Air, water, and food spell happiness.

 

Air, water, and food spell happiness.

To go home, I drive by the Crowsnest Pass Food Bank. It is a relatively pleasant building with a good size parking lot that is never full. We often contribute in some ways, but hunger is not a glaring problem here.

I worked around homeless people in Calgary for a while. There were obvious problems, but we didn’t see people starving. It was not that rosy when I used to visit the United States. Statistics reveal that 38 million people there are food insecure every day.

We have our problems, but Canada is still one of the best places to be in, and our beloved mountain pass scores high even in our rich country. Anyone living here probably never witnessed the hunger and deprivation that is so common in other places.

As I am writing, there is a summit in the United Nations trying to address how to end hunger around the world by 2030. The world can produce all the food that we need, but there are millions, perhaps billions, of people who don’t know if they will have food on the table tonight.

If we have what people need, why are so many people migrating around the world and often fighting only to survive? Why do we need all the armies and very expensive weapons to secure our borders? How come millions of people are displaced with no place to call home? To me, it’s a question of management.

Everywhere in the world, people used to live on little self-sustaining farms. The efficiency of farming improved with modernization while jobs on farms disappeared. The same happened with industry. Until my grandparents’ generation, labour was a resource that we could not do without. Automation and offshoring took over. The goal of capitalism is to buy cheap and sell expensive, so we pushed the vast majority out of their sources of income. They had no work, and we had fewer customers.

People still need to eat, get medical care, and pursue happiness, which fuels the economy. What is left to do? Perhaps government jobs and service industries. Those jobs are simple to obtain, so their pay is being lowered. It does not motivate society to improve the situation, opting to chase the “surplus people” around and even exposing them to premature death. That is the rationale motivating people not to use vaccines and other life-prolonging measures.

I survey “news” from around the world and see a bleak picture. Life is good, but can’t stay that way. The world around me is literally burning, so I turn to professional help. The advice I receive is to restrict how much time I spend watching the news. It makes me feel like the cattle on a transport truck going to Cargill to be butchered and turned into Big Macs and Teen burgers. I search and find other solutions.

In 2015, a story went viral and soon disappeared. It resurfaced recently. It had the solution to our current problems, but it got buried in other news and people never followed through with the idea.

A young self-made millionaire named Dan Price changed the pay system in his company “Gravity Payments.” While he, as the CEO, was making 1.1 million a year, some of his employees who made less than 35,000 a year were having problems keeping food on the table and a roof over their heads. Dan Price took a scientific approach to solve the problem. His research revealed that people’s optimal income at the time was 75,000 a year. At that income level, they had a good life. Increasing the income did not add to their enjoyment of life. Dan met with all the employees and announced one pay for all the workers, including himself, 70,000 a year.

A few people lost pay and quit, his brother sued him, but the business went on and flourished. The media had a heyday. Fox News condemned him as a communist, but he was invited to the White House after winning business awards. All of this happened not far from the Crowsnest Pass, in Seattle. Now they also have an office in Boise, Idaho. There is much more information on the net.

The idea of changing society’s focus from predatory selfish goals to social caring and sharing is not new at all. When the focus is on people’s happiness instead of prestige and accumulated individual wealth, life becomes different. One can look at our neighbours, for example, the Hutterite Colonies around us. Although not everyone is cut for agrarian simple living, there is evidence that humans do well when freely sharing with each other.

Now Canadians have spoken clearly and decisively, choosing a minority government the second time around. We know that a third of us are believers in making the rich richer and waiting for it to trickle down. They also have other beliefs that may be the reason our hospitals are full to overcapacity. A third want to continue the way we are, and the last third wants a more progressive approach.

The Prime Minister is driving on a road paved for change. We have distributed money to many regular people and small businesses, which will alter the course of the country’s economy. Many people are choosing not to work for the barely livable income they had before. Many are choosing to work from home and others are starting new little businesses, choosing to be the masters of their own faith. Young students are begging to go to school. (Safely of course.) The Trump-engineered rift with China is healed and kids are out in the streets demanding solutions to the climate crisis. It’s a brave new world.

