Saving Women and Girls.

 

 

Saving Women and Girls.

A heyday for the media and I wish it was also for the farmers, but it’s not. In a normal year, the news media is happy to have one or two major events and look now. Disasters are competing with each other for news coverage. Haiti again devastated, snap elections were called, a pandemic is regaining strength, a pipeline is not even on the news, oil prices are up and Albertans are getting nothing for it, past and present abuses of First Nations exposed, food prices rising, housing situation across the country is critical, education and healthcare threatened, fires next door and everywhere else, caused by global warming.

In a world like this, what should we talk about first? I look at the news and in the last few days, the situation in Afghanistan is the most eye-catching. Twenty years ago, the US and NATO nations, Canada included, invaded the poor far away backward country. We went to destroy terrorist training camps but ended up officially fighting for women’s rights. Thousands of lives and trillions of dollars were invested, and the girls amazed us with what they could do. Out of the blue burqas emerged girls who became doctors, lawyers, business leaders, judges, politicians, teachers, scientists, Nobel Prize winners, you name it.

Now the West was beaten, leaving the country and evacuating people. Out of all the pictures on the news, one sticks to my mind. A bearded brute was chasing a woman in front of the airport, beating her with a stick. The Taliban calls it crowd control. The West leaders said that they will evacuate Afghans in danger, especially women and girls. I am not good at believing in politicians’ promises. I judge by what I see.

The women and girls that we are airlifting or rescuing will come here. What will be their fate? What about the families with children? Over there they were the Intelligentsia, the Afghanis who could speak English. Here they are arriving with a suitcase to beat the bottom of the bottom of the social order. I remember the feeling. They will work hard, live cheaply, and hope for their future generations to do well. Some people will call them “refugees” or worst while others will tell them to go back where they came from.

As they will assimilate into our society, the old horrors will fade from memory and they will face our realities. Here legally women are equal, but we value many only for their labour or looks. We don’t force them to wear a blue or black tent, but most will be “working people” catering to “rich people” whom they may never see in real life.

Women and girls will find themselves in a much more advanced society but still a society that exploits them, some for having darker skin, some for being a religious minority, and others for being female. They will witness us debating how and when the laws should force restrictions on what they may do with their bodies. The debate is ongoing in many states across the border, as we speak.

Here, girls are not covered but compete with each other for a sexy look. (Not all.) They will use much of their income on makeup, fashions, and perhaps a sporty car or a bigger, fancier home. Some may be trafficked for sex work, others will join the competition to appear like our high class. I remember an interview I saw a few years ago. An Iranian father was asked why his daughters were not allowed to choose who they will marry or which crowd of kids they could hang out with. After a long talk, out came the truth. “We don’t want our daughters to turn out like Britney Spears,” he said.

Our girls may try to use their charm to get a better life for themselves and their future children. “Marry up” is the idea. There was a conversation recorded secretly between George Bush and his brother before they became known political figures. In it, one was saying something like this. “Go to a trailer court, tie a $100 bill to a fishing line and start pulling it, and see what you will come up with.” The rich boys know that the poor girls will give them what they want, hoping to advance through the ranks, and a few may do.

Now I watch the “Me too” movement and wonder how come all those cases of sexual abuse were not reported or investigated many years ago. Often it was our way of life. The generals, movie tycoons, politicians, and others who are now being demoted or even jailed were doing what then was acceptable. Taking advantage of their high class and using what we call (Mistakingly?) Gold Diggers. There are stories in the Bible about the same happening many years ago.

Our society is now struggling with a new identity. The equality-seeking group is competing with those who view women as baby-making machines. We can’t win unless we change the whole social order that includes great inequality in society. It may end up with a revolution, God forbid. In Afghanistan, now the more conservative group won, but here we are trying to reach a consensus democratically. The disasters I named are pressing us to take decisive action.

I look at the peaceful valley I live in and see our towns growing. New people moving into new and renovated homes. There are lots of visitors and we can’t find a table in a restaurant. The fires are staying away and the weather map shows us to be a bubble protected from the worst. The pandemic cases reduce on the way here from all directions.

I don’t want to brag, but I thank the invisible hand that protects us. I notice calmness between the genders instead of the competition in other places and I wonder. Are we here doing something better than most of the world? Could we become an example of true equality while we are at it?

