***** IF YOU ONLY READ ONE ARTICLE THIS DECADE..... Greece’s solidarity movement: ‘it’s a whole new model – and it’s working’

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/23/greece-solidarity-movement-cooperatives-syriza

******* ******* ******* ******* *******..... Local restaurant owner declines Baltimore Restaurant Week to feed the homeless instead.

http://www.people.com/article/baltimore-restaurant-owner-feeds-homeless

Pic. To be able to sit here and speak the truth has cost me everything. It has cost me nothing of value. It has given me everything of value.

United Church of Christ votes to divest from companies with ties to Israeli settlements

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.663768

Year by slow year I think I am learning that I am NOT my pulse, I am NOT my breaths, I am NOT my body, I am all of Creation, I am The Creator.... A small cell in......

Year by slow year I think I am learning that I am NOT my pulse, I am NOT my breaths, I am NOT my body, I am all of Creation, I am The Creator.... A small cell in the body thereof. I am NOT here to waste time concerned with the existence of the tiny cell that I am, but rather with the whole. The only purpose of being concerned with the individual cell that I am is so that what good I can do as that cell is not a carelessly discarded. What horror, what waste, how sad, the massive amount of time that I forget, and confusedly, mistakenly, tragically... Deludedly think that I am this cell itself. -- Sent from Fast notepad

Note to self: invest in solidarity.

Note to self: invest in solidarity.

Stop Palestine death vigil White House, picture: those who are sure there's only one path to Creator no nothing of Creator.

Stop Palestine death vigil White House, picture: those who are sure there's only one path to Creator no nothing of Creator.

In 1987, a 74-year old rickshaw puller by the name of Bai Fangli came back to his hometown planning to retire from his backbreaking job. There, he saw children working in the fields, because they were too poor to afford school fees........

In 1987, a 74-year old rickshaw puller by the name of Bai Fangli came back to his hometown planning to retire from his backbreaking job. There, he saw children working in the fields, because they were too poor to afford school fees.

Bai returned to Tianjin and went back to work as a rickshaw puller, taking a modest accommodation next to the railway station. He waited for clients 24 hours a day, ate simple food and wore discarded second-hand clothes he found. He gave all of his hard-earned earnings to support children who could not afford education.

In 2001, he drove his rickshaw to Tianjin YaoHua Middle School, to deliver his last installment of money. Nearly 90 years old, he told the students that he couldn't work any more. All of the students and teachers were moved to tears.

In total, Bai had donated a total of 350,000 yuan to help more than 300 poor students continue with their studies. In 2005, Bai passed away leaving behind an inspiring legacy.

If a rickshaw-puller who wore used clothes and had no education can support 300 children to go to school, imagine what you and I can do with the resources we have to bring about positive change in our world!
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You and Justin Pether like this.

***** I want a world [tho I'll start with a US] that guarantees that which is Right for every human - decent, basic housing, food, water, respect, education, WORK... to everyone. Period. See Universal Declaration of Human Rights [That which is Right and Just - See Judaic values]. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

***** I want a world [tho I'll start with a US] that guarantees that which is Right for every human  - decent, basic housing, food, water, respect, education, WORK... to everyone. Period.  See Universal Declaration of Human Rights [That which is Right and Just - See Judaic values].  http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ethics#Central_virtues_and_principles_in_Jewish_ethics

***** ( I have rarely ever felt so identified) Loving & Understanding an Empath. Alex Myles Via Alex Myles on May 21, 2015.....

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/05/loving-understanding-an-empath/

***** I can no longer see any objective reason to try and be good, to try and do good. By every objective measure..... more...

***** I can no longer see any objective reason to try and be good, to try and do good. By every objective measure not me or anyone else is going to help move the world in a better direction. We have so morally degenerated any massive change, any significant minor change, is objectively beyond hope. I would rather die then not try to be good, and to try and do good. This is so, for me, not because I believe in some life after this, or some sentient creator of us all. I adamantly believe in neither of those life destroying, all of creation destroying, fantasies. I simply crave the intrinsic gratification of attempting to be good, and attempting to do good. I believe that any of the joyful people throughout history, all of our moral icons throughout history, if they understood and had the benefit of today's science, psychology, and the wisdom of the ages, would etirely and profoundly agree with this position at which I have arrived regarding doing good for the ultimate, supreme, intrinsic joy of the attempt . If you love yourself, if there is anyone or anything on earth that you love, I implore you to consider deeply, from the standpoint of objective truth, that which I am saying, to do the same with your life, for yourself, and for anyone and everyone, any individual, that you might possibly have influence with.

