Forum Post: Rebuilding the World
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 1, 2011, 8:45 a.m. EST by randart
(498)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I hate to say it or see it happening to my children but there is a great depression looming on the horizon. I am getting old enough to not really worry for myself any longer but I am worried about the youth and generations to come.
Banks are broke. It is a fact that they really don't want you to think about but it is true. Through the pervasive greed from so few we have all been led to the brink of total collapse. It reminds me of the levies in New Orleans that protected the 9th ward. That part of the city was below sea level and yet they still lived there. When the storm came in the force of it overtopped the barriers and undermined them in other places. Now, the entire world financial system is below sea level and there is a big storm on the horizon. There a a small few who can see it coming and are trying to stack the sand bags around the weak spots but it will not be enough in the end. The question becomes what to do when people become fully aware that their money is gone?
As a species, we need to begin building a better foundation for the society that will emerge from the coming storm.
I propose these ideas for moving humanity forward in the not too distant future.
1) Protect those things essential to life on the planet. 2) Discourage exorbitant wealth and excess. 3) Assure there is enough arable land to feed local populations. 4) Control and regulate banks; it is your money. 5) Slow population growth through education.
Please add solutions to the list. We have to start planning this out now so we can ease the inevitable problems this world will soon face.
If you disagree with any of what I suggested then make a valid argument as to why and a solution that might work.
5) Slow population growth through education
Tell that to the Latinos
Though I was hoping for a good set of suggestions here it seems to have turned into a Craig's List Rants & Raves style series of responses.
It is proven that education, especially of women, leads to fewer children being born. I am not talking about sex education here, I am talking about general education. If people learn about life, science, and everything we can pass along from generation to generation then it would better all of humanity. Since you mentioned a specific group of people in your comment then it show you have a sort of contempt of them. If they are allowed to learn and grow they might not have so many children.
Don't assume I am against a woman's right to choose.
Well when their "leaders" and their assumed saviors, ELITIST WHITE LIBERALS continue to portray them as and treat them as "victims", the cycle of poverty and government subsidized living will never be broken. Elitist White Liberals are the most racist people on the planet, above Nazi types and Black Panther types. At least those types have a "fear" of specific groups of people. Elitist White Liberals feel far superior academically, morally, financially, etc. and continue to perpetuate the belie that these other "groups" of people must be dependent upon them and their so called "help". They continue to create generations of young minorities who have it instilled in them that they are "victims" of their circumstances and skin color, rather than very capable, intelligent people able to thrive with hard work and dedication in a world full of opportunities.
Population growth is actually a good thing.
It will force people to consume less.
oo, the repelicans oppose any form of family planning . . .
Don't even think I am a republican't because you are far from the truth.
I am just hoping that someday, by raising the overall intelligence of the populace, people will choose to have fewer children. I am pro choice and always will be.
Personally, I hope my possible grand children will not live like the children starving in some countries in Africa.
If you really want to know my political beliefs they are liberal and progressive.
So your beliefs are that INDIVIDUALS aren't capable of managing their own lives and money? You believe the "state" comes first above individuals? You believe minorities, women, gays, etc. are less capable human beings in need of "assistance" from far superior white people? That type of "progressive" thinking?
condoms for everyone!
Since when? Republicans would prefer you plan your family out. Don't have children until you can afford to take care of them properly. Oh yeah,get married before you have kids also.
"Republicans would prefer you plan your family out." Really? So a basic species instinct like sex should be not allowed if you're not rich enough?
What happens if a young woman gets pregnant after following all the precautions and doesn't have enough money to raise the child? What about those poor young girls or women who get raped? What about incest?
Maybe you are fortunate enough to have the ability to plan out your family but some don't and you want to take away their right to choose the path they feel is right.
I'm willing to bet you would not help the child once born into poverty. I bet you have said more than once that the people who need food stamps to survive are some sort of scum.
By the way, I know men who think they are Republican but are still deadbeat dads. Go figure.
