To All the Really Good Ones, and to all in peril on the deadly angry sea: 'Caliban', (a broke-down old carpenter's grandiosely affected character), has promised to share an inspiring 'vision', a vision of a New Nation, born into a New Spirit, a New America in which ALL our children's dreams can prosper. We can do this. We can build such a nation. As impossible as it may now seem, as we all 'see' our beloved nation, the land where all the people we most love and cherish live, thrash in the grip of deadly degrees of rage and even insanity, we CAN awaken, as if from a bad nightmare. We can awaken into a New Spirit. We can. (I have faith in us). As pure ugly unadulterated HATRED, of citizen against citizen, continues to spread over our nation like a Shroud of Doom, oozing like a poisonous fog into every public institution, into every home, insidiously infecting every heart, even filling our children with hopeless gloom, imagine if we were really 'free', (here in the make-believe 'land of the free'), to build a New Nation, inspired by a New Spirit. Imagine what that would feel like, to each and every one of us, to ALL people of good will, if we, all together, as a nation, as a collective entity acting with focused intent, undertook the determined task to improve ALL our lives. Imagine what it would feel like to wake up every day in a nation that was determined, all together, as a collective entity, to make ALL our lives better. Imagine what it would feel like to wake up each day and go to work, to contribute our own personal energies to a noble higher cause greater than ourselves, to do our own parts to contribute to this collective and intently focused effort to fill our children's hearts with the joy of dreams within their reach, and our youth with the joy of creating their own happy homes and lives. Imagine the feelings we would have toward and for our fellow Americans, towards each other, as we ALL 'put our shoulders to the wheel', together, to contribute to an intently focused effort to make ALL our lives better.  Do we think HATRED could possibly dominate our nation, as we can ALL surely see it does now, if we did that? Why don't we? Why aren't we doing that? What is stopping us? How did this Bad Spirit that now fills so many hearts, an/or the fear that this Bad Spirit engenders in those hearts that yet resist it, get into us? How did we come to be so deeply divided by the blood-deep hatreds that have delivered us to the very brink of deadly violence? Why don't we, as a nation, embrace Good Spirit instead? What, exactly, is stopping us? Addressing THAT question is the crucial 'key' to Caliban's Vision. What, or, more to the point, 'who', is stopping us? Identify the Enemy. We, The People, are NOT each other's enemies. We, the nation's Common People, now so deeply divided by deadly hatred, all have a Common Enemy. That Enemy does not want us to build a New Nation, born in a New Spirit. That Enemy wants us to hate each other, exactly as we now do. What is happening in our nation is THE most ancient methodology of social control. Divide and Rule. Get the Common People to hate each other, and fight each other, so we can never even face our Common Enemy. This most ancient strategy for social control, Divide and Rule, is being brilliantly executed through central control of the nation's means of communication. The means of communication are the means of power. Using control of the most sophisticated and powerful Mass Media that have ever existed, our nation's Common People have been cunningly manipulated into hating each other, rendering us politically impotent to organize a United Political Front to oppose the rule over our nation by a relatively small Cabal of Super Wealthy Elites. We ALL 'see', perfectly well, that our nation has fallen under these people's control. "Identify the Enemy". We, The People, the nation's yeomen folk, are NOT each other's enemies. We have only been cunningly duped into hating each other as if we were each other's enemies. "Divide and Rule" is a ruse as old as Human Civilization itself. It is, quite literally, "the oldest trick in the book". What is happening in our nation has been going on for 10,000 years. And we're falling for it. We're being duped by, quite literally, the oldest social ruse, the oldest trick, "in the book". Why don't we stop? Why continue to be rubes, and/or shills, in these people's, these Ruling Elites', game? Why not awaken from our foolishness? Why not unite our efforts, awakened into New Spirit, organize ourselves politically, throw off the yoke of these Super Wealthy Elites, and build a gleaming New Nation reborn in Good Spirit and prosperity for ALL? People who should be allies must FIRST stop being enemies. We have ALL the tools and resources we need to build a gleaming New Nation, forged in Good Spirit. The wonders of modern technology make it possible for us to do things, to build things, that have never been possible before.  Imagine if No ONE in America was poor. Think about that. We could do that. We could eliminate poverty completely. Try to imagine the far-reaching effects that simply eliminating poverty, completely, would have on ALL our lives. Imagine if the evil Demon Poverty did not even exist in our nation, at ALL. Imagine if EVERY person in the nation, even the least among us, had dignified housing in which to live, in safe and peaceful neighborhoods, with good schools in each one, staffed with well-paid, highly motivated teachers. Imagine if EVERY child was freed from the ravages and dangers of the Demon Poverty, and thus was free and eager to learn to create the lives that they would thus be free to dream of. Imagine if EVERY person in our nation had completely 'free' access to the finest and best health care that exists. Imagine if EVERY child born in our nation had access to the finest 'free' education that our nation can provide, to the highest level that each child is capable of achieving. There's no such thing as a 'free lunch', of course. Somebody pays. We are not talking about these essentials of dignified Human Civilization, the essentials of truly 'civilized' human life, being literally 'free' of cost. We ALL know what those 'essentials' are: 1) Clean, safe, comfortable, i.e.: 'dignified' living conditions for ALL, for even the least among us, 2) care provided for those who cannot care for themselves, for the elderly, for the ill, and for the infirrm, 3) completely open, available, and EQUAL opportunity for ALL our children, for EVERY child, every single child born to us. These essential elements of Human Civilization, toward which Humanity has been striving for 10,000 years, cannot be 'free'. They are 'dear'. They are expensive. They cannot be 'free'. We're talking about these social expenses, the expenses of moral, spiritually dignified Human Civilization, for ALL our nation's citizens, being 'socialized'. We're NOT (necessarily) talking about Socialism. We can still harness the powers and incentives of 'free enterprise'. We're only talking about these expenses, which are essential to the very existence of a truly 'civilized' society, being provided and paid for by the entire society, acting together, as a collective entity, because we ALL benefit IMMENSELY, in so MANY ways, when the entire society has free access to these things. We ALL benefit because our lives become more prosperous, both in moral and spiritual terms, but also in terms of real wealth, in terms of real dollars in our own pockets. When the Demon Poverty is no longer 'free' to roam and ravage at will, the powers and incentives of 'free enterprise' can blossom into full flower as never before.  To not socialize these provisions of dignified civilization for ALL, for even the least among us, is "penny-wise but pound foolish". Providing them is expensive, sure, but as we can ALL 'see', just by looking around us now, not providing them costs us so much MORE, in real terms, in real dollars. The real costs of widespread poverty, just in terms of the ravages of crime that poverty causes, (to mention that one major factor alone), and the myriad costs that crime exacts on us all, (let alone the moral and spiritual devastation that crime exacts on human lives and souls), are MUCH higher, exponentially higher, than the costs of completely eradicating poverty would be. The real costs of NOT educating every child to her and his full potential, the real costs of wasting the precious natural resource of our human mind-power, the real costs of NOT providing opportunity to build happy and prosperous lives to EVERY child, are MUCH higher than the expenses of doing so.  We ALL 'get richer', in real terms, in real wealth, measured in real dollars, in such a Truly Civilized society. We ALL 'get richer' when we 'act together' to benefit each other. (All for One. One for ALL). The thing is, those horrific social costs of poverty and crime are not borne by the Ruling Elites who control our nation. These rapacious Ruling Elites don't care about the miseries that the Demon Poverty exacts on our lives. They actually profit. These few Ruling Elites actually get richer, from the existence of poverty and crime. Thus they make us, the Common People, pay the huge costs of NOT eliminating poverty. The small Cabal of the Super Wealthy Elites that now rule over our nation profit from our misery, while insulating themselves from the miseries they force us to suffer. They live in gated communities, guarded by armed guards. They travel by private jet, and by helicopter. They vacation on yachts, in places where we, the Common People are not even allowed to go. They travel the streets, (when they must), in chauffeured limousines, under the protection of hired armed bodyguards. The people who will not allow us to slay the Demon Poverty, the very people who will not allow us to eradicate poverty from our nation, are insulated from the costs of poverty, and the ravages of crime that poverty engenders. The Ruling Elites control the nation, and they have NO motivation to allow us to do such things, like eliminating poverty, (or caring for the old, the ill and the infirm, or providing opportunity for every child). Their motivations are perverse. They not only will not allow us to do these things, they are specifically and cunningly PREVENTING us from doing these things. Identify the Enemy. Criminals are NOT 'the enemy', (even though those poor souls do prey on us). Human crimes of passion will always happen. But most criminals are motivated, in one way or another, by poverty. Most crime arises from the ravages wrought in people's lives, in people's hearts,by the Demon Poverty. Most criminals are the victims of the Ruling Elites who will not allow us to slay the Demon Poverty. Thus the criminals' victims are also the Ruling Elites' victims. The victims of crime, like the criminals themselves, are the victims of those who deliberately perpetuate the existence of poverty for their own profit. Identify the Enemy.  When I was a boy in America, (in the 1950s, in the Midwest, in a place that liked to call itself "the heart of America"), American children were commonly admonished to "eat our vegetables", to "clean up our plates", to not waste the abundance of food we enjoyed, because "people are starving in China". That admonishment was commonly heard by American children at kitchen tables all over America, just 60-odd years ago. Indeed they were. People were indeed starving in China, in large numbers, in the 1950s. Deadly famine was common in China then, and millions starved to death. China was among a small handful of the poorest nations on Earth. China set for itself the specific national goal of eliminating poverty, completely, from its society. Just 60-odd years ago, people in China were starving to death in large numbers. Famine was widespread. Just 21 years ago, in the year 2000, fully half of the Chinese people were still living in "extreme poverty". Today NONE are. (See graph). China set this national goal for itself, and in the span of one human lifetime, accomplished it. There is an estimated $100 TRILLION dollars of private wealth in America. There are an estimated 123 million households in America. Do the math. There is approximately $813,000 dollars of private wealth in our nation for EVERY household. There are an estimated 330 million people in our nation. There is $303,000 dollars of private wealth in our nation for every person alive. Yet according to pre-pandemic statistics, (post-pandemic numbers are not yet even known), 41 million Americans were "food insecure", including over 13 million children. "Food insecure" is an official government designation that means they aren't literally starving, but they never know from where or when their next meal might be coming. They go to bed hungry one to several nights per week. They eat very unhealthy diets, loaded with pure sugar, (the cheapest calories available), and ironically, though so poorly fed, they are much more likely to be morbidly obese, and to suffer from the severe health problems that morbid obesity, and other forms of malnutrion, cause. Pre-pandemic, almost 600,000 people in America, (where there is $303,000 dollars in private wealth for every person), are homeless. In some of America's wealthiest cities, those in warmer climates where homeless people naturally go to try to stay alive, (like San Francisco, Seattle, LA, etc), city crews , (called 'poop crews' in SF), are having to routinely hose human feces off of the public sidewalks, because the lives of homeless people have become so decrepit that they cannot even find privacy, or proper facilities, to defecate.  "Ain't that America?"...John Mellencamp sang, (in presumed irony), in 'Pink Houses'. Aint' that our sad, morally decrepit nation, where hatred spreads ominously over us like a cloud of doom, steadily infecting our hearts with the swelling pus of deadly rage? Ain't that America, where when the trays go 'round the nation's collective Thanksgiving table, some take so much that the bounty of turkey and fixins' all run out before the trays go even 2/3 of the way around the table. (Approximately 1/3 of Americans now live in 'poverty', if we define 'poverty' as living sub-middle class lives, as living in constant crushing anxiety, just one illness, one lost job, one paycheck, away from being 'on the streets' with crying hungry children in tow). "I think we can do BETTAH' !" I remember how ole Robert Kennedy would stab aggressively at the air with his finger, as he said those words angrily, after citing the tragedy of poverty, and even hunger itself, existing in such a wealthy nation. I was a young man in college. I saw him in person. I remember. "I think we can do BETTAH'!" he would say, angrily, in his standard stump speech in '68, with a voice steeled to determination by his genuine moral anguish and outrage, only a short time before he was murdered. It was spring when I saw him stab at the air angrily, and heard him say that. Dr. King, our nation's greatest prophet, had just been murdered. "I think our nation can do BETTAH!" I remember how The People's outrage was growing then, over half a century ago now, when Bobby Kennedy was saying that angrily in the spring. By early summer he was dead. His brother had stabbed the air with his finger just like that.I remember. I saw him. I heard him. He would stab the air with his finger, in exhorting the nation's people to higher moral purpose and action, while advocating for the downtrodden, for the poor, of all races, and for the civil rights of racial minorities. John Kennedy had stabbed the air with his finger, just like his kid brother later did, while advocating vigorously for world peace. He had 'crossed horns' with the CIA, after CIA director Allen Dulles had lied to him to get him to approve the ill-fated Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba. Kennedy fired Dulles after that disaster, (pinning a medal on his chest before accepting his face-saving resignation). John Kennedy then delivered a major policy speech, advocating for world peace, in the summer of '63, just a matter of weeks before he was murdered. "So, let us not be blind to our differences--but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved...... For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal". As the Nuclear Demon constantly pulls violently at weakening chains, what wiser words, trying to forestall a terrible fate for all Humanity, could possibly be spoken? Many think Kennedy was already planning to pull US troops out of SE Asia, (after the CIA calamity in Laos in '62), ending the tragedy in Viet Nam before it even got going, before it killed over 58,000 American soldiers, and an estimated 1-3 million Vietnamese people, (most of them civilian peasants).   