• Politics,  Wise Words

    Don’t Call School Safety and Mental Health Care — Gun Control

    June 12, 2022

    *Photo by CDC on Unsplash

    NRA owns our Republican senators. What a shame. Because of that, we aren’t making one iota of progress with gun control. We are going to get better school security, we are even going to make some progress with mental health interventions, but we are NOT going to get gun control.

    Mitch McConnell and the Republican congress have been successful at blocking meaningful legislation since 2008 (how old was he seriously?) The entire focus at that time was making sure that Barack Obama was unable to fulfill campaign promises as the Republican legislative bodies were blocking all democratic efforts.

    This has been the thrill of the Republican party: block anything that is Democratic. The republicans can’t make it with “good works” and “power for the people” which is alright with them. They make their success a financial success. And wow, the republicans have made so much money, you wonder why they don’t retire?

    This retirement question is huge for me. Mitch McConnell is 80! I’m 63 and I’m exhausted. It’s true that I haven’t lived rich white man privilege, but still, I’m exhausted. How does anyone who is 80 years old work full time? Am I ageist for saying this? Do I feel that way about Nancy Pelosi? Why yes, yes I do! Term Limits would be great, or even (sigh), mandatory retirement.

    To the Madness…

    Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has given me “young people hope”. Bernie Sanders knows lots and lots of young people who can do these jobs well and who will not take money to (do their jobs) legislate.

    Why does our country continue this madness? Gun manufacturers, use the NRA to protect their ability to sell the AR-15. Why is this even a thing? Before the assault weapons ban went into effect in ’94, there were about 400,000 AR-15-style rifles in America. Today, there are 20 million. They began to be used more in mass shootings.

    Problem Definition

    Essentially ~

    We know that guns are a problem for our society. We know that guns are often used to slaughter human beings.

    We know that: Automatic weapons or semiautomatic weapons are inefficient for use in hunting. These rifles are still used in hunting, but not usually for hunting an animal that can be eaten. In other words, they are used for hunting nuisance animals.

    In no case is the semiautomatic weapon necessary to the American way of life.

    Yet the AR15 is ubiquitous and cheap, as easy to get as a hunting license. How is that possible? Are there really 20 million people using an AR15? That is how many AR15s there are in America.

    We wonder, is there a way that Americans can change this? Our legislative bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate are not willing to engage in any form of gun control. Our current representatives refuse to do what must be done.

    I regret that I must say “Unknown Source” and from our last school shooting.

    Republicans continue to block Democrats and since the NRA is a Republican supporter, gun control, which is supported by Democrats, does not even go to a vote. Instead, we talk about the security of our schools, the lack of mental health care, we talk about everything except the guns. It’s as if guns are not relevant to the discussion.

    Yet guns are at the center of the discussion.

    How is it possible that people do not see how guns are ruining the lives of our youth? The number of guns in America is well above any other country in the world; and we have the highest rate of deaths from guns. Among developed economies, no others have nearly as many violent firearm deaths as the US.

    When people say, people kill people, guns don’t kill people, I want to scream! I’d also like to point out that in America, Guns = Death. The statistics don’t lie about that. We are the country that is doing a wrong thing. That’s not something that America wants to be: we don’t like being wrong.

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  • Justice, the Human Construct,  Politics,  Psychology of Life,  World Affairs

    Chapter Four: No Justice

    April 24, 2022

    Justice, the Human Construct: Not Doing Well

    Your faith in God allows you to look outside of yourself for solutions to discomfort misunderstanding. These are all solutions that come from within.

    There are millions of people (right now!) that are praying for the demise of Putin. If not the demise then at least the “change of mind” of Putin.

    Not only is Putin well and fit, but he doubles down on his complete destruction of the country of Ukraine.

    Christians want to know “why is God allowing this human suffering, injury and death to continue?”

    I want to know “why are humans allowing this human suffering, injury and death to continue?”

    America promised it would not allow the atrocities of World War II to ever happen again.

    Here we are the atrocities are happening again.

    “The Death Among Us” Jamie Zepp 4/17/21

    This Agnostic Does Not Fight Against a Belief in a God

    There is a spiritual oneness in the universe and that oneness can be magic; just as we believe that God can be magic.

    Strength, Courage and Peace all come from the oneness of humanity; just as we believe that it can come from God.

    Love and support, all come from the oneness of humanity; just as we believe that it can come from God.

