Bene agendo nunquam defessus

***Before The Flood

Thursday 1 December 2016 06.00 GMT Climate change will stir 'unimaginable' refugee crisis, says military

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"In an exclusive interview with RT, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, shared his ideas on the difficult situations of Christians in the Middle East, the US presidential election, and European multiculturalism."

"Non mi perderò in analisi troppo complesse e in chiacchiere troppo futili, ma per capire il significato di Castro e della rivoluzione cubana, basta leggere i coccodrilli prodotti dalle pagine dei grandi giornali illuminati e incappucciati di questo Paese, che di fronte ad eventi complessi non sanno fare altro che ripetere le stesse melensaggini di sempre, ma questa volta ritagliate con gli strumenti assolutamente primitivi che offre la contemporaneità. Così il ruolo coloniale degli Usa sparisce chissà dove, Castro diventa un dittatore che a tutti i costi vuole trasformare la rivoluzione in marxista leninista facendo fuori chi si oppone a questo disegno, si lega a Mosca e si trasforma – oh cielo – in un comunista contro il parere di Che Guevara che infatti va a fare la rivoluzione altrove. E il più lungo embargo, anzi blocco della storia viene a mala pena citato en passant. Il fatto che Cuba sia il più avanzato paese dell’america latina in molti campi, vedi la medicina, tanto che le multinazionali Usa del farmaco stanno sbavando per acquisire i brevetti dopo le aperture di Obama ( vedi qui), vanno a finire nella negazione di realtà a cui veniamo sottoposti nel grande esperimento di post democrazia, post, verità, post intelligenza cui – nelle intenzioni del potere – dovremmo offrite il posteriore anche per coerenza linguistica. Un insalata mista per il mangiar sano dei neo imbecilli e dei vecchi rimbecilliti.

Sembra in ogni caso di leggere cose che riguardano un lontano passato, quando invece la rivoluzione cubana ha caratteri molto interessanti proprio per l’oggi, essendo nata come come movimento che rivendicava ideali socialisti anche se non propriamente marxisti e contemporaneamente la sovranità dell’isola dopo mezzo millennio coloniale prima sotto la Spagna, poi sotto gli Usa. Era chiarissimo che i primi non sarebbero stati nemmeno pensabili senza la seconda, visto che il conflitto insanabile fra i pochissimi che possedevano tutto e la massa che non aveva niente, era inestricabilmente associato alle modalità della dominazione “yankee”. Gli Usa speravano e operavano perché alla fine la vittoria di Castro si risolvesse in una sorta di revisione minimale dell’assetto politico tale da lasciare inalterate le disuguaglianze, gli immensi latifondi, l’economia del bordello e gli interessi americani che gestivano di fatto gli uni e l’altra. Il merito di Castro, aiutato in questo dalle circostanze, dalla posizione geografica e dal parossistico revanchismo di potenti ambienti di Washington che portò a clamorosi passi falsi, fu proprio quello di sottrarre Cuba a un ennesima stagione di governi totalmente subalterni agli Usa che avrebbero cambiato ben poco rispetto al vecchio regime anche se questo costò adeguamenti non proprio felici alla logiche del sovietismo burocratizzato e dispotico.

Perciò Castro divenne in un certo senso simbolo di se stesso e nel mondo libero di Selezione si pensava che una volta fatto fuori il lider maxismo anche il socialismo sarebbe crollato come un castello di carte. Questa personalizzazione era un modo per esorcizzare il pensiero angoscioso agli occhi del capitalismo occidentale che un sistema socialista potesse resistere in un piccolo Paese posto ad appena 130 chilometri dalle coste dell’impero e per di più nelle condizioni difficilissime cui lo costringeva l’embargo. Non potendo spiegare il consenso popolare di cui godeva il castrismo si decise di dipingere Fidel come un dittatore alla stregua di quelle canaglie che gli Usa imponevano in america latina e si sfruttò al tempo stesso la simpatia che indubbiamente suscitava per focalizzare su di lui tutta la questione evitando domande imbarazzanti. Si è aspettata con ansia la sua morte per tutti gli anni ’60 e ’70, negli anni ’80 si è sperato che la caduta del comunismo in Urss significasse anche la caduta del socialismo a Cuba e la stessa cosa si è attesa con la visita di Woytila all’Avana nella speranza che il Papa ottenesse un altro effetto Polonia.

Invece vinse lui Fidel che costrinse il Pontefice a esprimersi contro l’embargo e diede anche l’impressione di essere in qualche modo sdoganato dall’angolo in cui era stato messo, dimostrando di non temere la religione, dando un’immagine del tutto diversa del regime cubano rispetto a quella propagandata, anzi in qualche modo assolvendolo.

L’anomalia che si pensava dovesse dissolversi a contatto col capitalismo, è sopravvissuta per molti decenni, due dei quali non sotto la gestione diretta di Fidel Castro i cui problemi di salute sono iniziati a metà degli anni ’90. Adesso che è morto, a Miami i cosiddetti dissidenti anticastristi, quasi tutti al soldo del governo federale che quando non paga in via diretta chiude tutti e due gli occhi sui traffici di droga dei quali vivono quasi in esclusiva, esultano e dicono “Finalmente”. Ed è naturalmente quasi l’unica notizia ripresa dai grandi giornali che magari vorrebbero esultare anche loro e che cominciano ad insinuare una nuova tesi per assolversi dai peccati: cioè che sia stato proprio l’embargo a tenere in vita il castrismo. Ma la festa è guastata dal sentore anacronistico che accompagna queste manifestazioni di giubilo o di riflessione del pensoso liberismo dei servi, per un obiettivo raggiunto troppo tardi, quando l’intero sistema che ha assediato Cuba sta lentamente affondando nella palude delle proprie contraddizioni, così confuso, rabbioso e disorientato, così privo di promesse credibili da dare origine ai Trump e alle Clinton, a nuovi bordelli e nuovi latifondisti del consumo e della rapina, a nuovi dispensatori di massacri, ai Fulgencio Batista del terzo millennio, mentre l’Europa senza vergogna inaugura la censura sulla stampa russa. Hasta la victoria siempre."

...here comes the joker, thanks to Tom from Florida: "...we're you classmates?...lol"

From Brexit to the election of Donald Trump to the result of Italy's referendum, all are a repudiation of entrenched political elites.

On your knees you may live to see another day, but you’ll never live to see better days. You may die on your feet, but liberty offers the only hope for better days. It’s worth fighting for. It’s worth dying for...

***Understanding The Slave Mentality, Cognitive Dissonance Confirmation Bias & more

Wishing you a safe and happy Christmas.

“Jesus is too much for us. The church’s later treatment of the gospels is one long effort to rescue Jesus from ‘extremism.’”

—author Gary Wills, What Jesus Meant

The Radical Jesus: How Would the Baby in a Manger Fare in the American Police State?

Breaking: 8 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world – Oxfam

***Two Things to Read on Martin Luther King Day
                                                                MLK Day 2017: 10 Facts About Civil Rights Icon Martin Luther King Jr.

Jan 18, 2016 6:58:20 GMT -5 Entendance said:

<Evil people don't understand justice, but those who follow the Lord understand completely.>
Proverbs 28:5

Justice means righteousness, lawfulness, and moral rightness, the quality of being true or correct, the moral principle determining just conduct. So justice has a moral quality. It contains a concept of what is right and, therefore, must also have a concept of what is wrong. Only people who understand these concepts of right and wrong can understand and administer justice. By extension, only those who follow the Lord can understand justice. Why? Because they subscribe to the foundational laws of the one who created them.
Thus, as this proverb points out, evil people don't understand justice. Because they refuse to subscribe to justice's moral underpinnings given by God in his Word, they are left to discover their own truths. As a result, many conclude that there is no truth. Others conclude that everyone can have different truths. Both perspectives are hopelessly doomed. And as a building without a foundation will crumble, so justice can never be served without the foundation of right and wrong as given by God in his Word.
WISE WAYS: What are you using for your foundation? Where do you get your concept of truth, of right and wrong?
Today, Lord, teach me the foundational truths about life that are given in your Word.

"And don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine, messianic force, to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, 'You're too arrogant! And if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I'll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God."

