Your reach out to him was on point and intelligent. Hopefully he will see that, like others have, and see how valuable you are in solving what's wrong.
Suzanne, many people have been laying it on the line to improve the world for a long time. From individuals as famed as Gandhi, or persecuted as Roger Hallum destined for four years in a British prison for planning to shut down the M5 around London, to organizations like Greenpeace where individuals risk their lives, there are countless examples. Unfortunately, as you, I am certain well-know, societies fatten and prosper on the backs of victims with the victors taking the spoils, and the bribed looking away. The bribed in this case is the vanishing middle-class. Having taken everything they can from every country in the world, the ruling class is now eating its own. That's me and you. They have also destroyed the planet, and consequently we are rapidly heading towards economic shrinkage, and global societal upheaval at unimaginable scale.
The patterns of injustice in settled societies of course cross every culture and thousands of years. In every case, they end in blood.
Thinkers are great, and occasionally have positive effects. MLK was certainly one, but we still have a society that shoots young black men in the back and practices systemized racism. As the Earth becomes more inhospitable from burning fossil fuels, we face unprecedented problems, including failing agricultural harvests. Many places in the world now depend on the government delivering water with trucks. We can no longer succeed (if you call the way we live success) by expansion, we must shrink, and history shows the only way for the oppressed to make change is to throw their bodies into the gears of the machine. So far, the only ones who seem to have an inclination to do this are the misled Trump supporters.
Furthermore, polling of voter issues as usual shows little to no recognition of climate change and planetary overshoot, now the determiners of our future. We are no longer in charge. Should we survive Trump, it appears we will not change course as radically and quickly as we need to. Our political leadership is too cowardly to tell the truth, IF they even see it. COP29 is in a matter of days, and the oil clowns wish to burn more oil than ever.
When people in complacent countries like the US finally get off their fat asses, the majority won't even understand why they're in trouble. They'll just know they can't afford rent, insurance and that the grocery store shelves are bare. Sorry, that's how I see it.
No apology needed. I keep pointing to you as a voice of reason. One of the best, if not THE best. You grace my space by your presence, and I've encouraged my subscribers to subscribe to you. Perhaps you could do the same, encouraging your subscribers to subscribe to me.
So, now what? That's the title of this Substack. I have 20 months of suggestions for how we-the-people could have influence, and now I've moved on to say let's actually get signatures for the Beloved Community so we have a force, and also some committee to guide that force for what it could do.
I can't find any other auspice dealing with the immediacy of the need for system change, whereby we'd have a cooperative humanity working on our future. We don't need to be as helpless as we are, but no power figures have stepped forward to get some organization to happen. Yes, we are too late to avoid collapse by current models, but humanity is so damn clever that if we are trying we may get somewhere better than where we're headed now.
Thank you. I try to be rational and don't often throw dishes.
The immediate need for profound system change can't be understated. Harris had better get elected. We need both houses as well, or it's game over. Expanding the Supreme Court needs to happen as well.
Should we survive this election, I could see a series of letters to Harris and the appropriate parties educating them on reality and being courageous. How does one get face to face with these people without deep pockets?
I just recommended you, but so far nothing from your subscribers on your end. Maybe I'm too dreary for them. I'm not one to dance around reality.
Suzanne, you are a wonderful "maverick" and your passion and determination to "step-it-up" are second to none. However, I would argue that there is a Voice that is talking to everyone - and that voice is our own Conscience. Similarly, when you say that "Nobody's taking charge", I would respond that "God" is and always has taken charge; just that we can only "come together" when we each heed that inner Voice. There are no human voices, including Marianne, that can draw humanity together. So it is in silent ways that we can each come together, spurred in our actions by heeding that inner voice.
Humans have this extraordinary capacity to not just to wait for some natural evolution. How about global warming and nukes, as just two among other threats to our survival that we might be able to mitigate against?
I resonate with this Paul. I cringe at statements like "nothing is happening" or "no one is doing anything" - when we look to things greater than ourselves - ages-long movements, ancient wisdom, spiritual practices - there is ample evidence that everything is happening and everyone is doing something.
You say the same thing over and over -- how what you do is THE way. I don't want to keep repeating my response, so please know you've been heard and appreciated.