    Miracles are available with prayer and yet also available with this belief in God.

    Prayer is a human endeavor, as is faith. They do not source from anywhere except the beliefs of the individual who is praying with faith.

    Anyone can touch the magic by being one with humanity.

    The question now is, are there enough humans who want peace above all else to create the magic?

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  • Baby Boomers,  Justice, the Human Construct,  Love and Relationships,  Philosophy

    Chapter 3: The Stories We Tell

    April 11, 2022

    When our loved ones pass away: We need to think that our loved one is close by. We want to think that our loved one is still present. We’ve made up a place for our loved one to go to wait for us: Heaven. We’ll talk with our loved ones just to show, just to demonstrate that our loved one is still present, here on this Earth.

    It’s what we need because of our broken hearts. It’s an understatement to say that we have a broken heart when we lose loved ones through death. It’s a kind of heartbreak that only those who have experienced will know.

    by Marian Naworski

    That heartbreak transforms into desire. The desire is a need. The need then transforms to lying to self. These lies transfer, they become part of thinking and even actions. We have all of the rituals around death that truly help us through the journey. When we take that next step, when we make believe that our truly beloved is still somewhere (like heaven), we lie to ourselves and to the world.

    We go to the cemetery, or we talk to our funeral urn as if it is a living thing. We miss those we love so much that we pretend they are near. They are not nearby. Not only are they not near, but they do not exist anymore in any way.

    Christian religion gives to all *this pretend life* that assuages the heart. As noted before, one reason the religions have been so successful is that they offer such comforts to us. We have socialization, we have a north star that we are reminded of weekly. We have comfort in times of grief, and we have a source that gives us a basis for our own belief systems. All these things can be ours if we will but choose a religion and practice it.

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  • The Riches of the Church
    It is What it is...,  Psychology of Life,  Spirituality

    Chapter 2: What do we do Without God?

    March 17, 2022

    God is a very complicated thing and how humans relate to God is even more complicated.

    As an agnostic, I don’t deny the presence of God, I simply define God in a different way than others do.

    God is infinitely unknowable and a powerful presence that manifests in billions of ways. Humans have not the ability nor the insight to comprehend this presence in full.

    Anyone who claims to know the secret of God is either lying or woefully ill informed.

    We don’t know and that’s the point. So, what has happened is that for thousands of years (maybe longer) we have made up stories. Those stories were turned into the Bible, both the old (Judaism) and new testaments (Christianity), the Veda (Hinduism), the Tripitaka (Buddhism), The Four Books (Confucianism), Tao Te Ching (Taoism) and the Qur’an (Islam). These books were turned into religions and those religions have been managed by men.

    No, white men aren’t the only ones who wanted to “lord” it over others, all men enjoy that activity. The books had to be interpreted and they were exclusively interpreted by holy men. Most of the time (not always) these men used their community standing as a benefit to self and built huge palaces for worshipping and prayer and of course, the most important of all, tithing. Giving the church as much of our money as possible has been thought to give glory to God. It does not.

    The Riches of the Church
    Joao Amadi from Unsplash
    The Riches of the Church

    This is not to be derogatory towards men. It is simply that men have used their power to write and then promulgate the writing into religions that are exclusive and that glorify holy men. This is how we know beyond a *shadow of a doubt* that religions is not *real*.

    If this narrative sounds derisive and ironic it is because the truth of religions has not usually been discussed in any way that approaches the realistic truth. The emphasis here will be on a realistic truth.

    There are many versions of “the truth” and even of “a truth”. There are as many truths as there are humans on planet earth. I will attempt to provide insight and information about the state of religion today and how we as humans can understand our relationship with life. These are two very different concepts.

    According to Britannica.com, Carl Jung introduced the concept of the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS as a “form of the unconscious (that part of the mind containing memories and impulses of which the individual is not aware) common to {hu}mankind as a whole and originating in the inherited structure of the brain.”

    According to Jung, the collective unconscious is made up of knowledge and imagery that every person is born with and is shared by all human beings due to ancestral experience. Google May 15, 2020

    A Universal Collective Unconscious

    There is a collective unconscious that is a psychology concept and there is “the” collective unconscious (COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS) which is much broader and wider than a psychological concept. It is the basis from which I write. That is to say that the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS includes all humans that are alive. Yes, that includes ALL humans that are alive, as well as all of those who have left us and passed away.

