Where we are/Where are we

I know for certain only a few things.
The first is; We must always know what compassion is. Without compassion we are lost. We are a people who are bound to be destroyed. We are lost. We are gone. Karputt, totally.

The second is; We must understand empathy. Without empathy we are animals working off our instincts and nothing more. Our sense of mind, thought, art, creativity, science, passion are all lost. We are lost.

The third is; We must understand. We must understand that which is unknown to us. We must understand facts, figures and ideas but mostly we must understand others. Others who are different, who seem strange and mystical, who seem stupid and frightening. When we understand we will stop being lost.

The fourth is; We must know about giving. Without giving that which we have, which we are able to part with, empart, we are lost. We lose that which we cannot, will not give. Ourselves, mainly.

The fifth is; We must create space so that ideas, understanding, compassion, empathy, will rush in. When we create space we are able to feel a belonging as sense of joining, of togetherness. If we crowd our lives so much we will be lost.

The most important thing I have learnt is that we are bound to be lost.

If we don't know, not just not know how to, but who to, what to value, we are lost.

Valuing people, ideas, human ideals makes us all the more who we are. When we know who we are we are free to be wherever we are.

The is no greater thing than to be free to give, be compassionate, be understanding, to be empathetic. When we can do all that we are home.

Home; That place of comfort, and calm.

If we cannot accept others, we cannot accept ourselves. If we cannot value ourselves then we certainly cannot value others. Without valuing others we are lost.

There is no forgiveness if we cannot value.
If we cannot value then we cannot forgive.

Life is lost. Humanity is lost.

All this is encapsulated in one small word...no ...not love...but to deeply, freely, compassionately, understandingly to ...
CARE.

'A View From Moving Windows' Podcast by Fliction

'A View From Moving Windows' Podcast by Fliction

FBi On Demand

FBi On Demand

My Daughter

Gillard labels Abbott a misogynist

This is important. This has gone 'viral ' around the world. What did the mainstream media do in Australia? Their Prime Minister spoke and they castigated her. This speech will go down in history and they missed the point.
I am now proud of my Prime Minister. Some things she has gotten wrong, in my opinion.

1 Dealing with asylum seekers
2 Cutting of help for those with chronic illness to access oral care
3 Cutting the support of single parents
4 Not introducing a full ETS straight up
5 Putting a 'surplus' ahead of vision, services, infrastructure.
6 Not raising the Newstart allowance
7 Not reassessing the Disability support allowance and raising it
8 Not means testing private health
9 Not cutting back money for the richest private schools
10 Her treatment of Kevin Rudd.

Now she is showing the women of Australia that 'enough is enough' of this misogyny and sexism that is rife in Australian society, business, media and Parliament.

Keep going...keep at it Madam PM.

Australian Politics Oct 2012

The greatest danger of recognizing totalitarianism as the curse of the century would be an obsession with it to the extent of becoming blind to the numerous small and not so small evils with which the road to hell is paved." - Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, 1963

 The nature of the Australian state is a myopic one. In the West we have been inculcating ourselves to believe in our triumphs against the evils of totalitarianism: fascist and communist. Australian ought to reflect on what it was against and upheld. However, Australia participated in a war not to bring evil to the world but to eradicate evil. But Carl Schmitt noted that:
“For those in whom the will to abolish war is strongest their war is considered to constitute the last war of humanity. Such a war is necessarily unusually intense and inhumane because by transferring the limits of our political framework it degrades the enemy into moral and other categories and is forced to make of monster out of him, not only to be defeated but destroyed.”

 

Being a 'socialist' myself I have slowly become aware of some things the ALP are doing to move me away from them and back to my more secure socialist self.
Some examples;
removal of an elected PM: non support of ETS and watering down of carbon pricing; watering down of original mining tax; allowing USA troops in northern Australia; dismantling of the chronic disease dental support system; the continued propping up of the wealthy private schools; the continued proping up of the wealthy self funded retirees ( ie giving them the 'rights' of the poor basic pensioner); the vilification of those on Newstart ( including the forced 'volunteerism' of wives of aged care recipients): the underfunding of our PUBLIC hospitals; the dismantling of our TAFE's funding; the idea of a free education from infants through university GONE; support for the arts ( independent theatres, visual arts, music) non existent; the processing of asylum seekers who arrive only by boat in offshore concentration camps; Lack of support for Marriage Equality by a PM who is an atheist AND in a defacto relationship; Lack of leadership on all things that are hard, but fair and right!
Despite all this the idea of Abbott being PM is repulsive and the idea of another 11 years of conservative rule is too horrible to contemplate.
I search desparately for leadership, for moral 'high' ground, for ethical direction of our parliamentarians, and for those who will stand fast even though all those around them are vilifiying them and frightened for their own 'careers'. There may be but a handful.
 Very important to keep questioning everyone and every policy.

Anxiety

Lately I  have been having anxiety attacks over Henry but Helen is helping me realise why I am reacting like this. It has to do with my past experiences in the past 20 years where everything, all my dreams and wishes have been taken away and now Henry is part of the 'taking away' bit too..so adds to a kind of Trauma..from when Hubby nearly died ( 3x's) and my desires for my life constantly being put on hold then finally being taken away...I have had to compromise, ignore or just kill any desire and dreams...It is so sad but just for me...doesn't really involve anyone else...I have not become bitter, but I need to look after me and try and find things to look forward to...life is a bit hard...and the constant worry, responsibility...it is ALWAYS my 'job' and it depletes me...I feel burdened down with always taking care of absolutly EVERYTHING.

Mark Twain ; America's Iconic Writer

"There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing and predatory as it is -- in our country particularly, and in all other Christian countries in a somewhat modified degree -- it is still a hundred times better than the Christianity of the Bible, with its prodigious crime -- the invention of Hell. Measured by our Christianity of to-day, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the Deity nor His Son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilt."

Mark Twain - Reflections on Religion

 

"The best minds will tell you that when a man has begotten a child he is morally bound to tenderly care for it, protect it from hurt, shield it from disease, clothe it, feed it, bear with its waywardness, lay no hand upon it save in kindness and for its own good, and never in any case inflict upon it a wanton cruelty. God's treatment of his earthly children, every day and every night, is the exact opposite of all that, yet those best minds warmly justify these crimes, condone them, excuse them, and indignantly refuse to regard them as crimes at all, when he commits them. Your country and mine is an interesting one, but there is nothing there that is half so interesting as the human mind."

Mark Twain - Letters from the Earth

 

"...a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell--mouths mercy, and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!"

Mark Twain - No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger