on March 8 every year since 1909, in recent year it has taken even greater significance given the "Day Without A Woman" and the International Women's Strike taking place today, in which many participating Women refuse to do any paid OR unpaid work today.  Unfortunately not every Woman is privileged enough to be able to do this, and this fact has led to some criticism but those who cannot will likely do other actions (wearing red, avoiding shopping except at small, Women-owned and minority-owned businesses, etc.) instead in a show of solidarity.  The more Women that participate in one way or another, the more likely it will be to effect lasting social change overall.  To paraphrase Voltaire, if we make the perfect the enemy of the good, we ultimately end up with neither.

It is also worth noting that the nascent movement for a Universal Basic Income Guarantee is a textbook example of a serious feminist issue as well, not least of which because, as Judith Schulevitz notes, it's "payback time for Women" given their long history of underpaid and unpaid work that continues to this day.  A UBI would also effectively make women less economically dependent on men, reducing the chances for abuse of all kinds.  And aside from general concern for social justice, a UBI also a way to defuse the ticking time bomb known as men, who are becoming increasingly redundant as time goes on.  Men are most dangerous when either 1) they have too much power relative to Women, and/or 2) they are desperate for money.  A UBI would go a long way to solving all of these problems.

VIVE LA FEMME!  VIVE LE DIFFERENCE!

"The Feminist Perspective" by Carol Brouillet

AJAX SAYS:  I first found this excellent transcribed speech by long-time Green and community activist Carol Brouillet a while ago and then rediscovered it recently.  It is over a quarter-century old now, but it still remains true today, a fortiori in fact.  NOTE:  Due to decades of endemic neoliberal conditioning, for most readers, this perspective is almost certainly NOT what you think it is from the title.  So read on.

(Original can be found here at https://www.communitycurrency.org/feministP.html.)

This is a speech written for The Other Economic Summit (June '97). Please feel free to post or reprint in whole or in part. (This site employs Style Sheets so you also need to download CCstyle.css.txt, rename it "CCstyle.css", and include it where you put this file.

The Feminist Perspective

by Carol Brouillet

The word define, literally means to draw a line around something -- to separate a part of reality from the whole. At the Fetzer Institute, quantum physicists met with Navajo, Hopi and other indigenous people to discover that native languages were able to convey the nature of quantum realities much better than English or French. In the structure of our language, we separate subject and object. In Navajo or Hopi the separation does not exist, everything is in relationship. The foundation of the aboriginal cultures includes a reverence for the sacred dimension of life, our deep interconnection with the Earth, the Cosmos, and all living things and it is reflected in the language itself.

        Western Civilization has tried to separate spirit from matter. First dualism, then came the idea of God as the machine maker, and a mechanical worldview which put man above all else -- the alpha and omega of creation. Eventually God was eliminated, and we were left with a meaningless, purposeless Universe. Only recently have scientists begun to recognize and validate what indigenous cultures have been saying for countless millennia, that we cannot separate subject from object, we are all connected. Still there seems to be a jetlag between insights and institutions. Powerful illusions have been maintained by an extraordinary propaganda machine without which our institutions, and our governments would crumble.

        We realize that our planet is under attack, our oceans are dying, the rivers are being poisoned, our forests are being destroyed, millions of people are suffering from hunger and terrible exploitation, species are going extinct every moment. How can we reverse this onslaught, this wave of destruction? How can we fortify the people and lifeforms that remain?

        First we must recognize the root causes of the host of maladies that are afflicting humanity and the Earth. The dominant culture's worldview promotes disconnection, encourages specialization, neglects a holistic view of ourselves and our relationship to the world. This worldview amplifies and supports hierarchical systems, the control and exploitation of people, natural resources, as well as other lifeforms. It does not recognize the sacredness of life, or the value of living ecosystems, people, or anything that cannot be measured and monetized. The global economy is absolutely blind to the webs of interdependence between all living things and our mother planet. It's a systemic problem which has gotten progressively worse.