***** SPDF: I am adult-long devoted to human-crucial success, and to obstruct attempts likely to end in disaster.

I can think of little, if anything, that more centrally defines who and what I am then my devotion to finding and dedicating myself to actions, strategies, tactics, campaigns...  That have the potential to win, to succeed, if pressed hard enough, committedly enough, forcefully enough, hard enough, by enough people....  And I am unwilling to either participate in, or in any way enable, actions that are unlikely to succeed regardless of how much resources and effort are invested.

This characteristic of mine has been true of me throughout my adulthood.  It was central to who and what I was in my college and advanced degree educational life.  It was centrally true of me during all of my business career.  And it has been true of me ever since., I suspect, I am quite sure, it will be true of me until I take my last breath or degenerate into a different being psychologically.

My constitution is such that I am only interested in, I am only able, to participate in things that I think are monumentally important to humanity and to creation, and I am then unable to not devote myself to seeing what would constitute success, what would constitute failure, and to devote myself to the former and to stand in the way of the latter.

I've often thought, over many years now, I've often shared over many years now, of the example of the Space Shuttle Challenger.  The space shuttle challenger blew up.  It has been quite well documented that the failure was due to a part, an o ring, and my understanding is that quite clearly an engineer, or several engineers, knew of the potential risk before the launch, before the explosion.  I don't know the details of that event beyond what I just said, but my life has been centered around somewhat life and death ventures so I know the territory quite well. 

I know how desperately a team like that Challenger launch team wanted to meet deadlines, meet goals, have a success.  I know the pressures on that engineer, or engineers, that had negative news, had bad news.  I don't know of any life and death heroics that that engineer, or those engineers, waged to attempt to stop that tragic flight.  They may have done so, but I'll guess they did not.

Either way, I'm not suggesting the problem was primarily theirs.  Near certainly the problem was systemic, enterprisewide, the wrong value on success, lack of value on avoiding disaster.

Throughout my adulthood my devotion has been to achieve both mission critical success and to avoid mission disaster, to avoid enabling the masses of people involved that were not devoted to both.

On enterprises I've had some substantial successful impact, and much failure.

But I have never failed to make the attempt regardless of personal cost to me.  And I suspect this will always be true of me.

***** SPDF: WOW WOW WOW. SO THAT'S IT ABOUT CREATURES LIKE ME! HUH.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2015/05/04/shades-of-sensitivity/

***** SPDF: Godly Jewish High schoolers riding Jerusalem's light rail speak only Arabic to focus attention on incidents in which people were attacked because of the language they spoke.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4653796,00.html?preview=true

Chinese student carries disabled friend to school every day for three years so he doesn't miss class

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinese-student-carries-disabled-friend-to-school-every-day-for-three-years-10204785.html

SPDF Day 52-1: The North Star of Joy in my experience and study that we totally reject, obscure, belittle, bury... in our sickest of societies... is Meaning... Serving the Neediest from the Soul in Solidarity.... more

The North Star of Joy in my experience and study that we totally reject, obscure, belittle, bury... in our sickest of societies... is Meaning... Serving the Neediest from the Soul in Solidarity. I'm sharing my Treasure, not lecturing or preaching. All I'm saying, if you, or your loved ones, responds to Meaning, to Being of True Service, then I simply pray you make that of highest priority, and yes, I know that if you do, that makes things no easier at all, because we relentlessly destroy as a society the opportunity for near ANY OF US to lead meaningful lives... but to whatever small degree you can nudge in that direction... it cures a near infinite number of other issues spiritually, psychologically. Hugs. You are doing your best. Please find the peace of heart in that.

SPDF Day 52-1: To my sisters and brothers who watch and or interact with me - I am very harsh.... "What is to give light must endure burning" (Eleanor Roosevelt).... more

To my sisters and brothers who watch and or interact with me - I am very harsh, because I choose to live the harshness, the Apocolyptic Harshness of the 2015 and beyond world that I see.  I know that is experienced by you as hurtful, 'insulting,' 'judgemental,' thoughtless, unkind, supremicist... by you at times.  I understand that.  1.  I always strive to avoid trying to hold on to you... to hold you close to the fire with me, unless that is YOUR desire; 2. I NEVER intend to hurt you; 3. I judge that as your brother I OWE YOU to burn with the fire of the impending Horror of the multiple Armageddons unfolding now to give you the option of seeing it, experiencing it, as clearly as I  do that YOU HAVE THE CHOICE to benefit from that view such that you can learn and adjust as you see fit, or detach from me partially or fully if you judge that is best for you, in which case you must know it will not diminish my Loving of you or Respect of you one iota.

***** SPDF Day 51 vlog: (7:30am Capital $ Hill) LATENT, UNTAPPED HUMANITY - THE FATALLY MISSING ELEMENT IN THIS DEATH FAST CAMPAIGN TO STOP PALESTINES DEATH FAST

If YOU don't share this... IT WILL NOT BE SEEN.

NOTICE:  Among the reasons for some long pauses in this vlog is waiting for morning rush hour buses and traffic flows to pass when the light turns green, to reduce the difficulty of hearing me over their noise....  

ALSO, some corrections and clarifications are made in the transcription below. I recommend that as you watch/listen to the vlog that you read the transcript.

 

Transcript:  The missing ingredient in this Death Fast, several weeks ago I made an all important post, The Law of Social Change, which is the Law of Suffering,which is  the Law of Paying the Price of the Change. There are only two ways of bringing about massive social change: threatening to take the life of others as the price of them not changing, or, offering the price of ones own life, lives, to mobilize the onlookers to join the press for the appropriate change; the righteous change.  Examples of the latter are Tahrir Square 3 years ago, the March on the Dharasana Salt Works many decades ago; the march in Selma.... Paying and or absolutely offering ones life, lives, for a righteous, just, humane, social change.

It may be that the missing ingredient in this Death Fast is the element that must be there for such a nonviolent (unviolent) action to work. And that missing ingredient, that ingredient is, an untapped humanity - first among a vanguard, and then secondly among the masses. 

So, basically, the way Tahrir Square worked, a friend of many of the small cadre of young leaders in Egypt, Khaled Mohamed Saeed, expressed himself in a way that predictably caused the security forces to torture him to death, and a photo of his destroyed face and destroyed body surfaced, and among those who saw it was a young Google executive for the Middle East, Wael Ghonim, who had been clandestinely maintaining a widely followed FB page, and he posted this photo; more importantly, he was hugely mobilized by the picture of his friend, and the fact of what had been done to his friend; he posted the photo at extreme risk to himself and further mobilized his social media skills to expose this picture, to expose what it represented, and to lay out an opportunity by which people could do what was never done, come  into the street and protest.  And it happened by the thousands, and then 10's of thousands, and maybe 100 thousand, and they stayed in Tahrir Square.

So the fact of this tells us that in Egypt at the time there was a latent, a huge latent, hidden, reservoir of humanity, first among the small cadre of people like Wael Ghonim, and as this horror that was done to their friend, this extraordinary injustice, tapped and released and hidden humanity in this small cadre, that set up a chain reaction where their humanity, their putting their lives out there, tapped the latent humanity in an infinitely larger pool of onlookers and then finally, those 10's of thousands in Tahrir Square, and then that unleashed the humanity of millions and millions of onlookers around the world.  Far and away the greatest humanity was that of the young man that stood up before anyone else, and was brutally murdered for it. The second largest pool of humanity (on a per person basis), though small in number of people, was the cadre of Wael and and handful of others.  The next larger pool was the 10's of thousands that went to Tahrir Square, and the next larger pool, that is smaller than the prior ones per person, was the millions.  But in each case, in each pool of potential resource, was a latent humanity, a latent, untapped, capacity for loving.

For this Death Fast, each of the last 51 days is teaching me that there is no such latent pool(s) anymore in the US.  There is every indication there is NOT the equivalent of Wael Ghonim and his small cadre of leaders. There is every indication of this, that is, there is no indication to the contrary.  All indications are that what could have been that cadre, the vanguard of the so called Free Palestine movement, would have shown, some affinity, some recognition, some understanding, some curiosity about this Death Fast, and all indications are that it is quite the opposite - they want not to see it, they want to be protected from it, they want to not be drawn in such a direction, they want to be opposed to it, they want to be horrified by it, all by way of denial and self-protection. 

Similarly with the Palestinian Diaspora and with the Palestinian leadership itself. 