Hi dear friend, Suzanne, I very much respect your sincerity and commitment to helping to bring forth a new paradigm based on all the values we share. I had resistance come up in me reading your words, "Reciprocating would very much have been in the scheme of things." I do not agree. I do not want someone to automatically recommend my work just because I recommend theirs, nor do I expect someone to "reciprocate" when I support their work. I will recommend the work of people whose work really resonates with me. I have a lot of close friends on Substack whom I respect, but whom I do not recommend. I hope that does not come across as cold-hearted. Each of us has our own standard of value. Mine is "does this interest me, and is it said in a way I find well-thought-out or original or appealing in some other way?" Love, Susan
As I recognize him as a deep ally, I'd hope he'd pay attention to where he'd recognize me. If I don't think I deserve recognition, what the heck am I doing this for? And this platform is all about reciprocation -- as deserved.
My take is that it's important to work relationally with people - to build relationships and get to know them. It's hard to do that online and in posts. It must be done face-to-face and privately. I had a sad experience with Jamie Wheal because I was too pushy and impatient with moving forward with a Village project we started in his community. Lesson learned.
An idea I have found helpful is - we need to slow down before we can speed up. Sure, lots needs to be done, but it's literally impossible to do great things without relationships.
You know I spent decades doing local L.A. projects and there were many speakers and other single events where I spent as much time on people getting to know each other as whatever the participation in the event was. That never will go out of style, but that's not what I'm doing now. Different strokes for different folks.
A rule of thumb I noted back in my clinical psychology days: the way people react is 90% about them and their history and 10% about the immediate situation.
I was just on a zoom trying to comprehend Trump voters and part of it was to talk about how people behave being mostly a function of the "the class" people get born into. Breaking out from that is very rare, where statistically most people have expectations and realizations that stay within what their life is life as a child was like.
Of course, some people transcend that but not often. That could be that 90% figure. I heard that info a very long time ago and for myself I noticed how true that is. My dad was an attorney and we were what you might call lower upper class -- country club sort of people. That's the economic and cultural slot I occupy. I for sure never would have been poor and unlikely ever super rich. I can feel how I got what I expected.
Hah - my father was also an attorney, though we were probably one rung down (upper middle class — sailboat yes, country club no). He was a bit of an iconoclast, but still significantly shaped by the culture and times. Took quite a while to transcend much of that. I like to think I'm now largely off the ladder as a benevolent observer.
But not a poor one, yes? I can just feel it permeating my being that poverty was never any possibility that could have befallen me. It just was out of the question. And also I didn't have my sights on creating massive wealth or on hanging around with any massively wealthy crowd where I even could have married into it.
Your reach out to him was on point and intelligent. Hopefully he will see that, like others have, and see how valuable you are in solving what's wrong.
That's the spirit!!!
Suzanne, many people have been laying it on the line to improve the world for a long time. From individuals as famed as Gandhi, or persecuted as Roger Hallum destined for four years in a British prison for planning to shut down the M5 around London, to organizations like Greenpeace where individuals risk their lives, there are countless examples. Unfortunately, as you, I am certain well-know, societies fatten and prosper on the backs of victims with the victors taking the spoils, and the bribed looking away. The bribed in this case is the vanishing middle-class. Having taken everything they can from every country in the world, the ruling class is now eating its own. That's me and you. They have also destroyed the planet, and consequently we are rapidly heading towards economic shrinkage, and global societal upheaval at unimaginable scale.
The patterns of injustice in settled societies of course cross every culture and thousands of years. In every case, they end in blood.
Thinkers are great, and occasionally have positive effects. MLK was certainly one, but we still have a society that shoots young black men in the back and practices systemized racism. As the Earth becomes more inhospitable from burning fossil fuels, we face unprecedented problems, including failing agricultural harvests. Many places in the world now depend on the government delivering water with trucks. We can no longer succeed (if you call the way we live success) by expansion, we must shrink, and history shows the only way for the oppressed to make change is to throw their bodies into the gears of the machine. So far, the only ones who seem to have an inclination to do this are the misled Trump supporters.
Furthermore, polling of voter issues as usual shows little to no recognition of climate change and planetary overshoot, now the determiners of our future. We are no longer in charge. Should we survive Trump, it appears we will not change course as radically and quickly as we need to. Our political leadership is too cowardly to tell the truth, IF they even see it. COP29 is in a matter of days, and the oil clowns wish to burn more oil than ever.
When people in complacent countries like the US finally get off their fat asses, the majority won't even understand why they're in trouble. They'll just know they can't afford rent, insurance and that the grocery store shelves are bare. Sorry, that's how I see it.
No apology needed. I keep pointing to you as a voice of reason. One of the best, if not THE best. You grace my space by your presence, and I've encouraged my subscribers to subscribe to you. Perhaps you could do the same, encouraging your subscribers to subscribe to me.
So, now what? That's the title of this Substack. I have 20 months of suggestions for how we-the-people could have influence, and now I've moved on to say let's actually get signatures for the Beloved Community so we have a force, and also some committee to guide that force for what it could do.
