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When We Cherish Every Child, by Ray Zwarich

To all the Really Good Ones, and to all in peril on land or sea:

It's sure a lonely job, being Caliban. So many mysteries I've fallen into, and have had to somehow navigate out of. Ya know? Just try it. Come back to your middle class home in the suburbs, after a 3 AM meeting in an alley WAYY deep in Kansas City. What's a man t' say t' his darlin' long suffering wife? And when the neighbor asks? 

Yea ... It's a lonely job when there's not one you can 'talk shop' with...LOL

"It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air"
--R Hunter, the great great (great) grandson of Scottish poet Robert Burns

Methinks ole Bob Hunter often conversed with spirits that others could not 'see'. Dylan said much the same when ole Pete Seeger asked him how in the world he could think up and write so many great songs so fast. (Whispers about little Bobby Zimmerman having met someone 'at the crossroads' were kinda going around at the time). Dylan said, "Well, huh, huh", (he had a real goofus laugh), "ya see I don't even really think I write these songs at ALL. They're just in the air all around us all the time. I just hear 'em, write 'em down, and then sing 'em".

Yea ... Little Bobby coulda' been many things. But he preferred to keep to the shadows. Interesting. Who has he become? Yea ... That's how it is ... That's the sort of thing Caliban is stunned silly wondering. Well ... Ya don't bump into folks all that often that will dig into a conversation like that with quite as much, shall we say, 'enthusiasm'...LOL

"Seraphs will share with thee Knowledge, but Art, O man, is thine alone". 

Now THERE's a riddle fer ya. An ancient riddle. Has it ever been solved?

So far the nation has not erupted into violence, but the potential has not been averted. (Knock quickly). Resounding news is breaking. (Not vetted yet, so I won't repeat it (yet). 

C'mon, folks ... let's use our noggins. No force exists, no force unbiased by violent passions, even exists in our nation that could have possibly guarded the huge volumes, thousands of pallet loads filling thousands of trucks, of 100 million paper ballots. (How many semi loads would that be?) And the Common People are now s'posed t' believe that nothing ever "falls off a truck" when organized gangs of thugs are involved? 

This election was a rubber knife fight between two Gangs of Thugs. And we're s'posed to knock ourselves a good one on the head (cue the canaries) and somehow believe that this Mass Media Clown Show was "legitimate"? LOL ... Yea ... Okey doke ...

LOL ... How masks do fall away ... How easily it turns out that curtains are pulled aside. And all there is to 'see' is a wizened old man stirring the ice in very old whiskey with a cold bony finger.    

Caliban has taken to writing on ole Bob Scheer's blog. (He's still putting up with me). Copied below is my reply to a person who contended that we shouldn't have Universal Health Care, because it would "cost jobs". 

Yea ... Well ... This is their MAIN RACKET right now. This is their mainline 'fix' as they suck the nation's lifeblood. This is three to five TIMES the size of the Military Industrial Complex, (depending on how we measure the latter). 

It's like yer tellin' Tony Soprano how things are gonna be from now on 'round the neighborhood. What do we expect ole Tone might do? 

Folks just don't understand these realities. Bernie was playing "patty cake patty cake baker's man". That's NOT the game we're IN here, good folks.

Best to all. Hope all are well and strong,

Caliban

When We Cherish Every Child

Not quite sure what you’re saying here [this is a reply] but your contention is very unsound. We’re talking about $1.75 TRILLION dollars, (half of the $3.5 trillion we pay every year for health care), $1.75 Trillion dollars, (that’s 1750 billion), every year, is being taken out of productive circulation in the economy to further stuff the already bursting vaults of a very small number of people.

Well … let’s do the math … (poor Bernie and ole Lizzie musta skipped math class). That $1.75 trillion remember, is what we pay MORE than the most expensive nation with a Universal (Socialized) Healthcare system pays. Well …. That’s $5400 per year that every single American who draws breath pays MORE than a person in the next most expensive health care system in the so-called ‘free world’, (among rich developed nations).

That’s $450 per month. EVERY month. EVERY person in America. That’s what every human being alive in America pays as pure graft, pure ‘vig’, to the Syndicate Thugs to whom all that money goes.

The data from all advanced nations clearly show that we could have the finest gleaming health care system in the world for $450/month per person. But in America, the greatest country in the world, we pay $900 month. for a shoddy system that makes us feel like lab rats shuffled from one office to the next. (Healthcare outcomes are far better in every socialized system than in our greed-based system).

And poor ole Bernie and Lizzie somehow could not explain how we can possibly afford a system that would cost HALF as much? And now the Skinny Swamp Scum Lizard that we elected says he’ll veto Medicare for All, to save the poor nation from bankruptcy.

Gee … Ya s’pose ole Bernie and Lizzie just never thought they’d be asked that? Well … Let’s not think the worst of them. I’m sure these people were not ‘ringers’. I’m sure this was not a bit of ‘point shaving’ goin' on, naw … not such fine people as ole LizzyGirl and Squinty M’Goo. Naw, they weren’t on someone’s payroll. They were really just that gol’ dang STUPID.

This is gettin’ off the good citizen Jz’s point, which is we will ‘lose jobs’. Yea … Well … Sure …. Tony Soprano and his crew are going to have to get real jobs and work for a living, sure enough.