Of course there is another possible explanation (other explanations) for what I am saying - that they don't know, or that I'm too strange with tattoos on my face, or that I've been too deliberately marginalize by those who have come before this campaign that have wanted to be certain that the standards by which I live do not become standards that pulled on them, and have gone to significant lengths to discredit, dismiss, disparage... me and my work. 

But my sense is that is not the case; that is not the way that latent humanity works, it is not easily fooled, it is not distracted by tattoos, it recognizes sincerity, it recognizes courage.

As I stated in a hugely important video log the other day, which included the beginnings of the thoughts I've just shared, whereas I'm down to only a 30%, sadly, a 30% chance of being able to pay the full price of my life in this Death Fast, because there is no one there to receive the payment, it is not time for me to stop my; my body says that it is, but I have not yet expressed as fully as I need to my horror, my outrage, the price want to pay... I want to pay as much of the price as possible of the Freedom of Palestine, of the Freedom of the Palestinians.  Don't you?

And I've not yet done that, this being day 51.  Beyond my control my body could terminate itself now, organ failure, whatever.  But tragically, due to this element that appears to be missing, any latent humanity left in this sickest of all societies, at best it is looking like a 30% chance that I'll be able to take this its final conclusion, the full payment of my life, now. 

Creator willing there are several more weeks that I'll be able to continue this.  And I keep watching and learning and learning and recalculating every waking second, but my current outlook, my current assessment,  is what I just shared.

I don't want to die.  I want live.  There's much I want to be able to do in this Fight for Palestine.  And if Palestine were freed, which is virtually certain it will NOT, NEVER (before they are all destroyed), be, but if it were, there are 100 other fights, 1000 other fights, that I want to live to fight.  But that's way down the list.  I want to pay, now, as much of the price as I possibly can to Free Palestine, and as best and as constructively as I can do it, that is what I shall do.

***** VLOG. SPDF Day 48: THIS DEATH FAST IS NOT HARD TO UNDERSAND. HERE IT IS. MUST MUST MUST VIEW.

If YOU do not SHARE this... it WILL NOT BE SEEN.
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Note, as with everything I do in my life I strive to make literally every second count as best as I can.  My point here is that as with all of these video logs I strive to offer you a visual record, at strategic times, of my efforts, and to provide a transcription of the video log at the same time.  So I'm doing double or triple duty which may make this sound a bit stilted.  I'm both trying to speak so that the voice to speech transcription is very accurate, and I am trying to remember to physically punctuate using my keyboard at the same time.  Now for this video log which is clearly among the most important that I have ever provided to you.

Is this death fast so hard to understand? 

Can you never recall a  time or times in your life when you wanted to give something with every fiber of your being?  Maybe to give something that was of immense or near total value?  Some gift that you wanted for your loved one?  A house, education, for your child?  I can certainly recall, and I cringe at the thought, of many times in my life where I would give almost anything, did give almost anything, for something as trivial as
a fancy new car.  Allow me to take the example of that a bit farther.  Is it so hard to imagine that one would want something like a fancy new car so badly that they work, and hoard, and collect almost all of their money, almost their entire wealth, and once they collected all, can't we imagine that they would literally race to the dealership amidst a rumor that the car was on ration and that there were only a few models left,

you're yearning, yearning, to be able to give that total ultimate price so that they could get what they want... that car... NOW?  Can't we imagine them feeling crushed, to arrive at the dealership to find either that the dealership was closed for the day and that they couldn't make the payment they wanted to make, or that the last model had been sold and would not be available for a long time, and so they could not paty that ultimatae price as they so yearned to do?  Is that so hard to imagine?

Well, I want something so badly that I would gladly pay the ultimate price for it as near as I can tell.  I want the 68 year terrorization, extermination, ethnic cleansing, torture, humiliation, starvation, murder...  Of the Palestinian part of my family to stop.  As near as I can tell I would, I will, gladly give my life if I believe it can save the life of even one Palestinian; be it their physical life, or more importantly their psychological, spiritual, emotional life.  Is that so hard to understand?

I began this Stop Palestines Death Fast SPDF on the day that Satanyahu, I mean Netanyahu, was in DC to demonstrate that he and his Zionist crime syndicate continued to have total control of virtually every sociopath, which is 100% of them, in the U.S. Senate, and every sociopath, which is virtually 100% of them, in the U.S. house.  It was such an obviously Satanic time, such a consummately dark time, that my sense, my extremely clear sense, was that unlike my brothers and sisters fighting such unfolding Armageddon's as global warming, the immediacy, the tangibility, the intense horror, of this 68 year small scale Holocaust being visited by the United States whites, and the Israeli whites, on the colored Arab population of Palestine, had associated with it people that were sufficiently alive to be shown, after I died of starvation I presumed, from my witness, that yes, indeed, the Palestinian people, even one Palestinian Life, is of course worth our own lives, in a heartbeat, with great passion, with great joy!

