I pray the more pessimistic among us, who have warned us, such as Orwell and Huxley and many others, are wrong. We must, in any event, do everything in our power to avert the darkly dystopian future that is now rapidly being created for us, and change course. Freedom and
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Writings of J. Todd Ring: 5 Key Points For Understanding The World In 2020 & Beyond
A number of points must be investigated, examined in depth, realized and understood, if we are to understand the events unfolding in 2020 and beyond. A crisis of legitimacy (popular discontent combined with public loss of confidence and trust in ruling elites) was reaching critical mass globally, growing from its
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Tiny Homes Now
While sitting immersed in thought this morning, planning out my tiny house design, for the creation of a tiny home construction business, I hear a family walking down the street after the rain, and I think, how wonderful to hear families walking together, and talking happily. I stood up
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Systems Collapse Ahead? It Is Increasingly Probable
Synopsis: First rule: Question everything. Think for yourself. Satyagraha: Gandhi’s word for truth-force, meaning also: non-violent civil disobedience, as inspired by Thoreau’s short essay, which inspired Tolstoy, Gandhi, and later MLK – this is exactly what we need. Now, to be clear: it is not only truth which we need, but
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: A Tiny Home Or Revolution
Watching videos on camper van conversions recently, I think, I’m not ready to live in a camper van just yet; but having been a minimalist most of my life, I wouldn’t mind, either. I highly value freedom, mobility, adaptability, self-reliance and simplicity, and low ecological footprint living. The tiny home
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Covid-19 And The Dream Of A Better World
It's only been about four months since Covid-19 started sickening and killing people all over Canada and the world. And who knows how many more will die in the weeks and months ahead.Or how long it will take for our economy to recover.But along with the upheaval of the Black
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The end of Bernie, the beginning of the Revolution
I was and am a supporter or Bernie Sanders, like Ron Paul before him, because he truly represents the interests of constitutional democracy, and the rule of the people, by the people, for the people, versus the Wall Street/Davos/Brussels/City of London oligarchy and their minions in the military industrial security
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Chomsky On The Coronavirus: Perspective Is Urgently Needed
Chomsky clarifies the situation with the coronavirus, saying: it’s serious enough, but it represents not even a fraction of the biggest dangers we are facing, which are nuclear war, global warming, and the rising plague of neoliberal fascism. (Exactly what I have been saying since January, and before.) He began
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Revolution; and, Re-Thinking Bernie
I’ve been a big Sanders supporter, as much as I can be as a Canadian who can’t vote in the US. (Yikes… Canadians tampering in US elections! Call McCarthy!) But I’ve been re-thinking my take on Bernie. When Bernie endorsed Hilary, after Hilary, the media and the Democratic Party cheated
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Flash-Drive Revolution – AND – Who To Trust?
Amidst Protests, Uprisings, Simmering Revolt and Revolution, and A New Renaissance Emerging, vs Reactionary Efforts of The Establishment Powers of Entrenched Global Neo-Feudal Corporate Oligarchy To Resist Change, and To Consolidate Their Power Who Can We Trust, Who Is Worthy of Support, and Who Can Put Things Into Perspective?
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Central Challenge Of Our Time
What is the central challenge of our time? It is not what most people think it is. It is not race or gender, or climate change, or the environment broadly, or issues of war and peace, or poverty, or justice, or equality, or fighting terrorism, crime or violence, WMDs and
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Trump, like the latest media hype, is a distraction
Obsession with Trump (or a virus scare, and hype) is mass distraction, as I’ve said since before his election. “This Trump-washing gets everybody off the hook. Suddenly they’re all heroes. The CIA is heroes, the FBI is heroes…” – Robert Sheerer Yes, war criminals like Hilary, Madeleine Albright, Obama, cast
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Tipping Point Is Near: It Is Now Revolution, Or Extinction & Slow Death
“Another four years of Trump, we may be passed tipping point, literally. It may be terminal for the species.” – Noam Chomsky As I keep saying, and have said for over three decades, for reasons of justice, freedom, democracy, averting the obvious trend towards global neo-feudal corporate oligarchy, and fascism, and
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: US 2020 Election: One Choice Only – The Oligarchy
Chris Hedges states there is no choice in the 2020 US election if it is a choice between Trump and Biden: both are a vote for the consolidation of the oligarchy. Now that sums it up perfectly well. Mind you, it was the same in 2016. People in Germany felt
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Odell’s How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Or maybe we’d recognize Nietzsche’s last man as ourselves: “Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died, and therewith also those blasphemers. To blaspheme the earth is now the dreadfulest sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth! .
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Neoliberalism and the Great Dithering
The system is in trouble claims Jeff Cohen writing for Counterpunch. I can see where he is coming from as it would seem like our leaders often listen to the elites more than the people who have elected them. The current system is start to reach the limits of which
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Hedges’ Talk on America: The Farewell Tour
I was able to get a seat to see Chris Hedges at CIGI in Waterloo. It was a packed house with a full overflow room as well. He started his talk about his new book with a lecture on America. Here’s the gist of his speech, loosely quoted and/or lightly
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: What Do I Want? (Or, What is to be done, if we are to have any future worth living?)
What do I want? Well, I would like to see us move immediately to a libertarian socialist society, along the lines that Chomsky, Bertrand Russell, Rudolph Rocker, or Murray Bookchin have described. Or better: an anarchist communist society, such as Kropotkin described. But I don’t see that as something that
Continue readingPaul S. Graham: Revolutionary Fecklessness
Have you ever noticed that the people who are the most vociferous proponents of radical social change are often the least competent in providing for the everyday needs of the people around them? By everyday needs, I’m talking about the goods and services that glue a society together, like building
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Arendt on Revolution and the Necessity of Eradicating Poverty
Hannah Arendt’s essay, “Thoughts on Poverty, Misery, and the Great Revolutions of History,” written in the 1960s, was apparently just recently published for the first time. It continues to be relevant in our increasingly weird times with a tyrant who would rather dominate than excel in case after case: “For
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