Births that result despite the use of birth control, births from rape, and births from incest make up an extremely small group of births as a whole. In fact, I would venture to say that if unwanted pregnancy ONLY happened from these causes, we would be much more able and willing to provide the support those mothers would need.
But too many unwanted pregnancies occur because the female was having sex and not using any kind of contraception at all. Yes contraception should be free. Of all the things the government can use my tax dollars for, they can use as much as they want to give away birth control and abortions.
You can have sex without creating children. In cases of rape,incest,or possible death of the mother I could abide it but I still feel the killing of a baby is wrong regardless of the circumstances. It's funny you mention food stamps because I was part of the poor growing up. The experiences I had made me decide I was never going to live like that again.I know what it's like and for it's intended purposes welfare/food stamps are a good thing. However there is rampant abuse of the system. For example,several months ago I'm standing in line at Krogers with my marked down chuck steak (I rarely buy any meat that isn't on sale or marked down,God bless the deep freeze.) and the lady in front of me(who probably went around 300 lbs) had a cart full of nothing but meat of the best cuts. Sirloins,t-bones,pork loins,ribeye,spare ribs,etc. Her total was over $160 and she paid for it with her food stamp card. Deadbeat dads come in all political persuasions my friend. So tell me,how many children have you adopted since you throw out the same old line of "you won't take care of them after their born". I'm part of one of the biggest charity organizations for children in the country. We work hard for ALL children and make sure the poor ones get taken care of just as good as the better off ones. I know I can't prove this so you can take it however you want but it's the truth.
I can't afford to help others much. Although I have given people who look poor all the money I had on me many times over. It wasn't much but is was all I had so, to me, it was a lot.
As for the children. I recently saw some statistic about the growing poverty levels in the USA. More and more children are falling below the poverty levels. We are laying off teachers as budget balancing in the states happens more. Why not allow a woman the right to choose? Why do you think your perception of life is right and hers is wrong?
As for the welfare story. I feel the same way about people who I see abusing the system from CEOs to welfare recipients. I am not advocating that we ignore those who abuse the system but the grand majority of those who get food stamps get them because they need food. I too have to search for those foods that are on sale and should have been pulled from the shelf yesterday because I am poor. But, I have searched my own conscience and have decided that I don't want to see crying, starving people in the street. It isn't a perfect system but it is better than seeing our fellow humans starve.
One more point. You said that you work helping through charity organizations and I applaud that of you but let me ask you how your organization can handle the recent rapid growth in both population and poverty? Can it really help enough or does it only do "what it can"?
No matter what your come back might be I will always allow a woman to choose. Just like I would allow you to choose to believe and act as you see fit for your body and life.
I don't want to force my perceptions/morals on anyone just as I don't want others to try and force theirs on me. I think throughout this discussion I have said that these are my opinions or what I think or feel. I know I will catch some flak for this but I'm a Freemason and we work very hard to take care of children in need. Shriners hospitals are a perfect example of our work. (many people don't know that the Shriners are a branch of Freemasonry) We aren't out to take over the world,we want to make it a better place.
Then begin to work for a more equal pay for people so they can take care of their own. CEOs used to make about 30-40 times that of the worker now it is something like 3-400 times. The shriners should work to change that instead of lending a helping hand to a few who ask and are in need. Wouldn't it be nice if a family could actually take care of themselves today?
I have mixed feeling about that. I started at $2.35 and hour when I began working on electronic cash registers in the late 70's. I've worked hard over the years,educated myself in my field of work,negotiated my own pay and benefits over the years,and now make $50k+ a year with good benefits. I didn't expect right out of high school to make big bucks,I expected to have to work hard to get there and I have. Probably my biggest incentive was growing up poor which made me decide I was never going to live that way again. Do you really blame CEO's for negotiating the best deals they can? If you were seeking employment wouldn't you negotiate for the best deal you could get it? If the executive boards of corps wouldn't give them that kind of pay they wouldn't get it.
