Electric Cars Will Not Offset Environmental Destruction

 The world attempts to move away from fossil fuels, hoping this will slow down climate change. Electric anything is the rage, as though this will rescue humanity. 

All around the world, forests, mangroves, ocean floors and more are destroyed. Instead of living with less, development continues out of control. Even if all vehicles become electric, this will not offset the harm that unbridled development and environmental destruction cause. Besides the fact that electricity needs to come from somewhere, the endless pursuit of more at the expense of environmental protection and health ensures no technology will rescue us from ourselves. 

Years End; Wealth Of World Deteriorates, But Not Stock Markets

 Another year passes. The stock markets are at all time highs. It was another great year for them. Meanwhile, the real wealth of the world, which includes a healthy environment, continues to deteriorate. 

Gabapentin, Pregabalin, Pros, Cons And Pain

 Medications can have side affects. Gabapentin and pregabalin are no exception. It is easy to find horror stories about these medications. These medications may adversely harm the brain. The list of bad side effects are many. But what if the person that relies upon these drugs lives in constant pain and agony without these drugs? Is debilitating pain that keeps a person from sleeping and in agony less harmful than the side effects a drug that may alleviate the pain can cause? 

Chronic, intense and acute pain are not easy to deal with. Gabapentin and pregabalin may offer a way for some that live with certain types of intense pain to have a better quality of life. Others may find that it offers no benefit. And still others may find that the negative side affects outweigh anything positive that the drugs can produce. There is no way to know if these drugs will help lessen specific types of intense pain other than by trying them under a medical professionals' supervision. 

Finding relief from pain is a difficult road. Snake oil sales people know this. A lot of false promises are made regarding an array of treatments, ointments, herbs, pills, medicines and so forth. Pregabalin and gabapentin are two possible drugs in the arsenal against living with specific types of intense pain. If they help a person live better and sleep better, then it is very well possible that the positives outweigh the negatives. If not, the search must continue for a way to live with intense, chronic and acute pain without resorting to far worse alternatives. 

The Right Religion, The Right Faith

 If everyone follows one religion and believes in the same god or same thing, that would make for an uninteresting world. Life is enriched by diversity, not by sameness and mindless conformity. 

Name the one living person that has completely died and returned to life that can say with certainty what exists or does not exist beyond this life. No such person exists. 

But even so, many people say that only their religion, only their faith, only their belief is right. 

The only right religion, or lack of religion, is the one that helps a person to be a better human being. Braver, kinder, more compassionate, less violent, less hateful, less destructive, less greedy, less selfish. Whatever path leads to being a better human being is the right path. No matter the religion, no matter the faith, no matter the belief.  Unfortunately, many are those that follow religion, follow a faith, and think that this in and of itself is enough, even when they are morally bankrupt. 

From Hitler To Now: The Evil Of Demonizing Jews And Other Scapegoated Targets

 Hitler tapped into one of the most evil forces that can flow through the arteries of humanity. The need to have a target to hate. The need to have a target to demonize. The need to have a scapegoat. The need to have an external enemy to blame all things on. 

And so, one of the most advanced, developed nations in the world, followed a small minded Jew hater. A war that Germany could never win following the likes of Hitler. The military mistakes of Hitler and the Nazis are well known. The diversion of resources and manpower to commit genocide further hindered the German war effort. Genocide and destruction was what Hitler and his Jew obsessed followers desired. When it was all over, almost all of the mass murderers spent the rest of their lives unpunished. Few were ever held responsible for their crimes. They tortured, performed live medical experiments on humans, raped and killed with impunity. They killed unarmed civilians, babies and children, rarely blinking an eye. 

Many in Germany and Europe were only too happy to go along with the Nazi killing campaign as long as it was the Jew being killed. But killing never ends with the despised enemy only. Killing and genocide are unstoppable rivers of blood. It starts with the Jew and target of hate, but never ends with the Jew and target of hate. 

With over 50 million killed, with the extermination of over 90 per cent of Europe's Jewish population, with millions of other people considered inferior murdered, Hitler sat in his bunker as the Russians were closing in. Was there any remorse? Any regret? No. Jew haters are an unapologetic lot. Right to the end, hitler blamed the Jew for his defeat. Jews that had no army, no military, no means of defense. And so the mass murderer, with no remorse, blamed the Jews for all of his own terrible mistakes and deeds and for everything else, and then took his own life rather than face the consequences for the enormous evil he committed.

2021 and onward, will anything change? The need to scapegoat is as strong as ever. The need to demonize is as strong as ever. The need to have an external enemy to blame is as strong as ever. 

The evil in the form of hatred for Jews is as strong as ever. Some disguise it as hatred for Zionists, their way of pretending not to hate Jews while still desiring the destruction and genocide of the one small nation in the world holding over half of the world's Jewish population. They use the word Zionist as a negative word. By dehumanizing and delegitimizing the human beings of Israel, and reducing them to a word that they use for negative connotations, it legitimizes their hatred and desire to destroy the small state. They delegitimize and demonize the people of Israel and then hide behind the excuse that it is Zionists or Israelis that are hated, not Jews. There is a world of difference between criticizing and opposing the policies and government of Israel and seeking the destruction of the entire state. All governments should be open to criticism and scrutiny. But seeking a countries complete destruction is nothing less than a call to genocide. 

Nazi propaganda made Jews out to be the worst of creatures. By inciting and fueling hate, it became easy to take the next step and commit murder and genocide. Israel is an imperfect state. But the propaganda against Israel, turning average Israelis into demons, makes it easy to pursue the very real genocide that many seek. Some delegitimize the people of Israel by casting them as not being real Jews or as being something evil like nazis, and therefore a people that must be destroyed. The delegitimizing and demonizing of the people of Israel makes the road to a real and lasting peace near impossible to achieve. Instead, it opens the door to genocide. 

The Jew hater finds a thousand ways to blame Jews for everything bad. Some of the Jew haters find it in theology, as they make up distorted, twisted evil narratives about the religion of Jews. Judaism is one of the originators of the belief that whoever takes one life it is as if they destroyed all of humanity, and do unto others as thou would have others do unto you, and the ten commandments itself, these basic principles of Judaism, are completely disregarded by the Jew hater, who instead creates evil false narratives about Jews meant to stir up hatred and incitement and the murder of Jews. 

Some Jew haters conveniently blame the Jew for communism and bolshevism and the mass murder that resulted from both, even though Jews themselves, along with practicing Christians and others, were persecuted by Bolsheviks and communists. Millions of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and other people born of different religions willingly embraced the destructive ideology of communism, an ideology hostile towards all religions. For every Jew that became a communist or Bolshevik, there were countless Christian born people that became communists or Bolsheviks. But the Jew hater wants to conveniently blame Jews for everything they see wrong in the world. For everything they despise, there is the Jew for them to blame. There are Jew haters convinced Jews are to blame for globalization, for illegal immigration, for bad weather, for high deficits, for the wars raging throughout the world, and for anything and everything the Jew hater despises and opposes.

Jew hatred is a human weakness. It is an evil. Needing an enemy to blame for everything is evil. What results from this hate, when combined with the ability and means to act out the hate, is genocide.

And so, since World War 2, genocide and ethnic cleansing, which the world swore would never happen again, occurred or is occurring - in Cambodia, in Rwanda, in the Congo, in Iraq and Syria to Yazidis, Christians and moderate Muslims and others, in Northern Nigeria to Christians, in Darfur to black Muslims, and in many other countries and places. 

It is easy to hate and find excuses for those that hate. It is hard to change those that demonize and hate. This is a heavily populated world. More countries are on the way to acquiring nuclear weapons. If people do not fight for a worldwide outbreak of peace, if people do not resist the urge to scapegoat and hate and act violently towards those that are scapegoated or demonized, then the future is very bleak.

Animal Abuse And Animal Organization Fraud

Would an anti domestic violence organization dare to show pictures of abused women and ask for  money? Would they show these pictures in commercials or by other ways in order to fund raise?

Animal cruelty and dog fighting have long been poorly responded to crimes by law enforcement. The advocacy that could have changed this never materialized. This failure is a story unto itself about greed and exploitation. Whoever gives the impression that they are the answer to dog fighting and animal cruelty wins the jackpot of unlimited sums of money. Show an abused dog or cat and give the illusion your organization will rescue the animals from their suffering, and the money will flow

No animal organization should conduct animal abuse investigations. These organizations and their investigators are often toothless and ineffective at best. Many are the times their investigations are harmful and provide dog fighters and animal abusers an opportunity to move their animals to a new location after getting paid a visit by a humane investigator. Even if the humane investigator is provided law enforcement powers, which is the case in very limited areas in the United States, all they do is provide larger law enforcement an excuse to continue to do little to nothing about dog fighting and animal cruelty. All crimes, especially violent crimes, requires an appropriate and widespread police response by public law enforcement. No crime, especially crimes of violence, which includes animal cruelty and dog fighting, can properly be addressed by token police teams or by non police organizations. Crime, especially violent crime, is the responsibility of public law enforcement. Having allowed animal cruelty and dog fighting to largely be the exception to this rule has benefited animal abusers, dog fighters, and the animal organizations and individuals that profit by portraying themselves as the answer to animal cruelty.