        It's easy to blame everything on the rapacious greed of politicians or CEO's who are earning obscene amounts of money while laying off employees and destroying the environment, but the system which molds their behavior must also be examined. In the past two decades, merger mania has dramatically restructured industry, resulting in the monopolization and vertical integration of large sections of the economy by fewer and fewer transnational corporations. There was a time when companies expressed concern towards their employees, when loyal, hard-working employees expected to keep their jobs and get a pension when they retired. Enlightened presidents and executive directors actually tried to treat their employees well and behave in a socially responsible manner. Many of those companies have been shut down and the goods they once produced are now being produced in Third World countries where military dictatorships keep wages low and drop environmental standards. The most socially responsible CEO's lost their positions, or their companies became the targets of hostile takeovers, the corporate raiders loot pension funds, liquidate the company resources for short term gains. Now, the tyranny of the bottom line means -- that it is almost impossible for CEO's to behave in a socially responsible way. The financial pressure demands that they externalize costs and increase profits or lose their positions or their companies. Unenlightened CEO's, who do not mind downsizing, are removed if they do not do it fast enough, and are found to be "underperforming " by Wall Street standards. In David Korten's book When Corporations Rule the World, there are examples of the CEO's of the largest corporations, GM, American Express, IBM, Westinghouse, being axed by an extractive financial system.

        Should we blame the managers of investment funds who wield this power? Or are the investors to blame for their collective blindness and greed? We need to look at the misconceptions and emotions which have created and maintain the dominant institutions which continue to "rule" and control the world. The fictitious entities known as corporations which are totalitarian and have rewritten the laws to gain immortality and rights over nations, states, communities and individuals. There is a book called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, first published in 1841 which chronicles in the first hundred pages those times when nations were caught up in speculative frenzies, the tulipmania in Holland in the 1600's, France and England with the South Sea Bubbles, and Mississippi Schemes in the 1700's. Everyone is familiar with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, but I think these historical speculative bouts were relatively mild compared to the speculative frenzy which is happening at this very moment.

        Bernard Lietaer, who is writing a book called The Future of Money: Beyond Greed and Scarcity, says that our official monetary system has almost nothing to do with the real economy. The volume of currency exchanged on the global level is $1.3 trillion per day. This is 30 times more than the daily GDP of all of the developed countries together. Of that, only 2 or 3 % has to do with real trade or investment; the remainder takes place in the speculative global cyber-casino. He sees the possibility of a crash as about 50/50 over the next 5 or 10 years. Many people, including me, say it's 100 percent. George Soros, who has made a fortune speculating in currencies says, "Instability is cumulative, so the eventual breakdown of freely floating exchanges is virtually assured." Joel Kurtzman, ex-editor of the Harvard Business Review, entitles his latest book: The Death of Money and forecasts an imminent collapse. Bernard elaborates that if there were a crisis, and if all the Central Banks were to agree to work together (which they never do) and if they were to use all their reserves (which is another thing that never happens) they have the funds to control only half the volume of a normal day of trading. In a crisis day, that volume could easily double or triple, and the total Central Bank reserves would last two or three hours. In 1929, the stock market crashed, but the gold standard held. The monetary system held. Here, we are dealing with something that's more fundamental. Bernard adds, "The only precedent I know of is the Roman Empire collapse, which ended Roman currency. That was, of course, at a time when it took about a century and a half for the breakdown to spread through the empire; now it would take a few hours."

        What is holding the system together? And when it does collapse, what will replace it? Each of us, consciously or unconsciously is playing a role in this. What we believe, what we do with our money, our time, either strengthens the dominant belief systems and institutions or weakens them and draws strength to the creation of new belief systems and alternative institutions.