I don't expect CEOs to do anything but follow their own self interests. Of course they will try to get as much as possible because it is human nature to be greedy. I do expect a society, though, to make the attempt to reach equality as best as is possible. If we allow each person to follow their own desires to the ultimate end it will eventually bring us all down. I do believe in justice for ALL not just the few and in order to find that place it is incumbent on a society to place limits on those who's only goal is excess both rich or poor.
Why should these CEOs want so much and why should we as a society place this behavior into a class of something that is desirable when it causes so many to pay for their personal greed? If you are a Mason then you must have been told at some point the basic value of all humans. I have learned more of fairness and truth from a dog than the wealthy.
Really? Then what's with end abortion, end birth control etc? Doesn't sound like much of a plan to me.
Get married? So the divorces don't count? The run away Dads and Moms?
C'mon join the real world.
Who said end birth control? End abortion yes most of us believe in that. It's sad that we kill our unborn children and call babies a fetus so it helps ease the conscious of pro abortion people. Abortion kills a human being period. It destroys the only true miracle that humans can perform. What do divorces and runaway parents have to do with it? Sounds like you might be a believer in eugenics and we all know where that has led before.
You make assumptions because your belief has been challenged.
To abort or not to abort, isn't my nor your choice, it is one of those things that is too uniquely personal for another who is NOT involved to have any influence over. There are movements afoot to end birth control access to those without funds. Defunding Planned Parenthood is an excellent start to an even larger population explosion, not to mention the role PP plays in helping to control the spread of STDs, women and MEN's health.
Laws that have recently been proposed and defeated have amply demonstrated the premise that all forms of choice when it comes to women are being challenged.
The hand writing is on the wall, and it appears the public has one huge eraser.
Which of my beliefs has been challenged? Abortion = murder plain and simple. I'm sorry that you don't value human life,that makes me sad.
See? Your belief is that I do not value human life, that is an incorrect assumption. However, if you were to say that I do not believe it is any person's right to dictate the morals and values of another, you would be correct.
None of us has to approve or disapprove the rights of others, nor the right to deny them their own free will.
You are pro choice right? I mean you sound like it and if so then you do not value human life since you think it is okay to kill a human being.There is no right to kill.You still haven't told me which of my beliefs you challenged? I'm not being mean or anything I just think it's sad that it is legal to kill our children. You don't have to agree with me and we can agree to disagree but life is sacred and so many have been snuffed out and who knows who they might have grown to be. We never will because their mother made a decision to kill them.
I have explained to you and you fail to see. It doesn't matter whether I am pro choice or not. It matters only to the individual.
The challenge to your belief is simply that you have the right to dictate the morals of others as you are attempting to do now by making unfounded accusations as to my stand on 'killing a human being'.
My stance is that no one has the moral high ground to decide for others no matter the issue at hand. When you attempt to dictate morals on others you deny their free will, their inherent humanity.
Your position is clearly stated in the phrase, 'our children'. Ours? My children are mine and my spouse/partner/other term, not ours including many others or a nation. The children don't receive support from 'our' they receive it from those closest to them. We, meaning you, me and millions of others should not expect the right to make decisions for them or the parent.
The term, between me and my god, comes to mind...it's singular, one on one.
Oh yes,btw. We taxpayers do pay for other peoples children all the time.
So you think that the decision to take a human life can be moral? I don't care what your beliefs or moral system is killing is killing. Pretty it up by calling it abortion and ease the conscious by calling babies a fetus. Ease you rmind by saying it wasn't my decision to make. You're right,it's neither my decision to make or yours but it doesn't change the fact that a human life was taken. When I said our children I was referring to all children in the country and not claiming parentage of them. Millions,yes,millions of babies have been killed over the years. I'm sorry if you don't feel that's immoral but I do. Yes,they will answer to God but I doubt they care or they wouldn't have killed in the first place.
Again you misunderstand. It's not about what I feel or think, it's not about my or your morals. It's about no one has the right to decide for another.
It's about them being accountable for themselves, by themselves and the rest doing the same.