 Only police should respond to violent crimes, which in the case of animal cruelty and dog fighting, they have failed miserably to do. There is no excuse for police to continue to minimally respond to these crimes. Token police teams assigned to investigate animal cruelty, whether fielded by police departments or by animal organizations, must end. Investigations conducted by animal organizations must end. Animal advocates and animal organizations must fight for an appropriate and widespread police response to animal cruelty and dog fighting, a task they have failed to do for decades now. They must stop exploiting animal cruelty for their own gain. 

Animals used in laboratories or for slaughter are not regulated by criminal codes, and therefore cannot be addressed by public law enforcement. These animals receive few protections. This should be the focus of organizations concerned about animal cruelty.  But the animal cruelty to domestic animals that is written in the criminal codes for public law enforcement to enforce, must finally move fully into the realm of public law enforcement and away from ineffective token police teams and ineffective and at times harmful animal organizations. Animal organizations must stop using domestic animal cruelty as a way of selling and marketing themselves. They must become advocates, once and for all, to ensure public law enforcement responds appropriately and in a widespread matter to animal cruelty that is covered by criminal codes.

Will decades more pass before this happens? Will exploiting voiceless populations continue to be an easy and lucrative money maker? Will animal cruelty and dog fighting continue to be exploited by certain people calling themselves animal advocates and by organizations that claim to be anti-cruelty?

Animal abuse is an incredibly common occurring crime. Dog fighting is widespread, but not as common as animal cruelty in general. The dysfunctional approach to animal cruelty and dog fighting has ensured that dog fighters have greater chances of getting struck by lightning than ever getting arrested for dog fighting. Few arrests are made for animal cruelty in proportion to the enormous frequency and widespread nature of the crime. Animals do not deserve this, and neither do people.

Social Media's Religious Police: Apostacy And Censorship

 Religion requires honest, straightforward conversations, not the Big Brother censorship that social media corporations eagerly provide. Social media corporations shelter certain religions from criticism. They censor those that criticize the religions they protect, a privilege not afforded other religions. Social media, the Big Brother in most everyone's bedroom and living room, do not understand that religious freedom and freedom of speech, which are fundamental human rights, includes the right to criticize, challenge, mock, reject and make fun of religion.

There is a difference between criticizing a religion, and discriminating against the ones that follow the religion. Religious criticism, mocking, and making fun of religion might be distasteful, but it is a basic human right, unlike discriminating against people that follow a religion, which is always wrong. People must be free to reject, challenge and criticize religion and religious beliefs and ideas. At the same time, they must have the freedom to worship and choose the religion of their choice.

Social media corporations get away with regulating religious criticism and selectively enforcing blasphemy and heresy. They are the Chamberlain appeasers of the modern time. Even worse, they do the dirty work for the most brutal regimes and organizations on the planet that harm and kill apostates, blasphemers and those considered infidels. 

Social media corporations have a moral duty, and should be subject to law suits and legal restraints, to not be platforms for hate against the members of any religion. They have failed miserably in this regard. Religious beliefs and ideas, which are not people, must not receive the same restraints.

People that love and believe in freedom must wake up to what religious censorship and religious tyranny means, and what they are doing to this planet. The world is awash in blood from violent religious fanatics and their enablers. The endless mass murders, beheadings, rapes, slavery, mutilations, suicide bombings, all in the name of religion, have no end in sight, and little to stand in its way. Suppression of religious freedom, which includes criticism of religion, only makes matters worse.

For those concerned about global warming, environmental degradation, plastic pollution, chemical and other life destroying poisons and contaminants, and how life as we know it is being destroyed,  environmental struggles that need to be fought are often sidelined by the endless wars that religious intolerance and tyranny demand. We are losing the richness of the planet's biodiversity and ecological wealth to greed, overdevelopment and selfishness, along with the toxic mixture of religion combined with hate and violence. Tragically, responsible stewardship of the planet is rare to nonexistent.

When a religion insists that it is the only right religion, the only right way, and that the other religions are corrupted or wrong, this religious supremacy and certainty that only they hold the truth, invites the very criticism that social media, religious theocracies and others want silenced. 

When a religion insists it brought monotheism into the world, only to have it pointed out that other religions existed that already practiced monotheism, and then the religion responds by insisting the other religions are wrong and corrupted, that religion, which has accused the other religions of being wrong and corrupted, should not be immune from the criticism it does not mind leveling against others. 

When any religion rejects the legitimacy of other religions, why should that religion itself be shielded from criticism? When any religion asserts that only it holds the truth, and all of the other religions are wrong, why should that religion be immune from scrutiny and questioning?

There is too much religious indoctrination and brainwashing in this world. There are too many oppressive religious theocracies. There are far too many violent religious fanatics. There are far too many people full of hate, bigotry and violence, with many believing their religion entitles them to be that way. 

There are far too many children brainwashed to blindly follow religion. There are far too many children brainwashed into believing religious violence is acceptable and required. There are far too many destructive religious beliefs, and far too much silencing of the critics of those beliefs. 

The world needs religious freedom and tolerance to thrive. Tolerance includes criticizing, mocking and rejecting religion without fear of harm and violence. Everyone should have the right to practice the religion of their choice without fear of punishment and discrimination. Everyone should have the right to reject and criticize the religions of their choice without fear of harm. There must be freedom, and there must be tolerance, not only for the followers of a religion, but also for its critics.

David Attenborough's A Life On Our Planet, Wishful Thinking Or Actionable?

 Nature gave David Attenborough an exceptional career. Wild places brought him fortune and fame. Wild places presented by Attenborough have captivated millions of people with wonderful scenes of nature and wildlife. 

In the course of his long life and distinguished career, he has seen first hand biodiversity and wild places rapidly disappear. 

David Attenborough offers advice for saving biodiversity, nature and humanity. He asks that one third of the world be set aside as protected reserves and national parks. One third of protected oceans and lands set aside for nature will go a long way in saving the planet. Can this be achieved when the complete opposite is occurring? For example, every second, every minute, rain forests across the world, in the Congo, in the Amazon, in Borneo, across Southeast Asia and elsewhere are destroyed. Small amounts of conservation here and there in the face of the massive onslaught against nature will accomplish nothing if the onslaught is not addressed, vigorously opposed and stopped. 

David Attenborough asks for people to eat less meat. Some vegans are upset because they believe Attenborough, as a man that has gained so much from animals, should advocate for an end to the consumption of animals. There is no doubt that if people eat less meat, many wild places would face less pressure, adverse climate change would improve, people would be healthier, there would be a whole lot less pain and suffering in the world, and more. But this is not the direction in which mankind is moving. The meat industry, including the multi billion dollar burger joints, are not going away. As the world becomes more and more populated, as more people join the middle class, the demand for meat only increases. Few are willing to take on the fight for this to significantly change. 

Attenborough makes an argument for reduced population growth. In Africa, the human population is exploding, ensuring a dismal future for African wildlife. Heavily settled North America no longer has large game running free across the continent. The slums of developing countries grow larger and more desperate. Women the world over should have access to safe birth control so that they can decide how many children they want. Is this happening?  Is there anyone willing to take on the powerful religious clerics, institutions and others that vigorously oppose safe forms of family planning and disease prevention such as condoms?

Attenborough is hopeful that there is a new generation that views the world as a finite place with limited resources, unlike older generations that viewed the world as endlessly exploitable. Unfortunately, there are countless people of all ages that do not see the world as a finite place. Countless people believe there is infinite life, and that even if earth is destroyed, there is an afterlife paradise that awaits. Religion and securing a place in paradise is more important than saving this planet for many. Religion should teach humanity to be stewards, not destroyers of the planet and of each other. Is anyone willing to take on those entrenched religious beliefs, religious institutions and others that could care less about protecting nature, biodiversity, and the future of mankind on earth? 

Conservation and human survival go hand in hand. What should be done to save the planet and what is being done are completely different. Less greed, less selfishness, less hate, less war, less violence, far more sacrifice and struggle are needed. This means everything has to be on the table and subject to scrutiny and change. Conservation itself must stop being a mostly elitist, ineffective business that enriches a few people and organizations. The fact that countless people would rather expend their energy on hatred or violence towards those different than themselves instead of on working together to save the planet does not bode well for the future, especially if this hatred continues to be ignored or downplayed.

Human prosperity will collapse if biodiversity collapses. David Attenborough has the conversation about what is lost, what is the consequence, and what needs to be done. Unfortunately, a lot more than conversation is needed, and this is not happening. 

  

Exaggerated Claims And Benefits About Marijuana And CBD

 The legalization of marijuana takes marijuana from the criminal justice system, where it never belonged, into the hands of personal choice. There are those that benefit from the use of marihuana. But legalization, and marijuana's benefits for some, should not overshadow the fact that this is not a harmless substance. 

CBD from hemp, is pushed aggressively as a cure all for a host of conditions for which there is no proof. As with snake oil, many people desperate for solutions to their pains and ills will spend fortunes based on hype, only to be sadly disappointed. CBD from marijuana is at least regulated better in the states where marijuana is legal for recreational and/or medical use. Because CBD from hemp is poorly regulated, all kinds of claims are made as to its benefits. Often the only people benefiting are the ones making money from the products.