    When we pass away, we pass into the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS and join all of those that have gone before us. We are not of any form when this occurs, we are simply all of the invisible parts that make us up, including energy. For some, such as Mother Teresa, much love and giving was returned into the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS to be circulated and distributed once more.

    We also carry the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS within us as a part of us that includes all of who we are, our historical memories all the way back through time and the part of the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS that collects all of the energies of those who pass. Currently, very few humans can access, in a conscious way, the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS, it is just not available to us. Many have touched it, lived it and can access it now. Many are blind to it and cannot access it in a conscious way.

    What are we but stardust?  Deepak Chopra

    This life energy is a part of each and every human that is alive today. We bring with us all of the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS.

    Here is the truth of the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS: it does not require tithing, it does not require that we build churches, statues and paintings to honor it. The COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS is simply what is. You will not find that in 2000 years the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS is the greatest landowner on the planet (such as the Catholic Church has been). You will not find a preacher or an interpreter. It will continue to simply exist as it always has. It exists without the acknowledgment of humans and will continue to do so. Though in time, the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS becomes more well known by people.

    We dissipate into the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS with all of our deepest human traits intact, if our love is deep and strong, it comes with us. Our traits then fulfill other constructs as needed. When we pass, we are no longer a form, we are not separate or individual, we are part of the universal COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS.

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  • Economic Equality (A Goal),  Justice, the Human Construct,  Politics,  Psychology of Life,  Wise Words,  Womens Issues,  World Affairs

    Chapter 1: Justice is a Human Construct

    January 25, 2022

    There is no jealous God, there is no angry God and there is no vengeful God. Those emotions are all about humans. There is no such thing as the western rendition of karma. Karma is an Eastern concept, and it is neutral, it doesn’t take revenge on people who have wronged you.

    We project all of that out there because it is easier than acknowledging and feeling our emotions around pain and grief and anger.

    God's Kiss
    Where is God? JB Collection

    What Humans Do ~

    We (humans) constructed justice and its systems in order to manage the affairs of humanity in the fairest way that we could think of. In America, we are failing miserably and that’s because we have fallen far into the abyss of idolatry of wealth. Here in the United States, people care about money. Hard stop.

    There is no objective universe that will “even out” our very real suffering at the hands of others. Life is not fair, karma does not exist as a vehicle for revenge, God does not exist. If the meek inherit the Earth it will be after it has been robbed of all treasure by billionaires.

    So here we are, in our beleaguered lives, wondering what went wrong.

    And Here is What Went Wrong ~

    1. Americans weren’t paying attention the first time the minimum wage was suppressed. We bought into the idea that generating business was good for everyone. “Keeping wages low encourages businesses to invest.”
    2. No one was paying attention (or cared) when legislators increased their own incomes in nefarious ways such as expanding campaign finance regulations. We wrote angry articles but it didn’t help, the draw of money kept legislators in lockstep.
    3. These two concepts came together making an unreasonable space in America for the middle class and completely compromising the poor. Legislators with heavy contributions from big businesses have kept minimum wage very low; taxes on the wealthy low, and their own pockets full. Living in America has become a nightmare.
    4. Health care expenses are very high because insurance companies are making money on our illnesses, full stop. If healthcare wasn’t profitable, America would have nationalized healthcare thirty years ago.
      1. Next time you hesitate to see a doctor, thank a congressperson for making your illness more expensive than anyone can afford. Big business and Pharma have paid your friendly local congressperson enough money to keep the healthcare status quo, status quo. How do you like that American Patriot?

    With billionaires in charge of our lives, as Americans, we only function to meet the billionaire’s needs. We are consumers, always contributing to the “bottom line” of the wealthy.

    Lucy Parsons on Wealth

    How do you create equity and equality, in other words, Justice, out of this?

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  • Psychology of Life

    Amendment 28 of the Constitution of the United States

    September 27, 2021

    Under Amendment 1 of the United States Constitution is the “Right to petition the government to fix problems”.

    Problem Statement: Corporations have bought and paid for the United States House of Representatives and the Senate (with few exceptions). This means that legislation with *no benefit to human beings* is being voted on and made into law. This legislation benefits the corporations and not the American people.

    Photo by Anthony Garand on Unsplash

    The American people shall make a new amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America that shall not be abridged.

    No member of the senate or of congress may accept any monies from any company, whether that company be in or outside of the United States.