You dance around nicely. I didn't ask you to decide for someone,I asked you what you thought. You chose not to answer. Accountability,now that's something OWS is in short supply of. So if you feel we should all be responsible for ourselves why are you with OWS?
See. Again colored by your beliefs.
I see no connection between OWS and the issue you are, at this moment, espousing.
As for accountability, I see lots of call for that within the OWS. Asking for accountability from banks (legal or illegal, there is the ethics issue), asking for accountability from the representatives who have been elected to represent us. Asking those same representatives to be accountable to their oath of office.
There is more than one type of accountability, personal and public, when one works in an area that affects the public, then it is to that public the accountability should be.
As for my 'dancing around'. I stated my position and did not waver, I restated it in more than one way never changing the base position. You are the one who took a personal accountability scenario and expanded it.
We could take this into the arena of the hypothetical...
100 people will die if this isn't done, choose one to die or all will die. Which is the correct choice?
You raised the subject my friend. You won't answer my question so we must agree to disagree and end this pointless conversation.Peace out
How do you plan to actually get your "solutions" implemented by any GA, much less OWS as a whole or for that matter any political institution or candidate?
If we are truly an intelligent species as we tell ourselves then we should prepare for this collapse.
Personally, I think the world is filled with idiots who can't see beyond their own egos. The world is filled with amazingly stupid people and I wonder how we ever got this far to begin with.
I am reminded of a quote from a movie I watched the other day. "We are born and die between two eternities." As far as I can tell humans are going to be a flash in the pan unless we begin to try and raise the overall intelligence of the species. I know we will not do this due to other interests but we should try.
Just take a look around you and project what you see now into the future. If you are as old as me and do this it becomes sort of scary. I remember a world where people could make it on lower wages and there was much more room to explore Nature but those days are gone and as I project into the future I see horrific futures and none where technology or money will save us from ourselves.
The only hope we might have is to begin educating children and adults to see life differently because the path we are all on will not last. It simply can't be sustained for much longer.
I wish you all well and hope your children have a world with hope remaining.
Generalizations are easy and cheap. How do YOU plan to actually get the solutions that YOU suggest actually passed by any GA, much less OWS as a whole or for that matter any political institution or candidate.
There is no real point in proposing my solutions. Any of my solutions would be discounted off hand.
If you really want to try then the very first step would be to assure everyone that there is such a thing as justice. Just that one act would ease the strain in so much of the population it would be amazing. If we could see that there is something actually being done to those who are stealing on a massive scale then it would help to begin a discussion. When we see the head of the top banks reaping huge salaries and profits while taking people's homes for no reason then there will be conflict. When corporate CEOs make 3-400 times that of the workers and outsourcing their jobs for even more money then people who just want to live an honest life begin to take notice. Why isn't that a crime with consequences rather than reward?
But, it seems to me, in your original posting, you did propose a perspective. Have you read the Declaration of the Occupation of the City of New York passed by the NYC GA shortly after the occupation began and available on this website and elsewhere on the web? Curiously, many people with ideas about where they think the movement ought to go seem to be unaware of this. The point is, the movement already has a coherent direction if anyone would care to look. It has a decision making process if anyone would care to use it in the case that they happen to disagree with the already articulated direction of the movement.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/approaching-a-metapolitical-discourse/
http://metapolitik.org/article/approaching-metapolitical-discourse
Yes, things will be better after the great die off, billions fewer mouths to feed, a simple agrarian barter system, we'll be so happy! The sad part is the 1% will be the survivors! We'll all starve or be killed by the looters!
Economy & world looks like a train wreck or juggernaught to me . . . no stopping it . . . ppl's heads buried in the sand thinking Allah or jesus will save them . . . all the 'signs of the times' show it's unsustainable . . . time to get out of Babylon before it falls -- 4-horsemen of the Apocalypse: Global warming (climate change), geometric world population growth, funny-money wall Street scams, peak oil.
www.nationalday911.org check this out....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w