As with all things where a lot of  money is involved, the people that benefit from the sale of marijuana and CBD emphasize the pros, not the cons, of marijuana and CBD use. People with medical conditions that are told marijuana will help their conditions, and in some instances, are being told to throw away their unnatural pharmaceuticals for natural marijuana, will have to discover for themselves whether marijuana is of benefit.

 For decades people were told the worst things about marijuana. Now this has reversed, and marijuana and CBD are praised beyond what is reasonable. 

For those suffering from chronic and acute pain, insomnia, anxiety, and a host of other conditions in which marijuana, including CBD, are touted as the answer, many will be sadly disappointed. Marijuana has its own risks. The health benefits and risks of marijuana and CBD can easily be researched, and should be researched before someone embarks down that path. There are short and long term adverse affects on the brain, on overall health, on psychological health, on behavior, on motivation, that some people experience, and that must not be minimized or downplayed. There is also the fact that marijuana use impacts motor skills. Driving under the influence of marijuana may increase with legalization, and should not be ignored. 

Some people will find that consuming marijuana or smoking it makes them disoriented, agitated, anxious, clouded and fogged, without any pain relief or positive benefit. It is even possible that for some, the negative affects of marijuana, including increased agitation, anxiety and other adverse affects, will make them more inclined to use illicit substances that have not been prescribed for them. 

The argument made by some that it should be marijuana instead of opioids for those in chronic and severe pain is a weak argument. Opioids are highly addictive, but that does not mean marijuana or CBD are in any way an adequate pain reliever for millions of people in chronic and severe pain. There are other pain medications besides opioids with varying degrees of effectiveness.

Managing and living with pain is a difficult road to haul. The exaggerated narratives about marijuana and CBD will lead many to disappointment and worse. Some people are told to stop their prescription medicines and use marijuana or CBD instead. Marijuana and CBD are natural, they may be told, whereas  pharmaceuticals are unnatural harmful chemicals. They neglect to mention that cocaine, heroin, and opium are also plant based substances. Being plant based in and of itself does not make something harmless. 

If someone in chronic or acute pain decides to try marijuana or CBD, out of desperation in some instances, know that it may or may not work. It may even come with some unwanted side affects. If you happen to be one of those for whom marijuana or CBD provides no benefits, or affects you adversely, realize that you are not alone. If marijuana and CBD were all that they are made out to be, especially considering that marijuana and hemp are some of the most researched and studied plants on the planet, they would already be the first line of treatment against pain, anxiety, insomnia and more.

Marijuana does not belong in the hands of law enforcement. There are compelling reasons for legalizing it and keeping it legalized in places where it is already legal. But marijuana, like alcohol, has its dark side.

Discarded War Wounded. War In Tigray, Ethiopia

 If more wounded and disabled beggars are needed in Addis Ababa and elsewhere, then make sure war in Tigray escalates. 

Healthy young men are being sent to war. Disabled young men will come back. 

Everywhere and in developing countries - already beset by extreme poverty - war is one of  the worst things that can happen. For those that survive war but are disabled and maimed by it, many can expect a lifetime of poverty, misery, pain and begging. 

Money always seem to be there to wage war, no matter how poor a country or region might be. There is no shortage of young men for cannon fodder. Once wounded and disabled, they are easily discarded.

Censorship, Silence, Jihad Atrocities In Mozambique And Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, a horrific massacre of innocent Muslim students by Islamist jihadists barely registers on the world stage. The violent fanatics win in the face of silence.

In Mozambique, Islamic jihadists just wiped out an entire village, beheading and mutilating over 50 people. Many bodies were cut into pieces. The world outcry was once again nonexistent. The jihadists ran off with female girls and women - their new sex slave captives - the few they did not murder. 

Did this make front page news? Did it make back page news? It made barely any news. The jihadists are not only in North Africa killing, mutilating and taking sex slaves. They have reached the south of Africa.

The violence and slaughter will be ignored. It is off limits to challenge, to question, to examine the religious passages and ideologies that inspire and motivate such brutality.

It is not enough to say that most followers of a religion are not violent when this silences the questioning of what it is that motivates those that are violent.

 The censorship of the questioning of religious texts, ideas and beliefs ensures that violent fanatics prevail and translate their violent ideas and beliefs into violent actions.

Religion mixed with hate, intolerance and violence is toxic and must be challenged regardless of the religion, place or source from which it emanates. Every religion must reform and change to ensure hatred and violence does not prevail. Violent and hateful ideas and beliefs must be challenged before they manifest into war and violence. Censorship of the questioning of religious ideas and beliefs that lead to violence and hate only benefits those that want hate, violence and terror.

War And Child Abuse Have Become Preferable To Freedom Of Speech And Religion

 Is it better to fight in the realm of ideas or to fight by violence and war? 

Social media corporations, most western politicians, religious leaders, academics, and many others have made it clear that they prefer war, even though this is not what they overtly say.

In Pakistan and elsewhere, many girls and boys are indoctrinated into believing insulting their prophet or their religion requires the beheadings of those that commit blasphemy. 

Ideas and beliefs should be fought with ideas and beliefs. Instead, social media, many academics, politicians, religious leaders and others would rather arbitrarily suppress freedom of speech and only respond to the inevitable outcome of when violent and hateful ideas and beliefs result in violent behaviors. 

When it comes to religion, the west and all freedom loving people should stand firm that nothing is off the table when it comes to freedom of speech and to freedom of religion. Freedom of religion includes not only the right to practice the religion of one's choice, but also the right to reject religion, criticize religion, mock religion and satire religion. And then, for those that are offended, let the battle be in the realm of ideas and beliefs instead of on actual battlegrounds. 

If violent religious fanatics want to spread their religion by the sword, then decent people should not have their hands tied behind their backs and be told that they cannot question what it is that motivates these violent religious fanatics. Instead, social media and others arbitrarily suppress religious criticism, ensuring religious hate mongers and violent fanatics are protected. 

Millions of children are being indoctrinated to hate, to kill, to be violent, and still the west and east are mostly silent. But not so when it comes to cartoons that are insulting to a religion. Then many in the east and west join hands in outrage. 

Public Radio, The Media, Blasphemy And Religious Violence

 There is a difference between discriminating against someone because of their religion, and criticizing someone's religion. Discrimination based on religion is wrong. Criticizing, mocking, rejecting and making fun of a religion may be repugnant, but it is not wrong in the way religious discrimination is wrong. 

Does public radio and the media at large have any guts? Is pandering to victimization - which is used to justify, ignore, excuse or accept violence- the permanent media landscape? 

What happened to the teacher in France and the other victims in France is horrific. A teacher was beheaded for showing cartoons. Insulting a religion does not justify violence, let alone murder. 

A public radio station changed the focus away from the acts of violence committed in France by the adherents of a religion, focusing instead on how Macron's response to the religious violence adds to the alleged victimization of the members of that religion locally. 

The feeble excuse that the perpetrators of violence have distorted the religion is not enough. When countless acts of violence are committed in the name of any religion, that should be a wake up call that the religion needs change and reform. 

 The fearful response some or many may have towards a religion in whose name numerous acts of violence and terror are committed is not irrational, phobic or discriminatory. The media, politicians and others must stop making excuses for religious violence when perpetuated by what is perceived to be a religious minority or underclass, especially when considering the religion is one of the largest on earth. It is not phobic to ask why endless acts of violence and terror are committed in the name of that religion. It is not enough to say that most followers of that religion are not violent when this silences questioning of what it is that motivates those that are violent.

Religion mixed with violence is toxic. Religious passages that incite hatred and violence must be rejected. Religious leaders that incite violence and hate must be rejected. None of this will go away if people remain afraid to confront toxic religious ideas and beliefs that fuel violence, hatred and bigotry.

Silence is complicity. People that care about freedom, people that care about religious freedom and the rights of all people practicing the religion of their choice must include the resounding message that religious violence and intolerance is never acceptable. Religious freedom includes the right to reject and criticize religion without fear of persecution. 

The victimization narratives that are used to excuse, justify or accept violence, the inability to stand up for religious freedom in all its forms, the inability or unwillingness to confront religious violence and the passages and preachers that fuel it, do not serve the many victims of religious violence. 

Police Reform Needed, Not Capitulation To Violence

Police reform is needed in order for policing to be the honorable profession that it should be. It must not be a profession mired in cronyism, clout, political favoritism or where police or police departments abuse or misuse their authority.

The need for police reform does not mean capitulation to violence.

Policing must return to the basics; serve and protect through patrol. Good policing has nothing to do with numbers game policing. In many urban areas, patrol must include cops walking beats on foot, where they are integral parts of the neighborhoods where they serve. This requires dedicated officers that have the physical and emotional stamina to be on foot instead of in a vehicle. This is the nature of true community policing, uncomplicated yet demanding.

Good police know how and when to de-escalate situations, and how and when to escalate situations that require escalation. Being good at one and not the other does not make for a good cop or deputy.  

Police work, especially in high crime areas, means confronting violent people and violent situations. Having police go back to the bread and butter - serve and protect through patrol, without a focus on meaningless numbers - will not remove police from violent people or violent situations. 