        We are living in an extraordinary time of chaos and paradox, where all sorts of possibilities are opening up. The vast majority of people are losing faith in institutions and trying to improve their lives in countless ways. There are heretics within governments, corporations, educational institutions. Non-profit organizations continue to blossom and grow. There has never been a better time to organize. The New Age movement needs to be grounded. The hard core political activists could benefit from consciousness raising. The environmental movement needs to address the issues of class, race and gender. This is happening, as people come together, learn from one another, and build coalitions.

        We recognize that all our issues are interrelated, that we are more alike than different in our common goals -- peace, justice, a future for our children, a healthy planet and healthy environments for all living things. It is also a time of great personal transformation, our worldviews are continually challenged by new information. As we become more aware of the consequences of our collective actions, it becomes harder and harder to live a "normal" life because to live in adherence with our values, we must change our living patterns, and change the most basic systems upon which we depend. How we obtain the food we eat, the clothes we wear, our shelter, our means of transportation, how we educate our children, take on greater meaning and become political acts, broadcasting our belief system and our values. This cannot happen overnight, so each of us must experience the contradictions, paradoxes of transformation which we are witnessing in the world today.

        Aung Sung Suu Kyi wrote: "It is not power that corrupts, but fear -- fear of losing power and fear of the scourge of those who wield it." This fear corrupts politicians and immobilizes the vast majority. Fear is used, created, to justify all military activities, the ever expanding security forces that governments use to oppress their people, and the expanding prison industry. Anything we do to add to that level of fear, that immobilizes people and reduces their capacity to respond in a creative, positive way can be harmful. Academia and the media play a major role in promoting the myths which feed fears and create the image of a dangerous world of scarce resources where overpopulation threatens us with extinction.

        Is the world dangerous? Are people dangerous? The world would be a much safer place without armies and police to "protect" us. Imagine if the military budget and the money spent on police and prisons were spent on health, education, housing, clean water. The fears are created to "control" and "exploit" people.

        Look at the scarce resource myth promoted by Malthus before we were born. "Resources are scarce; we must compete for them in order to survive. They are getting scarcer and scarcer all the time as the population grows and there is less land, less water, less fish in the sea." Well, if Malthus had said, "Resources are not scarce; there is plenty for everybody, so long as we share." he would probably not have become famous, his ideas would have served no useful purpose for the ruling class -- but if the idea that the Earth has abundant resources, if they are equitably shared had prevailed, I don't think we would have the disparity between the rich and the poor that we have now. Look at the distribution of wealth. There is plenty of money, and yet there is no money for meeting the basic needs of the vast majority. While the number of billionaires increase and the transnational corporation's economies grow to dwarf those of countries, more and more people are being denied their rights to live and support themselves and their families.

        Overconsumption is surely as threatening, if not more threatening, than overpopulation, but the corporate media aren't going to promote the idea of voluntary simplicity. It's obscene that 20% of the world is consuming more than 70% of the world's energy while the remaining three-quarters consume less than 30%. The closer we look at those numbers, the worse it looks -- two billion people have no access to electricity. Blame the world's problems on those least able to defend themselves has been the favored tactic of the rich and powerful.

        When the Europeans first began to colonize the rest of the world, they used force. In order to get people to work for them, they had to drive people off the land. The same techniques have been used again and again throughout the world. A tiny percentage of people hold most of the world's land and are the greatest cause of abject poverty. Forced into cities or wage slavery, torn from their cultures, women have had ever larger families. Access to land, equality, education and the availability of family planning would reduce birthrates dramatically. One percent of the world's wealth is held by women, and most of the world's work is done by women, whether they are paid or not. Truly there is enough to meet everyone's needs, but there will never be enough to satisfy the greed of the few.

        Buckminster Fuller created a game called "The World Game." You can play it with between 50 and 200 people on a board the size of a basketball court, which represents the world. Each person is given the actual resources available in the part of the world that he represents, but instead of trying to take over the world, the object of the game is to solve the world's problems. The illuminating thing about the game is that the problems are very solvable, if people simply play cooperatively. It just shows that in the real world, what we lack are not resources, but the political will to put aside narrow personal interests and act on behalf of the greater good.