-Martin Luther King

The Meaning of The King Holiday by Coretta Scott King

"The Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday celebrates the life and legacy of a man who brought hope and healing to America. We commemorate as well the timeless values he taught us through his example — the values of courage, truth, justice, compassion, dignity, humility and service that so radiantly defined Dr. King’s character and empowered his leadership. On this holiday, we commemorate the universal, unconditional love, forgiveness and nonviolence that empowered his revolutionary spirit. We commemorate Dr. King’s inspiring words, because his voice and his vision filled a great void in our nation, and answered our collective longing to become a country that truly lived by its noblest principles. Yet, Dr. King knew that it wasn’t enough just to talk the talk, that he had to walk the walk for his words to be credible. And so we commemorate on this holiday the man of action, who put his life on the line for freedom and justice every day, the man who braved threats and jail and beatings and who ultimately paid the highest price to make democracy a reality for all Americans. The King Holiday honors the life and contributions of America’s greatest champion of racial justice and equality, the leader who not only dreamed of a color-blind society, but who also lead a movement that achieved historic reforms to help make it a reality. On this day we commemorate Dr. King’s great dream of a vibrant, multiracial nation united in justice, peace and reconciliation; a nation that has a place at the table for children of every race and room at the inn for every needy child. We are called on this holiday, not merely to honor, but to celebrate the values of equality, tolerance and interracial sister and brotherhood he so compellingly expressed in his great dream for America. It is a day of interracial and intercultural cooperation and sharing. No other day of the year brings so many peoples from different cultural backgrounds together in such a vibrant spirit of brother and sisterhood. Whether you are African-American, Hispanic or Native American, whether you are Caucasian or Asian-American, you are part of the great dream Martin Luther King, Jr. had for America. This is not a black holiday; it is a peoples’ holiday. And it is the young people of all races and religions who hold the keys to the fulfillment of his dream. We commemorate on this holiday the ecumenical leader and visionary who embraced the unity of all faiths in love and truth. And though we take patriotic pride that Dr. King was an American, on this holiday we must also commemorate the global leader who inspired nonviolent liberation movements around the world. Indeed, on this day, programs commemorating my husband’s birthday are being observed in more than 100 nations. The King Holiday celebrates Dr. King’s global vision of the world house, a world whose people and nations had triumphed over poverty, racism, war and violence. The holiday celebrates his vision of ecumenical solidarity, his insistence that all faiths had something meaningful to contribute to building the beloved community. The Holiday commemorates America’s pre-eminent advocate of nonviolence — the man who taught by his example that nonviolent action is the most powerful, revolutionary force for social change available to oppressed people in their struggles for liberation. This holiday honors the courage of a man who endured harassment, threats and beatings, and even bombings. We commemorate the man who went to jail 29 times to achieve freedom for others, and who knew he would pay the ultimate price for his leadership, but kept on marching and protesting and organizing anyway. Every King Holiday has been a national “teach-in” on the values of nonviolence, including unconditional love, tolerance, forgiveness and reconciliation, which are so desperately-needed to unify America. It is a day of intensive education and training in Martin’s philosophy and methods of nonviolent social change and conflict-reconciliation. The Holiday provides a unique opportunity to teach young people to fight evil, not people, to get in the habit of asking themselves, “what is the most loving way I can resolve this conflict?” On the King Holiday, young people learn about the power of unconditional love even for one’s adversaries as a way to fight injustice and defuse violent disputes. It is a time to show them the power of forgiveness in the healing process at the interpersonal as well as international levels. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is not only for celebration and remembrance, education and tribute, but above all a day of service. All across America on the Holiday, his followers perform service in hospitals and shelters and prisons and wherever people need some help. It is a day of volunteering to feed the hungry, rehabilitate housing, tutoring those who can’t read, mentoring at-risk youngsters, consoling the broken-hearted and a thousand other projects for building the beloved community of his dream. Dr. King once said that we all have to decide whether we “will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. Life’s most persistent and nagging question, he said, is `what are you doing for others?’” he would quote Mark 9:35, the scripture in which Jesus of Nazareth tells James and John “…whosoever will be great among you shall be your servant; and whosoever among you will be the first shall be the servant of all.” And when Martin talked about the end of his mortal life in one of his last sermons, on February 4, 1968 in the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church, even then he lifted up the value of service as the hallmark of a full life. “I’d like somebody to mention on that day Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others,” he said. “I want you to say on that day, that I did try in my life…to love and serve humanity. We call you to commemorate this Holiday by making your personal commitment to serve humanity with the vibrant spirit of unconditional love that was his greatest strength, and which empowered all of the great victories of his leadership. And with our hearts open to this spirit of unconditional love, we can indeed achieve the Beloved Community of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream. May we who follow Martin now pledge to serve humanity, promote his teachings and carry forward his legacy into the 21st Century."

"What differentiates the community economy from the profit-maximizing market and the state?
1. The community economy allows for priorities and goals other than maximizing profit. Making a profit is necessary to sustain the enterprise, but it is not the sole goal of the enterprise.
2. The community economy is not funded by the state.
3. The community economy is locally owned and operated; it is not controlled by distant corporate hierarchies. The money circulating in the community stays in the community.
4. The community economy is not dominated by moral hazard; the community must live with the consequences of the actions of its residents, organizations and enterprises.
The community economy includes small-scale enterprises, local farmer’s markets, community organizations, social enterprises and faith-based institutions. Its structure is decentralized and self-organizing; it is not a formal hierarchy, though leaders naturally emerge within civic and business groups.
The Plantation Economy institutionalizes poverty, parasitic finance, externalized costs, moral hazard (since the corporate/state overseers do not live in the community being cannibalized) and centralized wealth and political power. These are the only possible outputs of the hyper-financialized Plantation Economy.