Police cannot be afraid or deterred from the use of lawful and justified force when required. There are violent people in society, and violent situations, and no amount of hoping otherwise will wish violence away. 

Numbers Game Policing Incentives

High arrest numbers are used to project a phony image that a police department or other law enforcement entity is doing its job. Nothing good comes from choosing quantity over quality.

Besides the phony image projected by high arrests numbers, are there other reasons why some law enforcement entities push for high arrest numbers and other numbers? Do they get funded better? When it comes to narcotics, for example, does the federal government reward police departments and other law enforcement entities with more funding based on narcotic arrest numbers? 

Numbers game policing results in shoddy police work at best. There should be no incentives for keeping it alive. Why it remains unchallenged, despite all the calls for police reform, is disgraceful.

Vote With Knowledge. Biden Or Trump On Healthcare?

 When deciding who to vote for, there is one issue that impacts millions of Americans far more than anything else. Millions of Americans have pre-existing medical conditions. If they lose their health insurance, or if their health insurance becomes unaffordable, millions will be ruined financially.

It is important to put aside politics on this issue and look beyond the rhetoric. Loss of health is a major reason why many people go into bankruptcy and even into homelessness.

Research the candidates regarding their positions on health care - not what they oppose but what they support. Elected officials provide themselves with a level of health care they do not mind denying to others. Which candidate has a better plan? Do they even have a plan? 

Before casting a vote, make sure to vote with knowledge. 

Police Used To Generate Statistics; Folly Of Numbers Game Policing

 The role of police should be simple and straightforward. Serve and protect through patrol. The patrol must not always be vehicular. In many urban areas, true community policing is achieved by having cops walk assigned beats, where they become integral parts of the neighborhood they serve. 

Unfortunately, the police mission has often been twisted and made to serve the whims of politicians, ivory tower academics and incompetent police officials. Community policing, for example, is far from the simple, straightforward concept that worked many decades ago when beat cops patrolled neighborhoods on foot. Community policing became the implementation of academic nonsense or the furtherance of political patronage. 

There are politicians and police bureaucrats that use police to generate statistics. In the 1990's, crack cocaine turned a number of urban areas into gang war zones. Gangs fought and killed for control of streets and housing projects; territory in which to sell drugs. Certain politicians, police officials, and at least one incompetent big city mayor, pushed police, especially specialized units, to generate high numbers of arrests. The more arrests made, the more the politicians and police could brag about how effective they were. This was smoke and mirrors that did not correlate to effective policing. It did not result in lowered violence. Specialized police units, instead of patrolling and making arrests when needed, were busy making nonsense, unnecessary arrests that supposedly looked good on paper. It freed them from patrolling and working a full tour of duty after they met unofficial arrest quotas. 

To this day, it is not uncommon for police and law enforcement personnel, including deputies, to be used to generate meaningless statistics and numbers. 

Certain ingratiating cops and deputies, eager to please their supervisors, push the envelop as to what is legal or at least reasonable, in order to generate numbers. More tickets, more stops, more name checks, more warnings, more arrests, more numbers of one sort or another, no matter how alienating and ineffective this might be. This is done not because it is needed, but because it is what poor policing requires. Numbers game police work is unofficial, unwritten policy, so there rarely is a paper trail. A good cop that actively patrols, whether by foot or by vehicle, will be busy enough without having to purposely generate meaningless numbers in order to please a higher up.

Numbers game police work is unchallenged, and remains off the radar of those that profess to want better policing. Journalists, reporters and certain others without exception have failed for decades to expose these practices and help policing be far better than what it is now.

A good cop or deputy that actively serves and protects through patrol has no reason to generate meaningless numbers and statistics. Enough things will naturally come their way in the course of good police work. A good cop knows when and how to escalate situations that need escalation, and when and how to de-escalate situations that require de-escalation. A good cop knows how to patrol and is sufficiently disciplined, with a good work ethic, to not shortcut the patrol required for a full tour of duty. In high crime urban areas and certain other areas, there is a critical need for cops on foot to patrol and become integral parts of the neighborhood where they walk the beat. 

There is no room in good police work for deceptive numbers games. Police are not needed to generate numbers, and should not be used for such.

Police Reform Badly Needed; Not Racial Incitement

 There will never be needed police reform if the focus on police cannot move beyond race and identity politics.

Race and identity politics are a business. There are those that profit from racial incitement and division. 

There needs to be an end to numbers game police work. Few if any so called police reformers even know what this is.

Real community policing must move away from the hands of ivory tower clueless academics. More cops need to be on the ground, on foot, serving the basic mission of serve and protect through patrol. Cops must not be used to generate meaningless statistics that do nothing to make communities safer. 

Police departments need to be lean. Layers of bureaucrats and upper echelon personal drain money from having cops on the streets. In urban areas, dedicated cops are needed on foot, walking beats where they become integral parts of the communities they serve. No able bodied cop should be at a desk job. Supervisors need to be streamlined, and must be out on the streets. Police departments must not be mired in petty politics, cronyism,  clout or political favoritism. Good, level headed cops on patrol that know how to properly escalate or de-escalate situations are what is needed, not defunded police. Defund the waste, but not the much needed basic police mission.

When Calls To 911 Suspend Civil Rights And Police Respond Poorly

 There are people that call 911 because they want the police to harass someone they do not like or because they do not like the way someone looks. There are people in law enforcement that do not understand that a call to 911 does not mean the person called upon has his or her civil rights suspended. When law enforcement officials get upset or angry because the person that is the target of the unjustified call to 911 gets upset or angry, situations that never should escalate end up escalating. There are those in law enforcement that do not understand how to handle another person's anger or upset frame of mind. People can get upset or angry when they are subject to harassment by police simply because someone called 911 and they know they have done nothing illegal or criminal. Calling 911 on someone does not make that someone a criminal.

 People need to be held accountable for when they unjustly call 911. This happens far too often. There is rarely a consequence for falsely calling the police on someone. Some people that are not criminals end up getting falsely arrested because they do not react calmly or submissively in their interactions with police, especially when the police are called on them for no real reason. 

Violence is never acceptable. But anger itself is not a crime. Many emotionally disturbed people cannot tone themselves down when confronted by law enforcement. And far too many in law enforcement see any sign of non violent defiance as a criminal act. Good cops must be level headed. They must know when to properly escalate a situation, and when to properly de-escalate a situation. They must understand that just because someone had 911 called on them does not make that person a police target whose civil rights are suspended. If a cop or deputy cannot understand how to handle people that are upset or angry without becoming upset or angry him or herself, they do not belong on the job.

Thin Skinned Cops, Numbers Game Policing

 There are people in law enforcement are too thin skinned for the job. They are easily provoked and are clueless about how to de-escalate situations. A good cop knows how to de-escalate situations, and how to properly escalate situations that call for escalation. Some cops are good social workers but lousy cops. They can de-escalate situations but fail to properly escalate situations that call for escalation. Other cops are lousy cops because they are poor de-escalators, or lack the ability to distinguish between when escalation is needed, and when de-escalation is needed. 

Police departments that practice numbers game police work favor the escalator. Thin skinned cops should be a thing of the past. Same for numbers game police work, which unfortunately remains alive and well, completely ignored or unchallenged, or completely off the radar of many clueless police reformers.

Stock Markets And The Illusion Of Wealth

 The more the environment is degraded and polluted, the more is lost collectively. The center of wealth is believed to be stock markets, not the health of the environment or anything else. Stock markets rise as the world deteriorates. There is a difference between individual wealth and collective wealth. Ultimately, collective wealth, not individual wealth, shapes our future.

 Enormous energy and effort goes into stock markets. Much depends on it continued ascent. Our pensions, our economic stability, our economic futures. Labor has long been devalued while speculation gets rewarded. The stock market rises as the environment and life for billions deteriorates. The consequence of making the stock market the only game in town and the definer of wealth is not beneficial, to say the least.

Gulf Of Mexico. The Cost Of Killing Nature

People have not yet totally destroyed the Gulf of Mexico. In places where the Gulf of Mexico is badly polluted and contaminated, coastal property can barely be given away. Signs caution against entering polluted, high bacteria count waters that will make someone sick. The ocean there is a dead zone.

In Florida, where the waters of the Gulf are still okay, the value of coastal properties is astronomical. But one day, when the gulf waters of Florida are just as badly polluted, smelly and contaminated as the waters in some other states, the property values will plummet. 

None of this has to happen. Unchecked development, greed and selfishness makes this inevitable if nothing changes. 

Everyone wants the perfect lawn and landscaping, no matter the chemical, pesticide and fertilizer load and how this kills the Gulf and its marine life. 

All over the world, development in all it forms, properties, agriculture, industry, tourism, recreation, commercial development, commercial fishing, and so forth, is given precedence over conservation. The more the environment is degraded and contaminated, the more lives are destroyed from a multiplicity of ways, and the less there is a quality of life. 

People are fanatical about their politics, their religions, their hatreds, but not so for the lands and seas upon which all depend.

