Posts

Showing posts from January, 2018

Why the Revolution?

Image
Every human being on the planet has a vested interest in making the world a better place; and whether we think that is true or not will determine if our civilization will rise or fall. As humans, we have empathy, compassion, giving, and mercy at the core of our being – these traits are keys to how we were able to survive and thrive as a species – by working together, creating civilizations and cultures that shared resources and innovations, in order to become successful in our environments. Much of this good work continues today. Billions of individuals on this planet are working every day to create better lives for others, whether they are teachers or doctors or farmers or builders or cleaners or servers or learners. We all try to use what skills and resources we have in order to bring greater comfort or prosperity to our immediate environment, our families, our organizations, and our world. What is going wrong is that the institutions and systems we have created to ‘manage’ large pop

Extremes of Wealth and Poverty

Image
The narrative that our world is currently experiencing is one of extreme duality. Many people, especially those in powerful positions, live lives of outrageous wealth; wealth so extreme that it can often be viewed as excessive, wasteful, and wanton. On the other side, we see many more people living lives of poverty. Poverty so extreme that it often means malnutrition, lack of basic necessities such as shelter, access to clean water and sanitation, and lack of access to education and adequate medical care; conditions which often lead to social isolation and physical and mental illness. Proponents of the capitalist system that produces this dichotomy would have you believe that positioning in this system is justifiably earned, the result of choice and not of circumstance, and that all people are given equal opportunity to come out on the winning side of this equation. We need only to observe the lives of those being born in third-world slum conditions to be able to see how patently unt

Grassroots Revolution: Where do we begin?

Image
Why do we need a Revolution? After all, we have it pretty good here in Canada; free medical care, decent schools, most people have a pretty high standard of living... what's to complain about, right? And why go so far as to call for Revolution? Can't we trust that our government is doing right by it's citizens; keeping us safe and even prosperous, as individuals and as a nation? Also, aren't revolutions violent? I don't want to fight my own countrymen! A definition of Revolution is "a fundamental change in political power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time when the population rises up in revolt against the current authorities". I assert that current political and economic structures which govern our lives are creating extreme imbalances on our planet that cause great suffering and loss for many; while upholding a false sense of success for few. Here in Canada, we generally fall into the latter categor