    If a member of congress or a senator, has a history of having received such money, then that member or senator will be excused and excluded from voting in any matter that is *in any way* related to legislation. An example is that a senator who has accepted any benefits whether they be monies or otherwise from a defense contractor, may not vote on defense spending or anything related to defense spending.

    No member of congress shall be able to make laws or vote on laws that are as a result of having received any such benefit or contribution.

    All people who work for any government of the United States, whether that be either Federal or of the states or territories shall agree to personal financial transparency. There is no exception to this rule.

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  • Anger and Pain
    Economy of Effort,  Love and Relationships,  Personal Growth,  Wise Words

    Anger and your Life Energy

    March 31, 2021

    I’ve always been one of those people that defines my world as increments of life energy. My life energy is the most valuable thing I have to offer to anyone, be it my child, my husband or the Bank of America. Life energy is the expression of me through my work, my attention, my love and my actions.

    My life energy is a reflection of my values and commitments. My commitment to my children is endless and that is reflected in the time, money, emotion and work that I invest in them. Any of these things can be called life energy; all of these things reflect the commitment that you make to your life.

    I am always surprised when people invest a lot of energy into their own anger. They will recount their stories of frustration and anger, over and over and over again. It is as if they cannot get enough of this recountenance. Each time the story is told, the person gets angry all over again, as if getting angry again was somehow redemptive.

    I have watched people tell me stories about an ex-husband (that has been gone for 10 years) who did something damning and perhaps unjust. The person will get so angry that they can froth at the mouth. I can almost see their life force ebbing away. Anger is such a huge investment of life energy. It’s not the initial anger that I am pointing to here; it is the idea of hanging onto that anger. When you hang onto that anger and re-express the anger over and over again you are investing a lot of life energy into nothing. There is no good outcome for this behavior.

    If you keep adding up your anger over the years, and you hang onto it each incident, grasping it for all it’s worth, your anger can squeeze out other things in your life. It’s just a universal law that two things cannot be in one space. So, what are all the things that are blocked from your life because your anger is so huge that it consumes you and your life energy?

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  • Love and Relationships,  Mother,  Personal Growth,  Psychology of Life,  Womens Issues

    Loving My Mother

    January 18, 2021

    This love is so personal and so intimate that I have rarely spoken of it. For long months after she passed away, I couldn’t even say the word “mother”. I remember being at CVS and realizing it was Mother’s Day and leaving immediately in tears.

    I realized recently that I had given my daughter an impression that I loved her paternal grandmother the most, partly because I spoke of her often. This is something that I do not wish anyone to think. It is my mother who has my heart *more and always*.

    Mama the JB Collection

    The most important gift that my mother gave me was adult acceptance. No matter what our discussion included, she always accepted me.

    Mama in 1944, she is a 16 year old bride

    I tried not to model my life after hers. In the end I did to my daughters what she had done to me. She neglected me during my childhood and I suffered. I thought I was being different with my life. I went to school, got a couple of degrees and worked full time in white collar jobs. Mama worked as a bartender for the last thirty years of her life. Several years during the time of my childhood she worked two jobs or split shifts. She was always trying so hard to feed us. We were home alone. Inevitably, I did the same to my daughters, I left them home alone while I worked two jobs or attended school for my master’s degree.

    Mama was the center of my universe. She was my go-to, my wisdom, my fail safe. She accepted me perfectly and loved me fiercely. Of course, she was my center. Twenty five years ago on MLK Day we went car shopping. We spent the whole day together without any little ones. We went to lunch and talked and talked. When I went back to work the next day, my soul was full. I felt loved and treasured.

    Less than three weeks later, mama passed away. They called me in the middle of the night saying that she had a stroke. I got in the shower to get ready to go and while I stood there, I felt an energy rush that stopped with my body. I felt my mother and a full measure of her grief. I felt her saying to me with sorrow “I have to go”. I tried in my soul to grab her and hold her, it was desperate, but she was gone.

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  • Justice, the Human Construct,  Politics,  Psychology of Life,  World Affairs

    January 6th, 2021

    January 8, 2021

    When Trump took office four years ago, many of us knew that it was the “White Mans’ Last Stand”. He was working hard to keep women in their place (as sexual objects) and to keep white male superiority at the top of the pyramid.