One day when the ecological disaster that is the Gulf of Mexico in one region moves to the not yet destroyed region where people live blissfully unaware of how close the ecological disaster is and how quickly it can expand, the Florida economy will collapse. This can all still be prevented.

The future of mankind does not depend on politics, economics, religion or any man made endeavor. It depends on what we do to the environment, and what it will do in return.

The Country Held Hostage By Violent Jihadists And Their Foreign Master

 There is no country in the world except one where a private army is openly funded, supplied, and supported by a foreign country, and in which the private army is far stronger and better equipped than the army of the state itself. The private army wages war on foreign soil and holds its own country hostage by its military power. 

A private army driven by religious fanaticism and jihad, not by loyalty to the country itself. 

The private army and its business arms operated the port where highly explosive material was improperly kept and stored, and where many people died or were wounded, with enormous property damage, when the material exploded. All due to corruption and greed. 

The private army justifies itself by the pretend use of resistance while it is the occupier and foreign mercenary force.  

It is the one that went to Argentina with its foreign country master and blew up a community center, killing and wounding countless civilians.

It is driving a nation into bankruptcy. It will incite war against the country to its south to divert attention from itself. It uses the word resistance to hide its greed, militarism, bloodlust and slavish loyalty to the  violent jihad that it and its foreign master worships.

Corrupt, militaristic powers need foreign enemies to justify their existence. 

There will be a war that never should be, and many people will suffer because of the greed, the fanaticism, the toxic mixture of violent religious fanaticism with politics by an organization intoxicated and consumed by the violent jihadist ideology of its foreign master.

Is Islam The Only Option For Christians That Reject The Trinity?

It is common to hear from Christians that convert to Islam that their motivation for the conversion stems from disbelief in a Trinity and the concept of one God as presented in Christianity. The merits of believing in a Trinity or not believing in a Trinity are not to be argued here. An aside and personal opinion is that how a person acts is far more important than what they believe. Faith by itself is not a determiner of righteousness.

There are older religions than Islam that believe in one God, and in which the Trinity is not part of the religion. This includes Judaism, Sikhism, and other religions. Unitarianism, considered a  form of Christianity, does not believe in the divinity of Jesus, and sees God as one without the Trinity.

Why then do many Christians that reject the Trinity turn to Islam instead of Unitarianism, Judaism or another religion where there is belief in one God and not in the Trinity?

Islam is far larger than Unitarianism and all other religions except Christianity, so it likely that a Christian rejecting the Trinity hears about Islam and not about Unitarianism or other religions that believe in one God but not the Trinity. Also, Islam, like Christianity, proselytizes and seeks converts. Religions that do not proselytize are far less visible than religions that do proselytize.

The large size and domination by a few mega religions often drown out or dismiss the legitimacy of other beliefs and faiths.

The decision to change faiths and convert is a deeply personal one. It is important to question everything, and not be swayed by sugar coated versions of a religion or of a religion's holy books. Leaving Christianity because the Trinity does not make sense should not be an automatic jump to another religion on the assumption that it holds a monopoly on the concept of one God.

The Israel Is Demonic Obsession. Norman Finklestein And Company

The obsession and need to demonize and delegitimize Israel is common. Because this is already a widespread sentiment, those that indulge in their demonize Israel obsession find it easy to find audiences to validate their hate filled obsession.

It is not the purpose here to defend the actions of the Israeli government. There are many things the government of Israel has done that are wrong and that should be opposed. There are many things the American government has done that are wrong. There are many things that many governments have done that are wrong. Many countries would be better off with regime change. Many countries would be better off with complete changes of government. There are far too many dictatorships in the world. There are far too many countries ruled by arrogant, cruel, greedy leaders that kill and loot at will. There are far too many religious theocracies that strangle freedom and compassion. But there is no country in the world, except for when it comes to Israel, where the goal is not regime change, not a change of government, not to reform a nation, but to destroy the entire country and ethnically cleanse its Jewish population.

All eyes on Israel and damn the rest of the world comes at a heavy price. While the hate Israel obsession rages, keeping the conflict inflamed and far from ever getting resolved, terrible things happen. All the cruel and horrific things taking place in the world get to pass virtually unnoticed and rarely opposed.

Over six million people have been killed in the Congo region alone. Many were hacked to death by machete. Countless women and girls, even babies, have been raped, murdered or made permanently disabled.

War rages in Yemen. Millions of civilians face starvation and disease. War rages in Libya, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Mali, and many other places while the world turns a blind eye.

Finklestein wants people to believe Israel is worse than North Korea in order to validate his obsession. Millions share or happily go along with this obsession despite the heavy price it exacts.

Demagogues, dictators, theocratic rulers and others know that focusing on a scapegoat means no one focuses on them. Having an external target means no one focuses on their shortcomings and deficiencies. People are easier to manipulate and fool when they are directed towards an enemy to hate. Others have made careers, fame and/or fortune by having a scapegoat, knowing that the more widely despised is the scapegoat, the easier it is to attract an audience and following.

Destroy Israel and commit genocide against the Jews, following in the footsteps of Hitler, is actively pursued by Iran, by its Lebanese Hezbollah army, by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and many others. It is not imagined by someone paranoid. It is real, no matter how many in their eagerness to delegitimize Israel pretend that it does not exist. Hamas, Iran. Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and others declare openly and often their goal to exterminate Jewish Israelis. They make it clear that their religious beliefs  compels them to wage war against the Jews, and that there can be no solution to the conflict other than the complete destruction of Israel and the establishment of yet another religious theocracy that the world needs like a hole in the head. Even the former prime minister of  Malaysia, a country far from Israel, wants Muslims united in a war against the Jews. Many so called leftists pretend this does not exist because it is does not conform with their biased narrative that Israel is bad and those that are war with Israel are angels. Antisemitism or the hatred of Jews, must be made to appear insignificant in order for the myth to persist that Israel operates without cause against threats that are not real.

The genocidal actions and rhetoric against Israel are not uncommon. What is common is how commonly they are ignored.

The fact that Finklestein's parents were holocaust survivors and that he is Jewish born does not give him special insight into Israel or into antisemitism that others lack. Most Jews whose parents were in the holocaust do not despise the state of Israel. Many Jews that do experience antisemitism have to wonder how a man that has made a career inciting against Israel and demonizing Israel lectures on antisemitism and argues that it is virtually nonexistent. In 1994 a suicide bomber blew up a Jewish Community Center in Argentina. Hezbollah and Iran are believed to be responsible for the attack that killed 85 people and wounded another 300. No matter how clear in words and actions jihadists and other extremists and supremacists make clear that they want Jews dead, using Israel as the excuse for their hate, none of it resonates for many North Americans and others that have lived sheltered lives and are clueless about the world around.

Many so called leftists justify and support the actions of Islamic jihadists despite the incredibly reactionary, supremacist, bigotry of violent Islamic jihad. Finklestein's justification for the Charlie Hebdo murderers is an example.

The demonize Israel crowd wants Israel destroyed or at least weakened into an indefensible nation. Jihadists and the enemies of Israel are celebrated. The hundreds of thousands of missiles directed against Israel, the costly tunnels built to wage war and infiltrate, the jihadists acts of murder and martyrdom are whitewashed or encouraged.

In their Orwellian universe, Israel must be made to appear as a demonic actor, never as a nation with the legitimate right to exist with secure borders. The war against Israel and the effort to destroy it is disregarded. This way, Israel appears as a violent, irrational nation operating in a vacuum.

Whether or not Israel exists, the jihadist threats remain. Boko Haram in Nigeria kills by the thousands. Abu Sayaf in parts of the south Philippines beheads and terrorizes. Al-Shabaab terrorizes in Somalia and Kenya. Mali, Libya, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, South Thailand, Yemen, Iraq and many more places are drenched in blood from jihadists.

Most Israelis originated from the middle east or North Africa, not Europe, where many were ethnically cleansed and forced out of lands where they had lived for centuries or even for thousands of years. Jews from Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iran, British controlled Palestine, Algeria, Afghanistan,  and elsewhere are still alive, as are their descendants. They can tell their story of why there needs to be an Israel, and why they defend Israel's right to exist. They can tell a side of the story that the Finklestein crowd conveniently ignores in its eagerness to delegitimize Israel and paint a one sided, demonic narrative.

Finklestein, a privileged American, does not speak for the Jews from North Africa and the middle east or for the average Israeli.  He blissfully remains focused on only seeing or believing what he wants to see and believe, excluding the narratives that puncture holes in his.

If Israel is destroyed, as many of its enemies desire, and if Jewish Israelis are forced to leave, assuming they are not massacred as Hezbollah, Hamas and many other jihadists desire, many cannot return to places that they or their parents or grandparents left. The Jews that originated in places like Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, would be slaughtered or persecuted at best if they were forced to go these lands full of hatred for Jews. Jews that used to live in what was called Palestine under British rule, and before that Ottoman empire rule, know that if Israel is destroyed, they as Palestinians will not be safe.

All over the middle east and North Africa, religious minorities are persecuted. Bahai's and others are persecuted in Iran. Yazidis and many middle east Christians have been slaughtered. Coptic Christians are persecuted in Egypt. Persecution or discrimination against religious minorities is widespread not just in the middle east and North Africa, but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and many other places.