        In the film, Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies & Global Economics, Marilyn discovers the origins of the U.N. Systems of National Accounts, a system imposed upon every country that joins the U.N. and hopes to get a loan from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. The system was based upon a pamphlet by John Maynard Keynes and Richard Stone entitled "The British System of National Accounts and How to Pay for the War." This system enables the global elites to finance their militaries. Indeed it is in the economic interest of the major powers, who earn so much from their arms deals, that there is always a war going on somewhere. The system does not recognize the value of peace, an intact ecosystem, or the unpaid labor of women. Monetary transactions are measured and deemed of the greatest importance, no matter how devastating their effects are. It does not see anything of unquantifiable value -- life, people, the Earth; it only sees that which it measures -- money. The forests, the lungs of our planet, our worthless according to this system, unless they are chopped down and sold as timber.

        By elevating money to the point where everything else may be sacrificed to obtain it, by confusing money with real wealth, our civilization is rushing to destroy itself. Toynbee chronicles the rise and fall of civilizations, one feature that they have in common is the extreme concentration of wealth and power, and ecological collapse. The rich have never been richer nor the poor poorer. Agribusiness has meant a loss of 90% of the edible plant species since the turn of the century; it rivals the military as far as the devastation that it has wreaked upon all arable lands. Despite the obvious needs of the vast majority of humanity, money is being siphoned from the poor to the rich. Through the IMF and the World Bank, the money continues to flow to the wealthy countries, in 1994 net payments to the US from "developing" countries reached $2 billion. The Bretton Woods Institutions force countries to open themselves to foreign investment, devalue their currencies, switch from growing food for local consumption to growing export crops. These policies are as devastating as war and just as deadly. If the children who starve quietly in their homes as a result of World Bank policies were taken out into their village squares or city parks and shot, the world would be horrified. But the catastrophic suffering remains invisible to those who focus their attention on making money, and feel no connection to people outside of their class and culture. As cancer, unchecked consumes its host; the world's parasites continue to feast upon the world oblivious to the suffering of the bulk of humanity and the stresses on our mutual life support system, the planet. Without water, food, friendship, love, health, all the money, gold, toys become worthless baubles.

        The old system has relied upon military force and control to maintain the wealth and privilege of the ruling elite. Weapons, misinformation, and money are the tools this system has relied upon. By beating the drum and blaming the world's ills on overpopulation, it subtly encourages the idea that masses of people are expendable, institutionally it says that the lives in industrialized nations are worth more than those in "developing" nations and within wealthy countries the rich are idolized and society's ills blamed on the poor. Wherever we can, we must challenge military expenditures, expanding "security and prison systems." We must nurture all efforts towards non-violent conflict resolution. We need to institutionalize a global minimum wage and a maximum wage. We should respect and honor people for their integrity, character, wisdom and gifts to society, as opposed to the amount of wealth they can extract from society. We should also recognize the gifts we have received from the Earth and recognize our responsibility to future generations to safeguard their living heritage.

        We must speak "truth" to power and challenge the misinformation which is broadcast by the major media. For example -- the growth illusion, the GDP myth; GDP is more indicative of the rape and exploitation of resources in a country than the health and well-being of its people or ecosystems. We need new indicators which measure what really matters -- our health, the health of the environment, quality of life. the disparity between the rich and the poor. We must support the alternative media, which is not dominated by corporate or government interests and tries to speak for those whose voices need to be heard.