    Because of his history as a businessman *we all know that was a charade* we thought he would change Washington. However, there was a secondary agenda. This secondary agenda was simply the hope of the people being placed onto a man (Trump) who disregarded them. Americans are tired of politics as usual; they are tired of losing ground on the economic front and people are tired of being pushed into poverty by every piece of legislation that comes down the pike. These Americans mistakenly believed that Trump would help. Trump supporters looked to this man to shake up the status quo (drain the swamp), because nothing was working to get lawmakers to pay attention to the average American.

    That hope in Trump was misplaced.

    He courted the ‘white man’ with power grabs and blatant hostility to everyone else. He was vicious, condescending and openly; a cheater. He justified all of that with the language of superiority. He did it because he could. It became evident that Trump was not interested in the average person; what he really needed was a way to make money.

    A ‘White Man’s’ War against, well, Everyone else

    Trump told America that he would “drain the swamp” referring to the backroom politics in Washington that allows lobbyists influence over legislation. He actually did drain the D.C. swamp and set it up in a way that has never been seen in American politics before. He openly and publicly courted the wealthy to donate to his causes and stay in Trump hotels if they wanted to gain favor with America. “The Times found over 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Mr. Trump’s properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration.”

    The ecology of our Earth has suffered greatly under Trump’s leadership. This is not hearsay, it is fact, that the Earth is worse off because of Trump’s presidency.

    Erin Schaff – Pool/Getty Images

    While Trump is using his office to gain immense amounts of money and influence; Americans were suffering in a pandemic that was ruining the lives of millions of people. Trump proved over and over again that he was never interested in America or the people who live here. It wasn’t a surprise that he did not want to give up the office of President.

    From the summer of 2019, Trump’s only ambition was re-election. From strong-arming Ukraine officials to American voter suppression, Trump kept his eyes on the prize. When he lost the election, he could not accept it. He tried anything to stay in power. He was aware that prison could be an outcome of his own civilian status.

    Trump’s sedition~

    When it came down to it, he wasn’t going to let the presidency go easily. From the beginning, white men have loved Trump. Q-Anon and Antifa and the Proud Boys were groups of people that he would use. Trump always courted the white men and they courted him back. Trump put out a call to action to his white men and they responded.

    Not only did the domestic terrorists and rioters travel from all over America, they were already present in Washington D.C.’s police force and even the capitol’s police force. They were ready for insurrection, and so it happened.

    Some among America’s military allies believe Trump deliberately attempted a coup and may have had help from federal law-enforcement officials.

    Whatever he had planned, it did not work. Thank the human collective that it did not work. For those of us who felt attacked by Trump’s hostilities and disrespect, we can finally breath a sigh of relief. It really has been a struggle for the last four years and that struggle is over. Joe Biden is our next president, and so it is!

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  • Psychology of Life

    Finally, That Year is Over

    December 31, 2020

    I don’t want to hear about this year anymore. I don’t want to hear about how bad the virus has been on all of us. We know how bad it has been. We suffered it and we continue suffering it. It’s not news.

    The election was hectic. It was so stressful drawing party lines with friends and family. Who knew that our relationships were so vulnerable? Who knew that there was a secret between us? Bigotry is so much more common than we thought.

    Reaching for the truth was so difficult. When I discussed Clinton and Biden and Trump, I was told that I was lying. “Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?” Which way led to the truth? Who was the pedophile? How do you know?

    The truth is knowable and important.

    The virus revealed what an inadequate financial system we have. We came to realize that the stock market is irrelevant to most of the people in the country. We came to see that the billionaires had stacked the deck in their own favor. Every politician in a power position had been bought and paid for, so the minimum wage stayed at it’s debilitating 1990 level. As businesses closed, it was the most vulnerable that paid the price of the pandemic. We suffered it and we continue suffering it.

    For all the posturing of the politicians, the Paycheck Protection Program ended up being wildly and inadequately distributed. The wealthy companies borrowed, some embarrassingly returning the loan money. While some companies put the money to good use, others squandered the loan and did not save jobs.

    We saw how inadequate our health care system is, designed to make a profit, human beings are forgotten. America rations health care based on ability to pay. If you don’t pay, you don’t get life saving care. How many diabetics lost their lives in the summer of 2020?

    What a disappointment.

    The food lines got longer and they never went away. As soon as a week ago, thousands of families were waiting in line for food. What does this tell us about our great country?

    So where do we go from here? Relentlessly forward into the future is where we go. We must grow our generosity towards each other. We will vote to make sure that we express our commitment to a democratic future. We can and we will find answers to our problems. We can and we will make our country a good place to live.

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