Many people, in their hatred for Jews, make sure that this hatred is manifested in hatred for the one small Jewish state in the world. Everything else that happens in the world, the terrible treatment of religious minorities in many countries, the wars and terror that take place daily, the bigotry and religious violence that keeps the world washed in blood, the poverty and misery that so many face, the severe environmental destruction and pollution that is destroying the world, nuclear weapons, and all the other terrible things taking place in the world are ignored.

The WW2 destruction of Europe, with over 50 million people killed following leaders obsessed with killing Jews, should have taught where where antisemitism leads.

Israel has been a UN recognized state for over 70 years. Millions of Israelis have grown up on that soil. The goal to see them driven out, or to see their state become an indefensible shell of a state that is completely vulnerable to genocidal enemies, does nothing but ensure years more of senseless bloodshed and suffering.

Ignoring the genocidal ambitions of those that wish to destroy Israel should not mean uncritical support for Israel. All countries, all governments, all organizations, all religions and religious institutions should be subject to criticism, scrutiny and questioning. Resolving this long standing conflict defies easy solutions, but one thing is for certain, more of the same; hate, violence, incitement, demonizing the other side, religious bigotry and intolerance, war and terror only brings more misery and bloodshed. Everything that can be done to build bridges and mutual acceptance is a step in the right direction. Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Central African Republic, Darfur, Mali, Northern Nigeria and Afghanistan are but a few examples of how war, religious intolerance, and violence spin out of control, creating unimaginable suffering. This must not be allowed to happen.

One way or another, the only solution to the conflict is for Israelis and Arabs to learn to live with one another in peace. Those that promote peace between the different peoples are to be applauded. Those that incite hatred, those that encourage bigotry and violence, those that pursue terror, those that demonize and demean must be opposed, no matter who they are or from what side.

Oceans And Plastic Pollution: What Must Be Done

There is a massive failure to protect oceans and the environment in general from plastic pollution. This includes, but is not limited to the following reasons: First, there is the common use of plastic or synthetic oil based materials, including in clothing, food packaging, plastic bottles, plastic bags, and thousands of other items, without affordable, safer alternatives on the horizon. 

Second, there is a massive failure to properly collect and properly dispose of plastic. In the developed and developing world, micro fibers from clothes and other sources are commonly released into the environment from washing and drying. The developed nations, with exceptions, have not been successful at properly removing plastic waste from the environment. Sweden burns plastic waste, creating energy, while scrubbing out many of the contaminants. Sweden's approach appears to be one of the more effective ones. In many developing nations, plastic waste is burned openly, exposing people, wildlife and the environment to harmful carcinogens. Some developed nations still ship their plastic waste to developing countries already overwhelmed by their own plastic trash. In developing nations, the infrastructure is often lacking to properly collect and properly dispose of plastic waste. Plastic waste and other garbage are often brought to unsecured landfills, where mountains of garbage are created. Winds and storms blow much of the waste back into the environment. In other places, ground water is contaminated when waste is buried improperly or buried at improper locations.

It is critically important that plastic waste and other harmful waste are properly collected and properly disposed. There are billions of people plastic dependent, without ways to collect and properly dispose of their plastic. Proper waste collection and proper waste disposal must become universal. Anything less ensures ocean destruction and other enormous harm continues unabated. 

Third, plastic trash already in the environment is not effectively being removed. Employing impoverished people in developing nations to remove plastic pollution already in the environment is part of the solution. People need employment and plastic trash must be removed from the environment. This part of the solution - employed labor to remove plastic pollution - has been missing. The need for employment is enormous, as is the need to remove plastic trash from coastlines, mangroves, forests and many other areas which can only be achieved by manual labor. A movement is needed to ensure the widespread employment of impoverished people to remove plastic trash. One small organization has a workable model by employing impoverished people to remove plastic pollution from ecologically sensitive coastal areas in a developing country. But the extent of poverty and plastic pollution requires a much greater effort that must have governments and others involved. 

Removing plastic trash already in the environment cannot be successful without manual labor. No individual or organization, profit or nonprofit, should mislead people into believing that the huge amount of plastic trash already in the environment can be removed without an enormous amount of human labor. There is a place for technology, and there is a place for volunteerism, but they are no substitute for the manual labor that is needed to lead mankind out of the plastic trash mess.

Manuel labor is needed to remove all plastic waste, not just the small amounts that can be recycled. Programs that are based on incentives for people to recover recyclable plastic waste miss the boat in that all plastic waste is harmful and must be removed. It is far more effective that people are employed fair wages based on their labor, with fair daily or hourly wages, than having people paid by the recyclables they recover.

Programs that make it appear that products made from ocean plastic, like jewelry or something else, actually helps the oceans misleads people. The minuscule amount of plastic they recover is greatly offsetted by the false narrative that this is something of consequence, leading people into a continued state of blissful unawareness or noninvolvment. The fact is that millions of pounds of plastics pour into the oceans daily, and nothing will stop this massive damage unless: 1. the effort goes into ensuring widespread proper waste management and that plastic waste is properly collected and disposed of everywhere.  2. People are employed to remove the plastic trash already in the environment, including the amounts added every day, by getting paid fair hourly, daily, weekly or biweekly wages.

Similarly, ending the plastic pollution nightmare must not get derailed by narrow focused so called anti plastic advocacy. For example, the advocacy to end plastic straws fails to make it clear that plastic straws are a minuscule part of the plastic pollution nightmare, and that even if all plastic straws are banned, the plastic pollution nightmare will continue unabated. There is a lot of advocacy for ending plastic straws, but virtually no advocacy to employ the necessary manual labor to remove plastic pollution from the environment, and to create the appropriate infrastructures worldwide to ensure plastic trash is properly collected and properly disposed. Plastic straws should be banned, but the advocacy to make this happen should not continue to deter people from addressing what is necessary for ending the plastic pollution nightmare.

As long as billions of people in developing countries are plastic dependent, lacking the infrastructure and ways to properly dispose of their plastic, the plastic pollution ocean destroying nightmare will only worsen. No amount of recycling, plastic straw bans, jewelry or other items made from plastic ocean trash, devices to remove plastic from rivers and oceans, studies about plastic pollution and its prevalence, or volunteer beach cleanups, are of any consequence unless this changes. Millions of pounds of plastic waste continue to pour into oceans daily because billions of people in developing countries have no ways to dispose of plastic other than to openly burn it or dump it into rivers, oceans, and other places.   

While the effort continues to find alternatives to plastic, the critical need for proper waste collection and disposal must be aggressively pursued. This is of the highest priority. Plastic trash already in the environment that can only be removed by manual labor opens the door to what must become one of the largest antipoverty, environmental projects the world has ever known. But this very necessary program can only succeed when proper waste management succeeds universally.  

Privileged Social Justice Warriors And The Battles They Do Not Fight

It is easy to come up with solutions that require little to no self sacrifice, and that fit a politically correct feel good narrative

Impoverished communities need jobs. Manufacturing long ago left the United States for cheap overseas labor.

Instead of bringing jobs back to the United States, people are content chasing the latest meaningless app or the next meaningless social media or internet startup. Venture capitalists spend billions on nothingness.

The most fundamental things that people need have been exported overseas, along with much else. There is no excuse for why shoes, clothing, electronics, computers, sports equipment, toys, phones and so much more cannot be made in the United States.

There will never be social justice as long as labor is devalued and sent to places with the cheapest labor costs and with the poorest environmental and safety standards.

Many of the sjw elitists are content with their high paying meaningless jobs, or cushy overpaid jobs in academia, while demanding change that has nothing to do with the most fundamental things that have gone wrong.

Gangs and the drug trade are major U.S. employers. They have filled the vacuum left behind by lost jobs.

The more there are gangs and illegal drug trafficking, the more there will be gang violence, drug related violence, religious and political hate cults, violence in impoverished communities, and violent interactions with police.

Low income affordable housing must stop being concentrated in high crime, low income areas. The resistance of wealthy suburbs to any presence of affordable housing in their privileged communities must stop. Housing discrimination based on income must stop. The federal government can mandate the distribution of affordable housing. It is long past the time in which rich, privileged suburbs continue to exclude low income housing.

Sjw's can move into impoverished communities and help by their involvement in these communities.  They must stop being outsiders dictating what everyone else must do except for themselves.

Sjw's can think twice about their many meaningless overpaid jobs and ask why labor jobs are gone, how they can return, and how labor can finally be restored to the dignified place it never should have lost.

Millions of Americans struggle on low paying service job wages while executives receive incredibly inflated salaries and benefits.

If there was a strong middle class in the United States working well paying labor jobs in manufacturing, agriculture and elsewhere, many of the problems that an army of sjw's can do nothing about would resolve.

Environmental common sense must not be a sideshow to social justice or any other form of justice. The more forests are lost, the more oceans are polluted and destroyed, the more there is environmental degradation, the less hope there is for humanity regardless of whether or not humans  figure out how to live in peace and harmony with one another.

The Cult Of Victimhood And its Path To Violence

In the cult of victimhood, those considered victims are not responsible for their actions. If they are violent or bigoted, it is not their fault. Blame must always be cast elsewhere.

