My life on the internet

Searching for how to turn the world around

Nov 07, 2023

Well, dear readers, I used to have leisure time. I played golf and bridge. After the sleepy ‘50s gave way to the spirited ‘60s, I had babies and followed shopping lists for the gourmet meals I cooked.

In the ‘70s I got deeply involved in the Human Potential Movement, where revelers from the ’60s were leading the charge of inner exploration. I took psychedelics. I fiddled with gurus. Although I loved my work acting and painting, compared to the spectacle of inner life making soap commercials and post-impressionist flower pictures lost out. Luckily, I got chosen by the Association of Humanistic Psychology to produce a Los Angeles conference. After some wild and wonderful national and regional conferences, AHP wanted a city event to create a lasting community and I went all over L. A. rounding up practitioners of the new psycho-spiritual modalities. That became years of my house being a hub for a spiritually minded L.A. community.

Now, instead of having gatherings and producing events I’m scouring the internet, thinking about uniting the millions of people who’ve been moved to be more loving over these last few decades and what we can do to help this hurting world. The pieces I’ve commented on, with what’s central to my current thinking, are worth reading and watching, and let’s talk in the Comments if you have opinions about things I’ve said.

SOME INTERNET COMMENTS SINCE OCTOBER 1, 2023

You are deep in the heart of our American reality, or rather the lack of heart here. For all our technological prowess, we're in a darker age about human development, where rugged individualism still prevails. We are devoted to beating each other instead of helping each other. To create a more utopian world we need to address who we think we are. As one interconnected humanity -- in fact one interconnected cosmos -- we'd create things that serve everyone. If I ran the world my #1 priority would be to tune everyone into a new creation story where we're sacred inhabitants of a sacred universe -- i.e. it's all god.
From: The Elysian by Elle Griffin - There are already utopian countries (Substack)

Our objective is to get Democrats in power. It won't happen by telling blind people what to see. How about Dems getting real about getting elected? If we're stuck with Biden, where his being old badly diminishes his draw, at least get us a Vice President we would be attracted to in the statistically decent chance that person could become our President. We are shooting ourselves in feet that could be dancing!
From: Steve Schmidt - How YOU can get engaged in civic life (Substack)

"How do we get our power back into the hands of We the People?...Maybe we need to spend a lot of time looking for real ways to make a difference..."
We've hit the wall of late-stage capitalism, and we aren't looking for how to get over it. The power structure isn't going to address that because -- well -- they have the power. I'm thinking about radical ways to deal with a radical situation -- things we-the-people could do, from getting organized to getting a voice to be able to deal with the good of the whole. I'm collecting a few folks. Check out this track of my posts to see if you'd like to be thinking with me: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/s/changemaking-now.
From: Robert Reich - Is the Trump fever starting to break? (Substack)

This is so odd. These two comments are the only ones that point to John Perkins, “the economic hit man” who told us this same story years ago, but not about what China did, as this story recounts, but where America was the villain. It was a #1 NYT bestseller. He's an unusually engaging fellow who still is doing yeoman work tuning people into what we were oblivious to. I have a little gallery of "Thought Shapers making sense of these times." Here’s John Perkins: https://tinyurl.com/3h7p5346.
From: Noahpinion by Noah Smith - How China's "debt traps" actually work (Substack)

"So now it’s largely up to us to carry the message forward. You and me."
How's about a shoutout, Thom, so people look at my summary piece of what we-the-people can do? "What's on A ROADMAP TO THE FUTURE?”: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/whats-on-a-roadmap-to-the-future. What does anybody think?
From: The Hartmann Report - Is the New Warfare Battleground on Social Media and the Internet? (Substack)

A pleasure meeting your good mind and your literary sensibility. First off, tell me if you've found anyone you feel deeply resonant with. I'll be surprised and delighted if there’s a bunch.
Oh joy, I get to add to your body of knowledge in commenting on this: "...some conceptual framing for the naked sacred and holy. I can find none. There is utterly nothing to hold onto."
Yes there is. It's the updated story humanity hasn't adopted yet. We have this outdated mythos about being sinners that need redeeming instead of being sacred creatures in a sacred universe who would take care of our home. Have a look at what I just wrote: "Rabble-rousing for a new way": https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/rabble-rousing-for-a-new-way.
From: The R-Word by James R. Martin - Love is the revolution (Substack)

This is the best TED Talk ever. That's for content and for the extraordinary person Krista Tippett is. Every person should hear this. It's a call to our human beingness that rarely is made. Get ourselves uplifted and we will uplift the world.
From: Krista Tippett - 3 Practices for a Life of Wisdom (TED Talks)

In the late '70s people were scared to be real with one another. That’s when ELF Enterprises Unlimiting was created. The motto was, “Put the elf back in self,” and ELF stood for Enlightenment, Love and Fun. Play changed everything. Get people in costume, free of being who they think they are, and it's amazing what happens!
From: Shannon Watts - Why do we stop playing? (Substack)

“Tell the Israeli government it must sit down with the Palestinians and a respected mediator and resolve this conflict once and for all — starting with an end to the Occupation of Palestine by the Israelis — and including an end to their illegal settlements."
That's the linchpin to release the horror.
From: Michael Moore - A Letter from Michael Moore to President Joe Biden in Israel (Substack)

"The best way to pull that job off is to get them to stop watching Fox or other hard-right media and expose them instead to the fact-based world."

What could change them would be the adoption of a new creation story where we are one humanity. That's the primary educating that could turn everything around. Amp humanity up for how extraordinary being human is instead of dwelling on the shortcomings of a species that is evolving. Thom, you know I write about this. How about asking people to read what I'm saying? This went out yesterday: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/a-digestible-green-dragon-oh-joy.
From: The Hartmann Report - If only the framers of the constitution had a thesaurus - then Trump couldn't run as prez... (Substack)

Big wow. Andrew, I think you have the only ideas that would change things. Since Marianne is out for slaughter now, trying to sell progressive policies, my bet is she'd get attention with creative ideas like yours. With Marianne being tuned into the consciousness we all need, if you helped her you could have results faster than your timeframe for your ideas to be operative.
From: Peter Diamandis & Andrew Yang on UBI, political reform, and the future of work (YouTube)

I cried a lot of tears watching this for how beautiful and special a person Daniel Ellsberg was and for the rare community that showed up for him. I want to be friends with all his friends in a devotion to truth with which we turn the world from running on self-interest to caring about each other as much as we care about ourselves.
From: A Celebration of Daniel Ellsberg (Program Starts at 15:40) (YouTube)

What's bigger than any of the atrocities in play that you are such a whiz at chronicling? It's the story we tell. Who we think we are determines how we behave, and our Christian sinner story has to go. Since Hubble, when we saw that the universe was expanding, it taught us we're not on Earth using her but we are of Earth as her with the privilege of being at the forefront of her evolutionary development. I wonder if subscribers are aware of that track. It was inspired by Pierre de Chardin, passed through Thomas Berry, and Brian Swimme is its current leading light. Getting that understood is top of my list for what can change things the most.
From: The Warning by Steve Schimidt - The winds of catastrophe are stirring (Substack)

This is what I read some years ago that has helped me be courageous. Stewart Brand was on a book tour, concerned about how stiff he was in television interviews. Peter Coyote gave him a lesson. He told him to shift his focus: "It's not what you do; it's what you do next." You don’t need to control the moment cause there’s always the next moment to make up for whatever you did!
From: Wisdom 2.0 with Soren - The Teaching of The Next Moment (Substack)

In my agenda for a workable world there are no commercials produced for candidates. All they can do is talk to the camera. And I'd have unmoderated debates -- see how people are in a living room conversation.
Here's a favorite piece about oligarchs and the cyclical nature of reality: https://suespeaks.org/an-oligarchy-on-the-brink-of-a-civilization-threatening-collapse.
From: The Hartmann Report - Will American Democracy Survive the Age of Oligarchs?(Substack)

Your advice involves relying on actions hardly anyone will take. We need to get organized. You'd be a great organizer along with Marianne, Jodie Evans, Arnold Schwarzenegger (or whoever -- you would know). We have the internet. Make a coalition of people for peace. Get millions signatory to it.
From: The Kucinich Report by Dennis Kucinich - How to Stop the War(s) (Substack)

Dennis, how about hooking up with Jodie Evans and calling for a massive coalition for stopping funding wars? We have the internet. It's easier than the streets, but no one has tried to collect people for the good.
From: The Kucinich Report by Dennis Kucinich - The Math of Murder (Substack)

BE SURE TO WATCH, MICHAEL!!! I‘ve been toying with having a campaign for people to do Fireside Chats, compassionate talks that would show up everywhere, like the Ice Bucket Challenge did a few years ago. Then I saw this: https://twitter.com/i/status/1719658085566857216. What if things like this were everywhere? I dare anyone not to cry by the end. My family says too much, but not to me. To you?
From: Michael Moore - War no More (Pt. 2) (Substack)

That Trump could garner even one vote has to be a function of something fundamentally off with the electorate, but all we do is bat around what to do to defeat Republicans. As long as income inequality is undealt with, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer -- historically the cause of revolutions -- people will be so dissatisfied they will try anything to get what’s different from what they have. I wish your readers would subscribe to my free Substack where I am proposing things to do that get at that causal level. Steve, how about a recommendation?
From: The Warning by Steve Schimidt - Donald Trump’s plans to destroy America (Substack)

With hundreds of comments on posts from the pundits I read, there are usually only a few likes that any comment gets. This has 23 and still coming in … ST

Just thinking how all the drama about Hunter Biden will serve a good end, making his perspective on addiction, as expressed in that USA Today piece he wrote, well known. As we grieve for Matthew Perry, with that too helping us wake up, maybe it's time for everyone to get smarter.
From: The Warning by Steve Schimidt - The path towards darkness and away from grace (Substack)

I could do this monthly. Let me know if you want more.

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