A person I don’t know said: “Let’s see if the whippersnapper has the guts to fight for food, water, and air for all Canadians.” I listened without saying a word.

The elections are over, yeah.

 

 

The elections are over, yeah.

If there ever was a time when I felt we didn’t need an election, it is now. In my long life, I saw some bad times, but it seems as if now it’s the worst. I will not bore you with the list of crises that we must promptly deal with, since you all know them. (A few deny it.) Can I prioritize? Hardly. I guess that the worst on the list is the attitude of some fellow humans that nothing should be done and things will improve on their own. I calculate this to be our worst enemy. When they say nothing should be done, they forget that most of our problems we caused and we must fix.

At the time I am writing these words, the election is three days away and when you are reading, it will be three days gone. We may have some results. The big question everyone is trying to answer is, did we need elections now. I didn’t think so, yet the strategists tasked with determining if we do or not did. We can blame Trudeau for it, but we know he wouldn’t decide such a step without careful studies and arguments amongst the experts, followed by the caucus and the party hierarchy. The results are a calculated risk that they felt they had to take.

We had a strong minority government enjoying opposition support for most measures needed for dealing with the crisis the country and the world are facing. No credible political party wanted to see the country plunged into chaos, despair, and possibly fighting. The solution was to pump money into the economy in such a way that the economy would not collapse. How it should be done was debatable.

If you pump money in, you stimulate whatever it is, but you must eventually take it back out or have other problems and it hurts. People demand politicians give them good times constantly.

Whatever comes out of the 2021 elections is now determined. The people will have spoken. Now we must get ready for the next elections, which I believe will be Civic elections and after that, the big one, the Provincial elections. We are called to make choices all the time and if we make wrong choices; we pay dearly. As proven in the last little while, some will pay with their lives.

How should people choose who should be handed the reins, be the leader, decide governing all aspects of our lives, even life itself? At the same time, how can we recruit suitable candidates and retain them?

Some will run for the prestige of being leaders. A guy fixed my washing machine and told me he was the mayor of a tiny hamlet. Why? Some may do it for the pay, directly or indirectly. Some have a hidden agenda. They wish to achieve something that will pay off and can only be done if there is political will. They may have pure intentions like, for example, building a new Seniors Centre in town, or may want to sell some parklands to a friend who will reward them somehow later. These days people get into politics often to promote the political or economic core beliefs of an established party.

The Right believes that private enterprise will stir society in the best way and the Left is the opposite. They want people, through democratic controls, stirring society in a predetermined direction for other reasons than personal gain. Each has advantages and setbacks. Some politicians wish to advance a religious way of life or open the door for making profits where they are now restricted, like in health care, for example.

 The opposite would be those fighting for Pharmacare. Drug companies will lose billions if governments will negotiate the best prices for their products and charge them for the publicly funded research constantly done.

We are back to the base question. How do we get politicians who will act on our behalf and be competent? I would say the first step is to pay for what they are worth. Second, have a system to recall them if they fail miserably. Third, make the Media accountable and demand accountability. They/we used to be that way much more than we are now.

How do we choose who to vote for? We could have professionals develop a test that each citizen can perform on every politician. Computers can help a lot.

I watched the last provincial elections here and in other provinces. It was easy to determine that some leadership hopefuls either didn’t publish their platforms or promised things that couldn’t be achieved. This, in my opinion, should be published for all to see and possibly punishable by law.

Elections should not be a contest for who is the best in telling lies but for who is willing to do the most work towards making life safe and enjoyable for all voters. Consideration should be given also for fairness and good moral standards. We should have leaders who are capable, hardworking, and give us a good example.

I watch the news to see what I can learn from these elections to help me decide my actions in the next two. Right now, I may live or die by the actions of those “free” to spread a virus. Only politicians with backbone can save me.

I watch and memorize which of them chose steps to let me live. In the next two elections, that will be the first bar they must clear if I may vote for them. Did they take steps to protect me and the millions of Albertans who are like me? Will my representatives publicly take a stand to choose “Life,” my life. If they coddle the “freedom terrorists” (My opinion), I am not even considering the rest of their opinions and let the people speak.