Not holding people responsible for their actions, which includes those considered victims, is a guaranteed recipe for violence and misery.

Victimhood ideology is a pathway to destructive ideologies and religious beliefs that ensure a level of oppression and misery that far surpasses whatever misery and violence was initially opposed.

Victimhood ideology asserts no matter how people placed in the victim class act, no matter what they do, no matter how bigoted or violent they may be, they must not be held responsible.

The never hold victims responsible crowd continuously looks for reasons, explanations and solutions to ensure those placed in the victim class are never responsible or accountable for anything.

Victimhood ideology has created its own perverse caste system that the subscribers to this ideology are too blind to see.

People can be victims in need of justice and sympathy or empathy. But this never should have become not holding people, victim or not, responsible for their actions.

Racism, Gangster Glorification, Political Correctness And Bigots

The politics of race are often polarizing. If one narrative or another is not accepted, people get accused of racism or something else.

It is possible to recognize the existence of racism and how it has detrimentally affected African Americans while also recognizing other reasons why there are high levels of crime and violence in many low income African American communities.

Political correctness shuts down discourse. It is a cult that wants adherence and obedience, not discussions or solutions.

So in the face of the mind numbing cult that has swept the nation, especially academic places where pampered professors get to spew nonsense unopposed, hindering progress and critical thinking, here goes.....

Racism created difficult problems facing many African Americans.

Other things added to it that have made the problems much worse. This includes the flight of millions of labor job in manufacturing to countries outside of the United States where there is cheap labor and loose safety and environmental restrictions.

A thriving drug trafficking economy filled the vacuum, creating communities where gangs are the major employer.

A gangster culture emerged glorifying thug life. A few became fabulously wealthy from glorifying this life, while quickly removing themselves to palatial mansions far from the chaos they create.

When children are raised in communities where gangs and drug dealers are the major players and thug life is glorified by the idiots producing and making the music these children hear every day, it is unsurprising that children embrace this life as they get older.

Then there are the multimillionaire leaders with their cult like followings and others that offer no way out of the mess other than the same crap offered for over the past fifty years: be angry, act angry, be militant, be a bigot, use deflection to avoid responsibility, be violent or excuse, justify or condone violence, make sure to always have a target to blame and a scapegoat to hate, make sure to have an enemy to demonize and to cast blame upon. Make sure the scapegoat is the fall guy, responsible for everything bad. In the case of Farrakhan, he found something even better than blame the white man: blame the Jew, whereby he combined Jew hate with religion where the Jew was already demonized by many.

Scapegoats, bigotry, violence and hate are not the way out. While violence rages, the hate cults of bigoted white men and women and of bigoted black men and women and others, often done under the name of religion, grow and prosper while communities continue to die.

The way of Martin Luther King Jr. is the right way. Nonviolence, education, kindness, love, equal rights and equal treatment for all - the rejection of violence, hate and bigotry, not excuses made for it.

Those that glorify violence or turn a blind eye to it, the race baiters and bigots of all races; the men and women that think hate and bigotry are acceptable as long as it comes from the race, religion, or ethnicity they prefer - must finally be confronted and rejected.

Violent And Angry Steal The Show In U.S. - Millions Abroad Suffer In Silence

The coronavirus pandemic has overwhelmed already overwhelmed health care systems in many developing countries.

Millions of people no longer working have no safety net to provide food and other basic needs.

Many people in the United States, rather than count their blessings during this time of crisis, prefer staying angry and enraged. They are confident that they live in the worst place on the planet, even though their bellies are full, and they suffer nowhere near what millions of people in developing countries suffer. Or they use their grievances strategically in order to play on guilt and extract concessions.

The violent and angry once again steal the show, while millions of people the world over really in need suffer ignored and in silence. Meanwhile, the environment continues its collapse and  degradation and nuclear weapons proliferate.

U.S. And Developing Nations - Hardship Before and During Coronavirus

The coronavirus pandemic highlights the hardships and differences between the lives of most people living in developing countries from the lives of those living in the United States and other developed nations.

In developing nations, there are minimal to no safety nets for those that are poor. The health care systems of these countries were overwhelmed before the coronavirus. Many people that are sick, injured and dying cannot expect to receive medical care if they do not have money. Government hospitals and clinics, along with charitable hospitals and clinics, could not meet the needs of millions of poor people in developing countries before coronavirus. Coronavirus patients add to the already overwhelmed health care systems that have long failed.

With millions now unemployed because of coronavirus, there is no safety net in many developing countries to provide food for those without work. In those places where the government or private charities distribute food, it is nowhere near enough for the vast majority of people in need.

Coronavirus is causing malnutrition and disease by the breakdown of already fragile economies. There is simply not enough food available.

In places like the Philippines, where there were once waters rich with coral reefs, mangroves, fish and other marine life, much of this has been destroyed. With millions out of work from the pandemic, people no longer have the bounty that the oceans once provided. The oceans no longer sustain life for millions as they once did.

For a long time now religious, political and economic leaders have ignored environmental degradation and how this impacts health and food availability and increases poverty.

Throughout the Philippines, Borneo, the Nigerian Delta, the Congo, Vietnam, and many other places, mangroves, forests, coral reefs and more have been recklessly destroyed or contaminated. People that were able to sustain themselves by relying on the oceans, mangroves and forests can no longer do so.

Basic freedoms that people in the United States and west enjoy are nonexistent in many developing nations.

People in the United States, no matter how poor, are not turned away from hospitals in an emergency.

Americans can stand on the street and denounce Trump or any politician and not be hauled away to prison or shot on the street.

Political dissidents are not murdered or imprisoned because of their beliefs.

Apostates and blasphemers are not murdered. There is religious freedom.

No mullah, sheikh or other religious figure controls everything, with unlimited power to shove their beliefs down the throats of others.

The United States is not a nation with a dictator looting, murdering and treating the nation as a personal possession.

There is the rule of law in the United States. There is individual freedom unmatched by most other places in the world.

Affordable and accessible birth control and family planning are available in the United States. Women can make choices regarding family planning by the availability of contraceptives, without  having to rely upon abortions or having children that they do not want.

In many developing countries, simple travel is difficult by the lack of infrastructure.

 Such things as good roads, sewer systems, schools, water treatment, garbage removal, proper garbage disposal, and more are nonexistent for millions upon millions of people.

The United States is an imperfect society. It is a place with its share of problems and injustices. But it is not a stagnant place. It is not ruled by dictators or religious tyrants. It is place with more than its fair share of rotten leaders. But there are elections. And there is a strong constitution with a bill of rights.

Many people in the United States are blissfully unaware, purposely so in some instances, of how many people in the world live without running water, toilets, electricity, proper food, clean water, health care, dental care, education, struggling each and every day simply to survive.

No matter the internal problems inside of the United States, the United States must not stop being a beacon of hope and help for countless people the world over suffering from extreme poverty and oppression.

Many developing countries are in a crisis from the coronaviris pandemic far worse than what the United States and developed countries are experiencing. Americans should count their blessings and not forget the suffering that exists outside its shores.

Pandering To Racism, Violence, Bigotry

Concern about lives, black and otherwise, is too often about political, religious or other agendas, both within and outside of the United States. Gangs kill by the thousands. Over 6 million people have been killed in the Congo region alone, with untold numbers of women and girls raped, eliciting little to no outcry. The cry for justice is often selective, parochial and about personal, political and religious objectives. Some lives count, others do not.

Violence, rioting and looting ensures nothing good results, nothing changes for the better, and societies do not become more humane, just places. Regarding police, the focus on bad cops as though that is the norm obscures the need for real police reform that makes policing far more effective and  better.

The mob rules, with far too many people inclined towards group think and capitulation to the mob. Until that changes, real change for the better will be near impossible to achieve.

The two greatest threats to the survival of all people; nuclear weapons and environmental destruction, continue to be pushed to the side.

The media that provides the message is controlled by a few mega corporations. They feed on the sensational and do everything they can to stoke racial division and tension.

Social media corporations also ensure hate, bigotry and violence spreads, as long as the people spreading the hate and violence are the groups they prefer and protect and that the recipients of the hate, bigotry and violence are the groups they could care less about.

Social media corporations are like the Kremlin and religious dictatorships and theocracies. They kill free speech and spread hate.

The enormous concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, along with corporations that sent their labor jobs overseas, ensure inequity and injustice continues. Few are willing to address this. The less there is hope and opportunity, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or nation, the more there is instability and despair.

Whites that pander to blacks, unwilling or afraid to speak out or stand up against violence, bigotry and hate when the hate, bigotry and violence comes from nonwhites, fuel racism, violence and destruction. Blacks that make careers fueling racial discord and hate too often are given passes, or are glorified and provided platforms to spread hate and bigotry.

All bigotry, racism and hate must be opposed, no matter where it comes from. Hate is big business and a money maker for far too many. A black hate monger and bigot must be treated with the same contempt as a white hate monger and bigot.

Human beings are human beings, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion.

Meanwhile, every dictator and religious theocratic on the planet laughs when there is trouble in the United States. They get to plunder, murder and loot with impunity, knowing all eyes are off of them.

Hate, bigotry and violence must stop being selectively accepted, ignored, excused, condoned or promoted under the banner of victim hood or anything else.