Any economic reorganization requires that citizens must adapt, and for some the adaptation may be difficult. In a well planned roll-out, measures would be provided to help people get themselves re-situated. You cannot make a delicious omelet without first breaking some eggs and making a mess in the kitchen.

The good citizen's comments lead into an ocean of discussion. We can ALL see that many jobs can be done cheaper by machines. Well … OK …But what will the people do then to live, to ‘make a living’?

What we set the machines to do will have no purpose if the people the machines replaced have no money to buy the product or service that the machines provide.

It would take many thousands of words to get there by navigating every pathway, but where this discussion inevitably leads is to how and by whom our money is created. We create our money now through debt. There’s no reason we have to do this. We can create money without creating debt.

That is KEY! That is the keystone without which the entire arch will fall.

Trickle Down never was anything but a game of Three Card Monte. It’s had its day, The people are no longer fooled. You’ve already taken most of our money.

Trickle Down’s time is way gone ‘UP’! It does NOT work. The money just goes UP, and when it does, it mostly just stays there. A few specialized jobs are created. Private jet and helicopter mechanics and pilots, and yacht captains, find more opportunities. But most of the money is simply hoarded, by a madness of Lust and Greed that fills the hearts and minds of those who EACH have so much that 10,000 people, and all their descendants, could not spend it to care for their families in 10,000 years.

Trickle Down’s time is OVER! The Rich all already know the jig is long gone UP. The dollar WILL fall. It’s actually already falling, but like turning a ship 50 times the size of the Titanic, these things happen very slowly.

When the dollar falls, when nations no longer need dollars to buy oil, the ‘reset’ we MUST do, (we will have no other options save a MAJOR RESET), will certainly require difficult adaptation by all, but the effort will be worth it, because we can build a MUCH better, much stronger, much more decent and moral a nation than the scum swamp mess these Scum Swamp Creatures are forcing us to live in now.

We will create money by simply injecting it into the economy at its ‘base’. No debt will be created. As long as the amount of money created this way does not surpass the people’s energy for using it in creative ways to benefit their lives and care for their families, this money can be created this way without causing inflation.

The money will, of COURSE, then trickle up. The Elites will still become The Rich.

That’s OK. People need incentive. The people with the most valuable talents should receive a bit larger share.

But NO man nor woman will have a share so large that the shares left for folks at the bottom are not wholesome for both human body and soul. Every person alive must live in dignity, where children thrive in happiness and learn eagerly.

A portion of the wealth that the nation creates by all its energies, by all its people, must be claimed by the nation itself, to ensure the “general welfare”, (as I believe the pre-amble puts it). A portion must be claimed for the Common Good.

The greatest Common Good in any society is that the least will live in dignity, where children thrive in happiness and learn eagerly.

Well … If a 91% top marginal rate doesn’t do it, a hard cap could simply be set. It’s the Common People’s RIGHT, their fracking HUMAN RIGHT, to receive a fair share.

I live in a state that calls itself a ‘commonwealth’. It calls its village green ‘the commons’. This did not come from the mind of Karl Marx. This was yielded by demand, at the point of sharp stout swords, from King John, when he signed at Runnymede.

This is not ‘socialism’. This is Democracy 101, boys and girls. If you’re signed up for something else you’re in the wrong place. This is TRUE Democracy.

If you don’t believe in TRUE Democracy, then DON’T call yourself a True Democrat.

Hear? 

Hey …. I ain’t runnin’ fer POTUS folks. Caliban can get pretty silly sometimes, (“I like to go just like the rest, I like my sugar sweet”), but I’m not THAT dumb. Nah … I’m lookin’ fer a ‘patsy’ t’ fill that job.

It doesn’t have to be someone whose name we now know. It just has to be someone who will ‘worship’ the truth like life itself, and, of course, someone who has the unique talents for that very difficult and demanding job, talents which include the inordinate courage to know that it will be a VERY dangerous job.

Anyway … Geez … Sorry …. This is how it is to be Caliban … It can be a bit of a burden, has been for over 72 years now. When we defeat the First Enemy, when we prevail over Fear, when we know that our death rides on our shoulder as our “constant companion” (Don Juan — a Yaqui brujo), we then gain Clarity. Then we must fight the terrible deadly Second Enemy, which is Clarity.

There are more enemies to face, to become a ‘brujo’, (young Castaneda translated it as “man of knowledge”), but Clarity is deadly enough.

I ‘see’ the path to victory. I ‘see’ the path to a nation reborn into a New Spirit.

The Chinese are a very fine people. They have much spirit, much wisdom they have gathered, that they are eager to share with others.

They cherish every child’s mind as their most precious natural resource, their nation's most treasured wealth.

In America, the greatest country in the world, (so many beat their chests like stupid apes and claim), we saddle our children with hopeless debt.

If our nation would cherish our people the same, I am VERY confident that we can hold our own in the world economy just fine. We must 'see' the people of all nations as our 'equals', not as our superiors.

We are a nation whose youth are ravenously hungry. Their spirits may be gaunt, but see the fire in their eyes. We must cherish their passion. We must cultivate the treasures in every mind. We must nurture every child's dreams. 

When we do that, we will look on all other people in every nation with as much pride in ourselves as we will expect from them.

Caliban