I can't find any other auspice dealing with the immediacy of the need for system change, whereby we'd have a cooperative humanity working on our future. We don't need to be as helpless as we are, but no power figures have stepped forward to get some organization to happen. Yes, we are too late to avoid collapse by current models, but humanity is so damn clever that if we are trying we may get somewhere better than where we're headed now.
Thank you. I try to be rational and don't often throw dishes.
The immediate need for profound system change can't be understated. Harris had better get elected. We need both houses as well, or it's game over. Expanding the Supreme Court needs to happen as well.
Should we survive this election, I could see a series of letters to Harris and the appropriate parties educating them on reality and being courageous. How does one get face to face with these people without deep pockets?
I just recommended you, but so far nothing from your subscribers on your end. Maybe I'm too dreary for them. I'm not one to dance around reality.
Latest piece. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/the-planet-has-limits-so-must-we
Suzanne, you are a wonderful "maverick" and your passion and determination to "step-it-up" are second to none. However, I would argue that there is a Voice that is talking to everyone - and that voice is our own Conscience. Similarly, when you say that "Nobody's taking charge", I would respond that "God" is and always has taken charge; just that we can only "come together" when we each heed that inner Voice. There are no human voices, including Marianne, that can draw humanity together. So it is in silent ways that we can each come together, spurred in our actions by heeding that inner voice.
Humans have this extraordinary capacity to not just to wait for some natural evolution. How about global warming and nukes, as just two among other threats to our survival that we might be able to mitigate against?
I resonate with this Paul. I cringe at statements like "nothing is happening" or "no one is doing anything" - when we look to things greater than ourselves - ages-long movements, ancient wisdom, spiritual practices - there is ample evidence that everything is happening and everyone is doing something.
You say the same thing over and over -- how what you do is THE way. I don't want to keep repeating my response, so please know you've been heard and appreciated.
Hi dear friend, Suzanne, I very much respect your sincerity and commitment to helping to bring forth a new paradigm based on all the values we share. I had resistance come up in me reading your words, "Reciprocating would very much have been in the scheme of things." I do not agree. I do not want someone to automatically recommend my work just because I recommend theirs, nor do I expect someone to "reciprocate" when I support their work. I will recommend the work of people whose work really resonates with me. I have a lot of close friends on Substack whom I respect, but whom I do not recommend. I hope that does not come across as cold-hearted. Each of us has our own standard of value. Mine is "does this interest me, and is it said in a way I find well-thought-out or original or appealing in some other way?" Love, Susan
As I recognize him as a deep ally, I'd hope he'd pay attention to where he'd recognize me. If I don't think I deserve recognition, what the heck am I doing this for? And this platform is all about reciprocation -- as deserved.
Ego is what got us in this whole mess. Dropping the ego and serving others is what will get us out.
Please say more.
My take is that it's important to work relationally with people - to build relationships and get to know them. It's hard to do that online and in posts. It must be done face-to-face and privately. I had a sad experience with Jamie Wheal because I was too pushy and impatient with moving forward with a Village project we started in his community. Lesson learned.
An idea I have found helpful is - we need to slow down before we can speed up. Sure, lots needs to be done, but it's literally impossible to do great things without relationships.
You know I spent decades doing local L.A. projects and there were many speakers and other single events where I spent as much time on people getting to know each other as whatever the participation in the event was. That never will go out of style, but that's not what I'm doing now. Different strokes for different folks.
A rule of thumb I noted back in my clinical psychology days: the way people react is 90% about them and their history and 10% about the immediate situation.
I was just on a zoom trying to comprehend Trump voters and part of it was to talk about how people behave being mostly a function of the "the class" people get born into. Breaking out from that is very rare, where statistically most people have expectations and realizations that stay within what their life is life as a child was like.
Of course, some people transcend that but not often. That could be that 90% figure. I heard that info a very long time ago and for myself I noticed how true that is. My dad was an attorney and we were what you might call lower upper class -- country club sort of people. That's the economic and cultural slot I occupy. I for sure never would have been poor and unlikely ever super rich. I can feel how I got what I expected.
Hah - my father was also an attorney, though we were probably one rung down (upper middle class — sailboat yes, country club no). He was a bit of an iconoclast, but still significantly shaped by the culture and times. Took quite a while to transcend much of that. I like to think I'm now largely off the ladder as a benevolent observer.
But not a poor one, yes? I can just feel it permeating my being that poverty was never any possibility that could have befallen me. It just was out of the question. And also I didn't have my sights on creating massive wealth or on hanging around with any massively wealthy crowd where I even could have married into it.