Why Nothing Changes For The Better - Dog fighting And Domestic Animal Cruelty

The simple, yet seemingly impossible to achieve objective is to have animal cruelty that is in the criminal statutes move fully into the hands of public law enforcement, not token police teams, and completely away from non public non police entities, which includes any and all animal organizations. The only role that they should have is to be advocates to ensure police respond appropriately and broadly to animal cruelty. Additional things, such as assisting in the removal and housing of confiscated animals are also useful roles for animal organizations. Changing the long standing pathological dynamic regarding dog fighting and domestic animal cruelty is near impossible unless there is true advocacy not by one or two individuals here or there, but by a concerted effort by a group of people willing to truly understand the existing pathological approach to dog fighting and domestic animal cruelty, and their willingness to fight for meaningful change.

Racial Justice Is Not Separate From Economic Justice

Racial justice and equality cannot be separated from economic justice and equality. A number of companies are jumping on the bandwagon of smoke and mirror change regarding racial justice and inequality without having to do much of anything. They will give money to certain organizations, increase the diversity of their upper management, and perhaps fund some education program, but do nothing in regard to what they can really do to make a difference.

Corporations have been on a long standing trend of paying their executives and upper management ridiculously exorbitant salaries along with obscene benefits while they scour the world for the cheapest labor that they can find combined with the fewest environmental and safety regulations.

U.S. corporations and politicians gave away much of the United States' manufacturing and industrial base to countries (mainly China) with the cheapest labor and fewest regulations. No consideration was given whatsoever for the political, economic, environmental and other costs of this decision, domestically or internationally.

Cheap labor means big profits that companies spend on their upper management and executives. Money is also spent on advertising near slave labor products, much of which go to social media giants that spread hate, bigotry, lies and violence while censoring free speech that has nothing to do with hate, bigotry or violence.

Imagine if all that manufacturing and industry never left the United States. Imagine if the United States had responsible business and political leaders not driven by greed that were content with paying themselves reasonable salaries and benefits along with fair wages for their workers.

Imagine if vast urban areas and other parts of the United States were not devoid of legitimate jobs.

The primary employer in many low income urban areas in the United States is the drug trade, which fuels gangs, violence, religious and racial cults and fanatics.

The less there is legitimate employment, the more there is a strong drug trade, the greater the likelihood of violent interactions with the police. A violent gang and drug culture in the United States ensures continued violence, which gets swept under the rug or condoned.

It is easy to focus on the police alone and ignore everything else. Rich elites, black, white and everything in between, get to maintain their innocence and self righteous stature.

Education alone will not change racial and economic inequity if jobs do not exist that can absorb educated people into the workforce.

There is a country in the world with a high level of education and literacy, and where English is commonly spoken.  But jobs are lacking. Many of the educated are unemployed or underemployed and do everything they can to escape the country.

The United States must take back its industrial and manufacturing base.

This will take power away from corrupt regimes and dictatorships that profit from the shameful American giveaway.

The environment will benefit from stricter environmental regulations practiced in the United States, despite the present administrations weakening of many of those restrictions.

The less the Pacific ocean and other waters are polluted thousands of miles away, the better for the entire United States.

When elitists, black, white and brown cry out for racial justice, make sure economic justice is included in the playbook.

Animal Cruelty - Exploited By Animal Abusers And Animal Activists

There is a big difference between talking about and exposing animal cruelty and animal exploitation by those considered the bad people, and exposing animal cruelty and exploitation by those considered the defenders. The former is socially acceptable, profitable and lauded. The latter rocks boats and makes one an outcast. The well known animal activists are not the outcasts.

Animal Advocacy And Its Profitability

Animal advocacy has not moved beyond a cult of feel goodness, pandering to emotions and that which has the best monetary appeal or provides other personal gain. When involved in a police capacity with trying to stop dog fighting and animal cruelty, the list of the animal advocates and others reached out to is long. All of it led nowhere. It was and is a dead end road. The dark world of animal cruelty and dog fighting, and the exploitation of that world by animal organizations and animal advocates remains unchanged despite decades of trying to make things better. Pathological dynamics remain unchanged when the people that claim to speak for the voiceless and vulnerable are instead their exploiters.

Animal Cruelty: Exploitation By the Supposedly Good, Cruelty By The Bad

An inordinate amount of money funds organizations and individuals that claim to address dog fighting and animal cruelty. They play on peoples' heartstrings. They exploit animal cruelty for their own gain.

Public law enforcement is already funded to respond to crime, including for laws pertaining to animal cruelty. Public law enforcement needs to respond appropriately to dog fighting and animal cruelty laws. These laws are already in the criminal codes, but are meaningless if not enforced widely and appropriately when encountered. The advocacy to make this possible will never occur until the organizations and animal advocates that sell themselves as the defenders for animals stop exploiting animal cruelty and dog fighting for their own gain and profit.

Because animals cannot speak for themselves in a way that people can understand, they will continue to be victimized by their alleged defenders and by their abusers. Domestic violence victims, because they can speak, would never tolerate the poor police response and the exploitation response that animals are forced to endure.

Until then, the dance will continue between what law enforcement minimally does, and what a number of animal organizations and animal advocates pretend to do.

Obama, Bush On George Floyd Killing

Past presidents Bush and Obama have spoken out about the George Floyd murder.

If Obama and Bush care so much about life, they should have used their time as presidents more wisely.

They could have intervened in the genocide taking place in the Congo region that continues to be ignored. More than six million people have already been murdered. Countless women and children have been raped.

Bush and company did not have to go to war in Iraq, and should not have lied to the American people about why the U.S. needed to go to war. After the Saddam regime was toppled, Bush and company allowed chaos and violence to run rampant, resulting in more loss of life.

Obama compounded the disaster in Iraq by prematurely leaving Iraq. His indecisiveness, failure to act, meaningless red lines, and playing politics encouraged the Assad regime assisted by Russia and Iran to continue mass murder.

Obama failed to intervene on behalf of the Yazidis, middle east Christians, Muslim moderates and secularists before ISIS became as powerful as it did. He did little to stop the genocide, mass murder, mass rapes, and sexual slavery that ensued.

What happened to George Floyd is wrong. No sane person thinks it is right. It does not need the voice of past American presidents to point out what so clearly is wrong. There is a lot of grandstanding going on right now.

If only these past presidents were more concerned about lives when they had more power than anyone else in the world to do something about so much.

How Apple And Other Companies Can Fight Racism And Economic Injustice

Apple CEO Tim Cook made a number of promises today about fighting racism. Apple is not the only corporation recently to make such promises. One of the promises he made is to donate to organizations that challenge racial injustice.

Giving to organizations looks good on paper, but it will accomplish little more than enriching the pockets of a few while making donors feel good.

People need jobs. They need well paying jobs where they can afford to take care of their families, buy homes, eat well, have proper health insurance, and so forth.

Apple executives and upper management earn fortunes. Apple, like a lot of American corporations, relies upon low waged workers.

Executive compensation in the United States is out of control and disgraceful.

Meanwhile, corporations like Apple rely on the cheap labor, poor safety and environmental standards of countries like China.

Instead of fluff, how about Apple moves its manufacturing into low income, impoverished communities in the United States where work is desperately needed. Skip the meaningless contributions to organizations, and provide people with actual well paying jobs.

In response to how higher labor costs will increase the prices of their devices, offset this by bringing executive compensation and upper management salaries back down to earth.

Regarding how stock prices may be affected and go down, an employed labor class finally able to buy shares of the companies where they work will offset the decline. Having a strong middle and working class is far more important than the present situation of inflated stock prices, low wages for most and excessive wages for a few.

In Stocks We Trust

Pandemic with resulting high unemployment, disease, war, fanaticism, environmental degradation threatening mankind's future, looting, rioting, poverty.... None matters as far as the stock market is concerned. Money keeps pouring into it. The federal reserve, government and the corporations and interests that control the economy and government ensure that the stock market is the only game in town.

At this point, the government might as well just outright buy stock. They have done everything else  to keep markets inflated.

Two thirds of the American economy is driven by consumers. Consumers are hurting, with unemployment high and small companies going out of business. The main driving force of the American economy is not propping up the stock market, but still the market euphorically goes higher.

Big drivers of the market, such as certain social media companies, basically produce nothing and are little more than advertising companies with a social media presence. They help the euphoria that is not rooted in reality.

One analyst said that a certain company's decline was the market actually getting it right about the company. The analyst said that the company burns through cash daily and therefore is worth less each passing day. True to form, the negative news from the analyst came out on a day when the stock was already hard hit. In the days and weeks that followed, the company's stock dramatically rose, proving once again never follow the singular financial advice of anyone. On bad days, bad news comes out. On good days, the news is upbeat and even euphoric. Financial news is often about appealing to reader sentiment.

Speculation runs rampant. On the New York stock exchange casino, an insignificant company was treated as a world shaking giant, heavily traded days ago as gamblers nimbly made their bets

One day a price will be paid for inflating stocks, making them the only game in town, letting the environment fall apart, nuclear weapons spread, war, corruption and hatred grow, while blindly believing in stocks we trust.