Kennedy was murdered only weeks after giving that major speech advocating for world peace. Many think that Allen Dulles orchestrated the murder of both the Kennedy brothers, and likely Dr. King as well. Ain't it 'funny' how the CIA, since its creation in 1947, seems to have its finger in every pie? Some think Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy's VP, was 'in' on John Kennedy's murder. As depicted in Oliver Stone's historical drama, 'JFK', the Kennedy murder was thus a 'coup'. That's what the prosecutor, Jim Garrison, actually said, in his summation of the case he presented in Court. In typical historical irony, (in which foxes always seem to guard hen houses), Johnson appointed Dulles, the 'father of the CIA', to the Warren Commision 'white wash', which ostensibly 'investigated' Kennedy's murder. Dr. King, undoubtedly the greatest prophet our nation has yet produced, was murdered only weeks before Bobby Kennedy. Ain't that America, where all the Common People's most powerful social heroes, anyone advocating for Justice and Peace, are always murdered, always ostensibly by 'lone gunmen'? Identify the Enemy. ** The Ruling Elites now want us to regard the nation of China, a nation of 1.4 billion human souls, who "inhabit this small planet" with us, 1.4 billion fellow human souls who "cherish their childrens' future" just as we do, the nation that set the goal for itself of eliminating poverty, and then accomplished that goal, as our deadly mortal enemy. Why? Why should these people, our fellow human souls, who cherish their children just as we do ours, be our mortal enemies?  The Chinese consider the minds of their children to be their nation's most treasured and valuable natural resource, more treasured than 'gold', (or any rare-earth metals). To the Chinese, their childrens' minds are as treasured as sunshine, as treasured as all the finest gifts that the Good Earth provides to Humanity. China is a nation that is animated and governed according to moral and spiritual imperatives, (largely Confucian). We should NOT, of course, idealize China. No great and powerful nation can ever completely avoid doing evil to some. The vagaries of our human nature will always assure that human conflicts, some severe, some excruciatingly difficult to resolve, will arise. Human spiritual corruption certainly exists in China, as it does among humans everywhere, in every nation. Human corruption does exist, and does infiltrate the governments of every nation on Earth. But in China, office holders are expected to revere the welfare of the Chinese Common People. In China, those that don't, those that hold public office but use it for private gain, at the expense of the Common People, i.e.: the corrupted, are the exception, not the rule. When they are caught, (as they sometimes are), they fall into disgrace, and suffer even more than common criminals. In America we have long ago seen the death of Public Honor. The Truth has no status whatsoever, any longer, in our nation. Our public office holders lie as easily and glibly as they breathe. We all know the 'old joke'. "How do we tell when our public officials are lying? Their lips are moving." We are now ruled over by Big Lies. Truth has no status at ALL. Propaganda narrative, (aka: "spin"), is all that matters anymore in the good ole US of A. When the Wealthy and Mighty are caught engaging in corruption, they get a firm slap on the wrist, (if any punishment at all). We can ALL 'see' that our government serves the interests of the relatively small Cabal of the Ruling Elites that control it, NOT the interests of the Common People. We can ALL 'see' that our government has become a giant system of legalized bribery, a giant sewage scum swamp through which our public officials slither to secure the sweetest bribes by serving the interests of the Super Wealthy who pay the bribes. According to a July 2020 report of a poll conducted by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance at the Kennedy School at Harvard University, in China, in 2016, (the last year the long term Harvard study of Chinese public opinion was conducted), a staggering 95.5% of the Chinese people were either "relatively satisfied" or "highly satisfied", with the Chinese central government. In America, ostensibly 'the land of the free', where the people who control our nation, the small class of the Super Wealthy Ruling Elites, tell us that we must regard China as our most deadly mortal enemy, (China itself constantly and consistently says it wants to be our friend), 26% of US citizens approve of the way the US Congress is doing its job. 71% disapprove. (The 26% are largely the well-paid minions of the Ruling Elites, their well-paid employees in corporate management, and/or doing the other key jobs that are thus highly paid). 