Once the Plantation Economy has displaced the community economy, opportunities for work and starting small enterprises shrivel, and residents become dependent on state social welfare for their survival. By eliminating the need to be a productive member of the community, the welfare state destroys positive social roles and the inter-connected layers of the community economy between the state and the individual.
When the individual receives social welfare from the state, that individual has no compelling need to contribute to the community or participate in any way other than as a consumer of corporate goods and services. State social welfare guts the community economy by removing financial incentives to participate or contribute.

Why is the community economy so important? The community economy is first and foremost the engine of social capital, which is the source of opportunity and widely distributed wealth.
Corporations cannot replace communities for the simple reason each organization has different purposes and goals. The sole purpose and goal of a corporation is to expand capital and profits, for if it fails to do so, it falters and expires.
The purpose of a community is to preserve and protect a specific locale by nurturing social solidarity: the sense of sharing a purpose with others, of belonging to a community that is capable of concerted, collective action on the behalf of its members and its locale.
It is not accidental that the current system of corporations, banks and the state increases inequality and erodes the community economy: the only possible output of low social capital is rising inequality..." More here

"...As I have always said, economic collapse is a process, not a singular moment in time. This process lulls the masses into complacency. You can show them warning sign after warning sign, but most of them have no concept of what a collapse is. They are waiting for a cinematic moment of revelation, a financial explosion, when really, the whole disaster is happening in slow motion right under their noses. Economies do not explode, they drown as the water rises one inch at a time." -Brandon Smith here

The following is a personal rant from Graham Summers. It has nothing to do with finance, investing, or the markets.

To the Social Media Whiners...Want to See a REAL Problem? 
This needs to be said. The following is not a Pro-Trump article; it is an article to gain some perspective.
The people losing their minds on social media over Trump as President are some of the most lost/spoiled people on the planet.
And they don’t even know it.
These people have obviously never faced a real problem in their lives, which is why they are so worked up about a non-issue.
Let me be clear… anything that you can address by sitting at home whining on your expensive computer on a social media platform is NOT a REAL problem. You are just playing a fantasy team sport like fantasy football.
Access to running water/ food… THOSE are real problems.
Right now, as I write this, there are children in developing countries who just arrived at school after starting a 5-HOUR journey at 3AM.
I am not writing that metaphorically. I personally know people who work with these children. Again… these are CHILDREN who wake up at 3AM, walk 5 hours to school because there isn’t another school closer…and then walk back home again.
Do you have a 10-hour commute?
Do you have to walk those 10 hours through mountains or jungle where there are people who could kill or rape you any day of the week?
THAT is a real problem. And children face it every day.
They're not alone.
There are well over 1 billion people in the world who have REAL problems and could use help.
The people losing their minds on social media ALL have resources/ talent/ and energy to help solve these problems.
But they are not.
Instead they are ranting about how “awful” it is in the US.
WAKE. THE. HELL. UP.
Here’s something that could help you get over Trump’s Presidency… looking around at your house which has running water and your fridge which has food in it.
How about looking at your roof/ the walls of your house that stop the weather from washing your home away when it rains.
You want to see real problems? Look at what just happened in Peru a few weeks ago. Flash floods have literally destroyed some people’s entire lives.
Watch the video of a woman emerging from a mudslide which dragged her for miles.

THAT is a real problem. Not the fact that your particular candidate didn’t win an election.
People all over the world need help. What are we doing to help them? Anything?

Let's get some perspective and start making the world a better place.
Signed, Graham Summers

***HERE

The gentleman arrested Thursday and tried before Pontius Pilate had a troubled background.

Born (possibly out of wedlock?) in a stable, this jobless thirty-something of Middle Eastern origin had had previous run-ins with local authorities for disturbing the peace, and had become increasingly associated with the members of a fringe religious group. He spent the majority of his time in the company of sex workers and criminals.
He had had prior run-ins with local authorities — most notably, an incident of vandalism in a community center when he wrecked the tables of several licensed money-lenders and bird-sellers. He had used violent language, too, claiming that he could destroy a gathering place and rebuild it.
At the time of his arrest, he had not held a fixed residence for years. Instead, he led an itinerant lifestyle, staying at the homes of friends and advocating the redistribution of wealth.

He had come to the attention of the authorities more than once for his unauthorized distribution of food, disruptive public behavior, and participation in farcical aquatic ceremonies. -Alexandra Petri, the Washington Post

Eugène Burnand 1850 – 1921 Peter and John Running to the Tomb oil on canvas (82 × 134 cm) — 1898 Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

The full title is The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection. It is Burnand's best-known work. The French state acquired it when it was shown at the Salon de de la Société nationale des beaux-arts in 1898.

The work does not even show the risen Jesus. It merely portrays two witnesses, Jesus’ oldest and youngest apostle. The youngest who was the only man brave enough to stay by Jesus’ cross and the only one who did not die a martyr’s death as a result of it. The oldest apostle who first denied Jesus in fear, yet ultimately chose to be crucified upside down by the Roman authorities rather than deny Christ’s resurrection.
In “The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection” by Eugène Burnand, John clasps his hand in prayer while Peter holds his hand over his heart. The viewer feels the rush as their hair and cloaks fly back with the wind. They are sprinting towards discovery of the moment that forever altered heaven and earth. As you look at it, engage for a moment in what the Catholic blogger Bill Donaghy calls “the visual equivalent of Lectio Divina.” As Donaghy notes, “This Resurrection scene does not put us before still figures near a stagnant stone, or figures standing with stony faces in a contrived, plastic posture, pointing to an empty tomb. This scene is dynamic; we are in motion.”

During his time, Burnand was fascinated by the possibilities of the emerging art of photography. Ironically, he would later be dismissed in the twentieth century as too “bourgeois” and anti-modernist when in fact he was merging his love of tradition with his interest in new technological ways of capturing the human person. His painting feels cinematic long before cinema existed as a major art form.

Apart from Jesus’ mother, no other three participants capture the closeness of Jesus’ encounter with humankind quite like John, Peter and Mary of Magdala. Their interactions with Christ embody a relationship to God previously unimaginable to mankind. Jesus turning to Peter as they sit by the fire and asking three times, “Do you love me?”, thereby washing away the sin of the three denials past; Christ turning to John in the midst of his suffering and saying, “Behold, your mother,” giving her to the Church entire. And, of course, the beautiful moment about to transpire in which Jesus’ merely says Mary’s name and she recognizes Him with a cry of “Rabbouni!” They are the moments which cause one to wonder how those who truly hate Christianity (not merely disbelief it) can remain so hostile to its narrative beauty.

Look into Peter’s wide open eyes and John’s intense gaze. Their eyes contain a mix of anxiousness and hope, the way a parent or grandparent’s eyes look at the news of an impending birth. A new life is about to emerge, but there is still uncertainty because it is a mystery beyond full human comprehension or control. Peter and John’s faces capture the same sense of anticipation.

Burnand created a sparse, simple painting capturing two of the most important players in the greatest story ever told. Meditate upon their faces as Burnand intended you to do and through them discover the empty tomb.

Through the movement and immediacy of the scene, the preceding minutes with Mary Magdalene are palpable. In a sense, she is in the painting too. “You can almost hear her voice in the background, can you not, a few minutes earlier, as she burst into their house…” writes the Episcopal Bishop Dorsey McConnell in an Easter sermon meditating on the painting. -Elise Ehrhard

Joyeuses Pâques! Καλό Πάσχα! Feliz Páscoa! Felices Pascuas! Buona Pasqua! Frohe Ostern! Happy Easter!

Full Moon In Scorpio: Acting On Our Passions and Desires

SCIENCE SHOCK: Almost all medical studies are “bogus” … reproducibility approaches ZERO

“Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence” Is Bullshit

"People who know nothing of God and whose lives are centered on themselves, imagine that they can only find themselves by asserting their own desires and ambitions and appetites in a struggle with the rest of the world. They try to become real by imposing themselves on other people, by appropriating for themselves some share of the limited supply of created goods and thus emphasizing the difference between themselves and the other men who have less than they, or nothing at all." -Thomas Merton

***The Slave mentality***

Science and technology will not enforce human rights. Moral values will.

Security...or Surveillance? The Edward Snowden Interview

***The Tantalus Problem: Why More Cannot Make Us Happy

***How to Train Anger Into a Power For Good

"You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.”
-Matthew 5:13

Gold is tested by fire, and human character is tested in the furnace of humiliation. -Sirach 2:5

Amateur build the Ark, professionals built the Titanic. -Anonimous

***Stultorum infinitus est numerus

***Asinus stramen mavult quam aurum