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

Moderation and balance spells hope.

 

Moderation and balance spells hope.

When I was a child in Israel, I hated summer. I was happy about time off from school, but the suffocating heat was oppressive and anything not watered was dry. We moved to Canada, and it was turned upside down. Here the flowers bloomed in the summer and all was dead in the winter. Luckily, there is winter beauty in most of Canada that can’t be ignored. Now I am an old Canadian who cherishes the short couple of months when all is green.

I remember good and bad years, yet none like the present. I know the stories from the great depression were horrible, but we will not remember 2021 as a good time either. We started the year with a raging pandemic and things went from bad to worst. By mid summer desperation was setting in.

Most of the country wanted to get us over the hump, but we found ourselves fighting against friends and neighbours who believe that you can wish problems away and they will go away. Society was spending resources to find an effective vaccine and an undercurrent of positive thinking freedom fighters were threatening any possible success of our efforts. While we had millions of life saving vaccines spoiling in the fridge, millions of people around the world were facing death and severe illness without help.

By midsummer, we all witnessed a new world shaping up all around us. Some countries were locking up, like Japan, and others faced bigger problems than the Pandemic. Hong Kong bravely stood up to China. Lebanon tried to restart life after severe damage by a government that ignored the people. Here we were facing a summer without tourism from our big neighbour to the south. Some tourist’s attractions suffered but overall, the economy didn’t see major downtrends. We learned that unemployment figures were artificial and we couldn’t survive without cheap temporary foreign labour. Also, the labour of new emigrants in businesses like meat processing was declared “essential.” Who would have guessed?

Mid summer spelled more disasters locally and around the globe. Heat waves and floods like we have not seen in our lifetime devastated the rich and poor alike. Here it was fires, in Europe and Asia, big floods and everywhere unvaccinated people spreading a forever changing pandemic. Being a student of history, I began worrying that all the changes merging at the same time may change the course of human history.

When I was a child, the world was fascinated by the British Empire. Although other powers were competing for ruling the world, people around me were convinced that the British were number one. It went into transition in front of my eyes and the world was divided into two major forces, the American Capitalism and the Russian Communism. Both were equally scary, but I was on the Capitalist side and feared the other. By the time I had children, Communism lost and Free Market won, headed by the United States. As I was raising my children, the Market Capitalism without the threat of the Far Left changed, and became a threat to its own followers.

I knew people who fought in the Korean war that ended with a stalemate. I came to Canada when young men who refused to take part in an unjust war in Vietnam were flocking in looking for a way out. Soon after, I saw the TV coverage of the US running away and countless people floated on the ocean trying to remain alive. We called them “boat people.” I met Hungarians who escaped to Canada when the US deserted them to fight the Soviets alone. Florida was full of refugees from Cuba. Far left and far right, both failed people like me.

Now I am watching Afghanistan. Twenty-year war that cost trillions and so many lives is coming to an end. The beneficiaries are the weapon manufacturers and the losers are those who believed that a war can improve their lives. The biggest empire in the world ever is defeated by a backward, poor country that doesn’t even have a unified nation. I no longer believe humans can win over each other by war, no matter how much we invest in it. I retreat to what I have learned about spirituality. It’s not much, but it’s the only way that makes sense to me.

I am not talking about any religion. They all have some good points and all believe that they are the true faith. Nowadays we can call science a religion as well. To me, spirituality is all of them, people believing that there is something bigger than what our senses can perceive and our logic can figure out. The bible dictates not to assign human description to the entity which we named God.

When people’s emotions are aroused, they say God, or Jesus, Allah, or whatever name. The religious Jews say “hashem” meaning “the name.” We should not invoke lightly the name of God. We pray and expect Him to save us by miracles. It is easily and conveniently forgotten that we have knowledge and must use it ourselves before needing the help of the creator. He gave us the power to do so and the free will to choose.

Spiritual beings must take a picture of the world we recreated in our image and study it. If we see that we became addicted to power, fame, money, immorality, cheating, electronic devices, a lazy life style, irrational fears, dominating the needy, losing touch with reality and more, we must take steps to fix the problem before calling God. Like a good father, He will not pick us up but tell us to stand up. It is the only way we learn.