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

Old versus Young.

 

Old versus Young.

What a breath of fresh air to have an editorial from a young adult in the paper that I contribute to. My job is that of the opposition and I work on it. For a long time, we dismissed the political power held by young people who just became eligible to vote. There are millions of them, but we assumed they are not interested. I have a nineteen-year-old grandson and I know that they have opinions, analytical minds, and often a strong interest in the way we lead the country.

Their elders dismiss them, as Aiden Douglas said. In the past, people said the same about women. A known argument against women’s suffrage was that it will give every married man two votes, his own and his wife’s. I have been married close to fifty years and am still guessing how my wife may be voting. My grandson proudly told me who he was voting for. He is not voting for his dad’s favourite party. His dad, who runs a small business, thinks that he is a big entrepreneur and votes for big business against what my grandson Kaydan considers his group, the students and working people. His mother is a nurse risking her life daily while watching politicians cut her pay.

There are differences between the old and young. The old have more life experience, gather more information, but often have loyalty to someone or something that is changed or gone. They/we are also short-sighted physically and mentally. Why, for example, should I worry about fifty years from now? Kaydan and Aiden should be concerned with the future far beyond my limits. In politics, I may vote for a party that helped my parents 70 years ago while the young guys probably will be alive seventy years from now, if Medicare isn’t privatized. I may be concerned about coal while they will need microchips. Older guys may be concerned about their constitutional right to spread a communicable disease while the young are affected by cuts to education.  

Young people today are facing decisions that I never did. The world is a different place than it was in my youth. They are doing it bravely, but they base their choices on the information they learned from us older folks. They follow the examples we set for them. Is that freedom of choice? Do they have the tools they need for building the world of the future?

We the old, engineered world wars, a dog-eat-dog world, machines that  use up all the air and water that young generations need for their future. In 30 years, they may have to pay for air. We already pay and fight for freshwater. Here in our little paradise in the mountains, we see the fight shaping up today. We are facing up with our neighbours downhill about water as I am writing these words. Politicians are making the choices based on votes. Do the young people have the background needed to choose what will be their future?

Douglas wrote in his editorial about “Greta Thunberg, who is 15.” Sorry young friend, she is now 18 and still fighting. Canada is emitting only a small percentage of CO2 for its size but check the per capita figures. A billion-plus people in India and another billion-plus in China are emitting much more, but they are trying to survive while our emissions give us a life most of them can’t even dream to live. We need heat and they need cooling and food. Per capita, they do more to curb the atmospheric damage and there are no walls on earth to separate them from us. All we can do is start a nuclear war and destroy your future forever.

I am so impressed to see a young person calling other young people, who now have a vote, to dive in and do something about the way the country and the world are going. Lifeguards are especially good at it since they are trained to risk it all to save others. My generation fought to end wars, bring equality, and have the freedom to make moral judgments. We lost some but won much. At the time, we didn’t foresee the troubles the world will face now when the population doubled, corporations grew at the expense of little businesses, the Media bought by private interests to no longer give a complete picture and so much more.

I also, just like you, want young and old to take an interest in politics and have a say in running the world. We only have one. I encourage people to see who in politics are the habitual liars, who demonstrably do something for most of us, and who are concerned with what we will leave for you young people. Don’t be fooled by those who ask “who will pay for” the needs of the majority of people while giving away all of what we have to a chosen few. Ask who chose them to have what they can never even spend.   

Aiden, Kaydan, and others like them will run the world at the time that I and the dwindling group, who are now the “elders” will no longer have a say about our destiny and the world’s future. Looking into the crystal ball now is not promising. The neglect of the elders, the selfish squandering of the world’s resources, and the ruthless race for power by power-hungry people are scary. Go on like that and our civilization is lost.

It is not the only way. There is a theory, now 2000 years old, where people voluntarily take care of each other, not hoard wealth and power, while improving the world and what people will become. We must set our goals towards what is good and work for it. Elections every few years are the stepping stones to achieving the goal if we choose it.

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

Oh, Little Towns.

 

Oh, Little Towns.

Around 1995, I began considering a place to retire. A co-worker mentioned the Crowsnest Pass, but I remembered it from the late sixties and it didn’t look great in those days. The friend told me it was now clean, “pure mountain air” and that fixer-upper little homes were selling for as low as $16,000. I drove over. That trip changed my life. Now I am an old-timer here. This is home.

In the beginning, it looked as if the place was declining, but so was the world economy. Every few years there is an adjustment when many poor people lose their savings and homes later to change around and start again. My real estate agent, a Swiss guy, told me he was waiting for the place to become like a European mountain town with a lot of little businesses, pretty homes, and many people vacationing away from the cities. There was a steady talk from old-timers about “heavy industry” and coal mining, but protecting the water took first consideration with governments, and mining was regulated by law, as I was told.

I didn’t know the background of the arguments yet decided that the place was a gem. It had the looks of a place that is on the verge of developing into a historic attractive self-sustained community housing some coal miners, folks seeking an old-style rural feeling, and businesses to cater to them. It had a reputation for being friendly and welcoming. On my first Christmas Eve here I saw “folks dressed up like Eskimos” heard church bells ringing, observed bright stars above snowy mountains, and placed a down payment.

When I moved here, I found out that there were many attempts to develop the towns that were often refused by the local population and their councils. Some people wanted the coal mines (heavy industry) to come back and nothing else. Others simply didn’t want the place to change but complained persistently about the small tax base and lack of money for improvements. Businesses started and died, a mall converted to a storage place, and new projects stood undeveloped for years. There were good reasons, I am sure, but I am telling what I saw.

I discovered a town in Colorado that is much like our towns. As a matter of fact, from the air, you could mistake it for the Crowsnest Pass. Its name is Crested Butte, and they call it a Zoom Boom town. It is a recent phenomenon that appeared since COVID started.

People from the big cities are looking for small, attractive, peaceful places to live in. Zoom and the internet at large make it possible to work and study from home. If the workers need some time in the city, they can rent their country homes out for a period of months or even a day like an Air B &| B. The income can finance the home. People moving in, even for a short term, often are much more well off than the old locals. Animosity is building up and we hear the old French revolution slogan “eat the rich” used.

Overall, the little towns that were looking for new residents to move in and pay local taxes, find their towns becoming too expensive to live or even rent in, and the new people may change the town’s character. Resentment is building. With the Zoom Boom, there is a fresh development and a noticeable shortage of service workers. We halted immigration for over a year. If you have working-class level employment, you may not be able to find a place that you can afford to live in. Where there was an unemployment problem now, under-employment makes things less affordable, especially for those on fixed incomes, which many old-timers are.

I realize that complaining is not the solution. I also know that blaming new people who invest in our community will not serve us, or the new people. When the province cuts money to education, healthcare, infrastructure building, municipality programs, recreation, transit, policing, and who knows what else, we must be prepared. Many are helpless to do anything. We need to figure out solutions other than waiting for the oil prices to rise and bring a windfall or new energy investors to return.

Instead of fighting for some foreign companies to mine our resources and sell them to other foreign countries, we could take initiative and help ourselves. If “heavy industry” will not work, a string of smaller businesses will do the same. We need modern-day solutions, not solutions that would have worked in the past but perhaps are outdated. If kicking a dead horse doesn’t work, a fresh horse may be a good idea.

We have historic little towns near cities with relatively wonderful services. We have good people that can serve on council and do what’s good for us. There is potential here for a lot of light industries, and businesses on the internet or on the ground. Let’s attract them, help them (Not tax them to death) improve services and go on aggressively with the beautification plans that already began. Retain and market our advantages and use the skills and experience of those moving in. They love our place and want to help.

We see a push towards reducing services in rural areas designed to herd populations to cities, leaving the countryside to large corporations. It is slow yet effective. Fewer voters in rural areas will reduce our ability to influence politics. However, for most of us, it is a way of life worth preserving. Now, with the Zoom Boom, it is our chance to rebuild our communities up to modern standards.

We may never go back underground or even mine coal again, it’s in the courts, but can influence our and our children’s future. It takes having a vision and a plan of how to achieve it. Let’s show what country people, old and new, can do.

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

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.