        I just read 3 books by Makoto Shichida who has studied children in Japan for decades and specializes in developing courses for preschoolers and mentally retarded children. He has written over 50 books, including Babies are Geniuses and Right Brain Education in Infancy -- Theory and Practice. His thesis, basically, is that geniuses are people who use both sides of their brains. Generally, in the west, we only give attention to the abilities of the left side of the brain, but it is the right side that should be nurtured in its most formative years. Right brain abilities include mathematical calculating ability, photographic memory, image visualization, the ability to absorb vast quantities of information and make sense of it, and what is referred to as extra-sensory perception, telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition. Imagine how different the world would be, if every baby born were loved, nurtured and given the opportunity to develop all their abilities, mental, spiritual and physical. The well being of our infants and children worldwide should be at the top of our priority list, as a species!! Therein lies the hope of humanity and the world. A few enlightened people aren't going to turn our situation around; its time for collective enlightenment. The dominant worldview is a dying worldview; the holistic, cooperative, worldview is being born, the youngest are the quickest to grasp these truths, when they are given the opportunity.

        Hilka Pietela, Hazel Henderson see that the real economy is for the most part "invisible" to those blind "economists" who are mainly hired by the rich to serve "their" agendas. The life support system of the planet, the warming rays of our sun, these "gifts" form the foundation of the human economy upon which everything else depends. The unpaid work of women, the voluntary networks of cooperation and community are also a fundamental vital chunk of the real economy. On top of that, there is the protected sector which provides many basic services, and is guided by official means for domestic markets, food, construction,...The smallest part of the economy, the icing, so to speak, is the "global economy" which includes large scale production for export, and to compete with imports. This gets most of the attention, and the transnational corporations that dominate world trade get most of the profits, employing less than 1/3 of 1% of the world's population. Pietela finds that the most fatal shortcoming of the prevailing economics is that it does not distinguish the cultivation economy from industrial production. This effort to control, and extract value from living nature is taking a great toll on people and our world.

        I have a T-shirt with a Dollar bill on it which clearly states- Warning! Use of this product may cause apathy, laziness, selfishness, ignorance, loss of identity, greed... environmental destruction, racial tension, murder, war, and impoverishment for others. Continuous and excessive use could render a permanent state of indifference to the welfare of those around you. Use at your own risk!

        I think we should make little warning labels and stick them on our cash. We need to shatter a few illusions about money -- who creates it, who benefits from its use and who suffers. We need to remind people that our health, our relationships, the well-being of our communities, the health of our eco-systems, economic justice, world peace, and our happiness are more important than our bank balance.

        Bankers create money out of thin air and loan it to governments and others at interest, but they don't create the interest, so it is never possible to pay off all the debts. Money is a tool of empire; it allows the flow of resources from the poor to the rich. It used to be called usury and was condemned by all the world's religions, but when the Catholic Church became the largest landowner, it figured out how to break the old taboo.

        Helena Norberge-Hodge has chronicled in her film and book -- Ancient Futures how a nonmonetized culture, in Ladahk, rich in Buddhist spiritual traditions, with an intricate system of family and social ties, where ninety percent of the land was evenly distributed amongst families, people lived ecologically and sustainably. Almost everyone knew how to build a house and meet all of their basic needs. Money, a road to India, tourism have been disastrous for the culture, creating the same problems we find in industrialized societies. There are lessons to be learned here, to reverse this process and point our culture towards a more sustainable, happier existence.

        Suppose we create a different kind of money, with a different dynamic, based upon that which we value -- to encourage healthy relationships, build community, and restore the environment. We could write those values directly on the money to raise awareness and remind people of what is important. This is what Paul Glover in Ithaca, New York and others have done. Not only does local currency help build community and prevent resources from being drained away by transnational corporations, it is a tool to raise consciousness, to promote meaningful exchanges, and help reweave the bonds of community. Community comes from words meaning "the free exchange of gifts." In ideal societies, there is no need for money because people exchange their gifts freely. We must remember that money is simply a tool, it can be impersonal, anonymous, destructive or we could redesign it to encourage recognition of our deepest values and to help build a world based upon respect and healthy relationships between all people.