75% of our citizens want to create a system of socialized health care, but we can't do that because the Super Wealthy who control our nation, who profit from our current corrupt $3.5 TRILLION dollar health care system, won't let us. Thus we pay fully TWICE as much for health care, that is easily demonstrable as markedly inferior, than every other advanced nation on Earth, which ALL provide socialized health care. 72% of our citizens want the cost of college education to be socialized, and thus 'free' to all students. But we can't do that because the Ruling Elites, who profit from the $3.3 TRILLION cash cow of high interest student debt, won't let us. Thus we have millions of young adults, crushed under this debt, forced to live with their parents, instead of starting their own adult lives. Ain't that America? Is that not the 'democracy' that our Ruling Elites, who have openly declared their determination to rule over the entire Earth, say they want to impose on every other nation on Earth? We cannot even do what fully 3/4 of our citizens want to do. And we call that 'democracy'? And the Elites who rule over this 'democracy', have openly declared that ALL other nations must impose this same 'democracy' on their citizens, or else we will consider them our as our enemies, and drop bombs on their citizens' heads, or else render them under siege warfare, (which we call "sanctions"), which causes great suffering and death among their citizens. We all surely remember when the US Secretary of State openly declared that killing 500,000 children, through the siege warfare of 'sanctions', was "worth it" to achieve US foreign policy objectives. Ain't that America? (As we can ALL 'see', it VERY obviously IS!) In China, which treasures every child's mind as the nation's most valuable natural resource, education, (like health care, of course), is socialized. The expenses of educating all Chinese children, to the highest level that each child can achieve, are borne by the whole society, because the whole society benefits, the whole society grows more prosperous, everybody has more money in their own pockets, when all children are educated to their maximum potential. China graduates TEN TIMES as many STEM scientists, EVERY year, (year after year, EVERY year), than does the US, where we saddle our own children with spirit crushing personal debt before they even get their first adult job. How are we going to compete, as a nation, in the world economy, against this nation that treasures its children's minds this way? Is our response to re-double our efforts to compete by better educating our own nation's children? NO! Our response as a nation, a nation being run by a cruel rapacious class of Super Wealthy Ruling Elites, is to declare that China is our deadly enemy, (despite the fact that the Chinese say they want to be our friends). We must prepare to fight and kill these people, our rapacious class of Ruling Elites now tell us. The US is sending our own young people all over the world, with deadly weapons in their hands, as soldiers. The US has approximately 165,000 active duty military troops operating in about 150 countries. We have Special Forces, our most capable young soldiers, operating in myriad countries, recruiting and teaching their young people to be soldiers. China has exactly ONE military installation outside its own borders, with about 2000 troops stationed in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa. China is aggressively sending its young people, as STEM scientists, wherever it can, to teach people in other nations how to use technology, how to design and build infrastructure, how to build roads, railroads, airports, seaports, dams and other irrigation projects, etc, to improve people's lives and prosperity. Gee....which approach do we think is more effective in winning over people's hearts and minds? Sending armed soldiers to train people to be armed soldiers? Or sending STEM scientists to teach people to use technology to make their own lives more prosperous and happy?  How do we try to compete with China? Do we treasure our own childrens' minds as our nation's most valuable natural resource? Do we redouble our efforts to educate our children? NO! The people who rule over America continue to saddle our young people with crushing debt, like some deranged Demon Moloch that demands the sacrifice of children to feed its insatiable lust and greed.  This is REAL! This is what we, as a nation, DO! THIS is America. China is brimming with Good Spirit. The Chinese people feel very good about who they are and what they are doing. They feel good that they are nurturing their children so well, and then sending them forth to other nations to nurture their children the same. The Chinese say that they want to be the American people's friends. The Chinese people say, out loud, and constantly, that they want to work together with the American people, to build a better world for ALL people. But the Super Wealthy Ruling Elites who control our nation, the Ruling Elites who have cunningly and deliberately divided our nation's people into mutually hateful factions, the Ruling Elites who prey on our own children, relegating them to crushing hopeless debt, say we must regard the Chinese people, our fellow human souls, as our deadly enemies. Hmmm....Let's 'see'......Enemy.. Enemy..Who is the Enemy?....The butcher? The baker? The candlestick maker? The people next door? The people across town? The people across the river? The people across the ocean? The people we pass by on the streets? The people two cubicles over? The people drinking coffee at the next table? Are we each other's enemies, as the Ruling Elites want us to be, and cunningly have us thinking we are? Enemy..Enemy..Who is The Enemy? Identify the Enemy. We CAN build a New Nation, born in New Spirit. What is stopping us? Caliban will address that question in future dispatches. All for One. One for All. Caliban Bent Birch Farm (the old Webber Place) 63 Webber Rd Brookfield, MA 01506 774 449-8030 |
Archives‎ > ‎