Our enemy that we must defeat is called totalitarianism. God created us to be our best in the balance between universal forces. I am most comfortable with minority governments, moderate weather, and political ideologies balancing each other.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

Money makes us tick?

 

Money makes us tick?

When you are a child, you think that the greatest thing is to grow up. Adults have all the freedom that you envy, and they get to make the rules. I remember my teenage years and later watched a “replay” as my kids were growing up. All adults can tell you that becoming an adult is just the beginning, not the end. There is a lot to learn, but most people are afraid to do things. The catchy phrase is, “who is going to pay for it”. We try, learn, and pay for our mistakes that we adults know we will make.

Who is going to pay is also the main reason for people to choose a political philosophy to follow through life. We have three main political systems to choose from. Christian: give your material possessions away and attend to helping the poor. Only monks and crazy people follow it. “I fought and worked hard for my things and will not give them away.” Well, the funeral director tells me that eventually, we do.

The Liberal system is another. We place all of our resources and efforts into looking after all humans and guide them to be fruitful if they can. They cheat and try to live well while we work hard to pay for it. They should have done what we did, so they would have what we have. As my old hunting partner used to say, If they want to eat they must work. We can work moving forward or be stuck in a dead-end job until the end.

Next comes the Conservative view, greatly promoted by the writings of Charles Darwin about evolution. Nature looks after all problems. Now it’s the Market, not nature. The fittest survive and the weakest perish. Big dog eats smaller dogs and governments should stay out of it. That philosophy is missing a major component. The wolf pack can hunt the great bear. The ants defeat the grasshopper and the viruses beat the mighty humans. That philosophy denies taking chances and expanding.

Young people are eager to face life, believing that they will work and study hard and have a significant life, and a few do. If we include all the world population, we see that most people struggle hard to have the bare minimum and often less. That is the direct outcome of our greatest invention, money.

Gold and other rare metals used to be the medium of exchange. For convenience, we changed it to paper money and recently into electronic digits. Both are plentiful and can’t easily be controlled. First, we were strict about how much was circulating and people could trust it to some degree, but things have changed. We now see that it was just the beginning.

Money is no longer a medium of exchange, it became a way to buy pleasure, avoid work, and hoard wealth. Christ told us to give it back to the issuing government, but we failed. Some did very well, mostly by finding ways around just using the money for exchange, while others slowly gave up freedom and became enslaved to some degree or another. Now we are adults and life has no mercy. You owe, you pay.

In some places like Canada, we found ways to live and negotiate credit, payments, jobs, and all else, but there is another spectrum that we are unfamiliar with. Half of the world or more is living with hardly any money and all that it brings. While we try to buy pleasure, others can’t buy the necessities of life. They are on the move. Either they will find a way to survive or they will march.

We believed that our military might will save us but recently discovered that the great United States can’t even win a war against the poorest most backwords country, such as Afghanistan. The Wolfpack can hunt the great bear. Now we also have to deal with a war against a virus. We could win, but the pursuit of money stops us. It also stops us from saving our planet from being killed and buried under garbage on the surface, in the water, and in the air.

For example, we can look south of us where money won against people. We are honoured to be friends of the greatest empire the world has ever seen, but we see it crumbling down. Large numbers of their citizens don’t even have Health Care when they are sick. Many kids don’t have a proper diet and education. Yet they and other countries have people who own so much money they couldn’t spend it in many lifetimes. Some call them Oligarchs.

We print or create money all the time. It finds its way to the richest people in the world rather quickly while others work two jobs and hardly affords food and shelter. Eventually, the poor people discover what the Taliban did. (I don’t like the Taliban.) They get weapons and beat the system. That is not the desired outcome.

Humans could create money, as we do, and use it directly to do what we need by hiring, building things, and serving people. We don’t need to hand it over to a few individuals, in China, Russia, the USA, etc, and borrow it back on interest. We, the majority in society, can set our own new rules and not listen to those who say that we can’t. It’s just another monetary theory and we don’t have to set off inflation. Money performs and is taxed back to prevent inflation. Some very rich people advocate doing it when asked for their opinion.

The main idea we must remember is that we are adults and should fix things in a way that works for us, not against us. Even the biggest business needs customers and starving people shoot not buy. Under that system, all of us could have much more time for leisure, and we would pay for it.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.