        There is a concerted effort, at the moment, by the rich, to make sure that this doesn't happen. It's called the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and if the rich countries agree, the poorer countries might be forced to sign on to an elimination of all barriers on foreign investment. It gives all rights to capital, and removes the ability of communities, states, sovereign nations to demand some sort of accountability from "investors." As the World Trade Organization became a Bill of Rights for corporations, this international agreement could become a bill of rights for the very rich, at the expense of all governments, people, and the environment. The only good thing about it is that if any politician votes for it then you know he or she is a prostitute working for monied interests with no regards for their constituency; the bad thing is that if it does go through, to undo it would take at least 15 years, so by the time you get rid of the politicians that passed it, the others won't be able to do much about it.

        So we need to launch a public education campaign about this, and why not teach people about the monetary system at the same time? Create community currencies, print the values you wish to strengthen and encourage on your bills and point out how "the other monetary system" is hell bent on destroying those things.

        Explaining the monetary system to most folks is not easy. It shatters too many belief systems that have been held for a long time. Yes! The Journal of Positive Futures, latest issue is on the subject of money and local currencies with great articles by David Korten on the difference between money and real wealth and Bernard Lietaer whom I've quoted. It's a great consciousness raising tool for grown-ups. It's much easier to explain this to first graders, who don't have to unlearn so much and quickly grasp the main ideas. In one sentence -- our current monetary system concentrates wealth and power destroying the Earth in the process; we need to create a new system that redistributes wealth and power, healing the Earth in the process.

        As our old system is dependent upon fear, greed, military force, misinformation, the new system should be based upon love, respect, compassion, cooperation, beauty and truth. The old system will topple because it is so disconnected from the real world, the real economy. The new system will be born out of recognition for what people value in their communities, and how they organize and cooperate to meet their community's needs; their will be as many systems as there are communities, richly diverse. The shared values of different communities will give rise to regional or bioregional currencies. Let us create a system that relies upon cooperation and trust to meet the needs of all people and improve the health of the ecosystem upon which all life depends. The old system relied on "fear" to control others. Let us create a system which "nurtures" people and life and actively encourages diversity.

        It is time to practice cooperation, respect and love in all areas. My husband and I took a class in "building equality" in relationships. Our instructor, Bill Moyer, explained to us that in his work with men who had been violent towards their wives, he had discovered that only 3% of the violence was physical, 45% was verbal and the rest was psychological. The difference between most people and violent guys was that 3% area. He discovered that the men always felt that they were the victims when they attacked their spouses -- because their wives had threatened their self-image or their worldview. (This applies to government behavior, as well.) We are conditioned by society to "win" arguments, to "dominate," to have the last word, to have our opinions prevail. We are not generally taught that our perception of ourselves is not dependent upon other people's opinions or that if we actively listen to, and respect one another, we will learn from one another. We generally unconsciously start debating and defending our views, controlling and dominating others. The class helped my husband and I become aware of the way we communicated with each other, as well as our interactions within different groups, but where I really felt the difference was in my relationship with my children. It is so easy to adopt "control" mode with 3 little boys who want to go off in 3 different directions. It is a daily challenge for me to transform myself, to listen, to develop cooperative patterns within my home. Now I realize that they are my teachers, and our lifelong learning adventure is a cooperative one.

        The old system depended on "experts" who imposed their ideas upon the many. Let us actively encourage the participation of all, so that we might learn from one another and go from a "smart" culture to a "wisdom" culture.

        Let us nurture respect in all of our relationships and organizations. Let us recognize that our own well-being cannot be separated from the well-being of all people.

(End of Carol Brouillet's speech.)

AJAX SAYS:  And THAT is what it looks like to use one's right-brain properly!  No wonder our left-brain dominant culture may find this hard to understand.  Now, I may not necessarily agree 100% with everything she says, but overall, she is really right on the money here.  And the fact that some people today may not even recognize her feminism as such, only goes to show just how co-opted and infected mainstream "feminism" has ulitmately become by the now-endemic virus of neoliberalism. 

Let the planetary healing begin!