This was so clear to me.  It was clear to me from the incredible, unbelievable, heroism and humanity of the Palestinians alive today in Palestine, in the occupied territories.  They have been heroicly, humanely, fighting this vicious, sadistic, colonial occupation, and are fighting it today.  It was clear to me from the heroism that I can barely imagine, of the Jews in Israel, and the Jews in the United States, that more and more are risking in losing their family ties, their community ties, presumably their jobs and careers, to fight for the human rights of the Palestinians.

All of this made me shore that the missing piece of the puzzle, the law of social change, which may be my most important post of all time written several weeks ago, that the historical law of social change, that social change only comes when righteous people give or at least totally offer, the ultimate price in sufficient numbers, is the missing piece of this puzzle.

It was clear to me that this would not be seen in my lifetime assuming at the start that I would die in somewhere between 50 to 70 days.  That we were too blind, too selfish, to see it before I died.  But there's this thing called the Internet, there's my website,  most easily found at Start-Loving.blogspot.com (a relay site),  with a record I intended to keep, and that I have kept, which could possibly be the key to what they were missing, and that I would also likely, I felt near certainly, save at least one Palestinian Life within the next 20 years.  So with all that I was gratefully, joyfully, sure that I would be able to get to the store in time to pay my ultimate price.

Every day of the last 48 days on the Death Fast has told me that I am incorrect in those assumptions.  I've had the privilege of meeting a dozen or so members, the most recent being 15 minutes ago, of the Palestinian Diaspora.  To a person it is inconceivable, virtually inconceivable, that they would give their life to save their fellow Palestinians in Palestine.  They are that corrupted by our western society.  I'm not slandering them.  I'm not condemning them.  I'm stating my academic, scholarly, view from the perspective of my masters degree work  psychology, and vast study, every day, beyond that.

Similarly, the other group in which I had great faith, was the group I referred to earlier, the Jews in the United States that are displaying heroism that I can only dream of in my earlier years, the American Jews in such groups as Jewish Voice for Peace, and Open Hillel, If Not Now When,...  and others, that are paying a substantial price psychologically and materially to fight for Palestine.

But I'm finding they have the same disease as every other activist group in the country on any issue I can see, with the exception of of very few of the most heroic anti ecocide groups, particularly from among the indigenous Americans.  They cannot see, they refuse to see, they work diligently to deny... that
A. They are absolutely and totally failing to stop the slow motion genocide of the Palestinians within the next 1000 years, and
B.  That the only way to bring about that change is the only way that has ever worked in history, and that is offering and sometimes paying the ultimate price of one's life for in this case of life, and the full human rights, of the Palestinians.

So sadly, tragically, I am no longer at near 100% probability of the privilege, the joy, of taking this death fast to its final conclusion of, my preference, my strong preference, death by starvation on Capitol Hill here in Washington, DC; or the more likely termination of my life, my remaining years either in prison or institutionalized, a fate infinitely worse than death for someone like me.  I'm no longer at a near certainty of that happening.  I'd say that my best guess is only a 30% chance of that happening.

The 70% chance is that within the next 2, 3, 4 weeks, if mother nature, the creator, my metabolism... doesn't end my life for me without my choice, which of course now on day 48 is increasingly likely, that if the choice is mine, then, as I find that my body is reaching the very very very end, the likelihood is 70% that I will choose to end this death fast, and continue to fight as I am at this moment, with these pitiful signs, educating the thousands that come to the White House Park, from all over the country, from all over the world in these spring, summer, and full months.

Yes, it would be much safer if I stopped the death fast now.  I'm quite certain that nothing of the sort will happen.  I am my most suffering family.  We are dying.  I have not yet begun to state the measure of my horror, of my opposition, of the depth of my opposition, of my yearning to pay any and every price I can to make this horror stop.  I have not begun to make that statement.  That will require more weeks.  And the risk of unintended death on my part is a trivial price to pay for the privilege, the honor, the loving, of completing that statement as best I can.

SPDF Day 47: pic. White House since 8:30am... till 7pm? Tomorrow also, Creator Willing.