Tereza I love that you have not only thoughtfully considered the 'how to' in dismantling an empire, but created a blueprint for what could come next. The practical steps and elements behind a vastly improved, human-centric, community-focused world.
"Any sense of money’s solidity was gone. Suddenly, everyone realized it was just an idea—an idea for which they were giving their lives away. "
Brilliant. Dead-on.
Your framing the conditions - in the not-too-distant future - is eerily plausible.
May this vision of what's possible and realistic permeate our world. I think a big challenge to taking the reigns back lies in a defeated populace that can't imagine what is actually, practically possible, and you are providing that blueprint.
Excellent.
My book group recently decided we will include non-fiction. I'm going to order the book (finally!) and after reading suggest it. I'll keep you posted on that.
Thank you for using your formidable mind to such good ends. Such a promising vision.
What an honor that I'll be read by you, Kathleen! I'm so happy that this post was the impetus. That tells me that I am on the right track to explore the vision, put tangible goals out there, and ask people if that's what they want.
Yes, those who dismiss anything good as pie-in-the-sky have no problem accepting that the sky is going to fall. So why not tie the two together? CBDC is certainly in the works. If it creates the chaos that it did in Nigeria, that would mobilize the masses. Even done smoothly, it breaks the mystique of dollars as real and backed by anything.
With the petrodollar no longer being the only currency in which oil trades, countries are already divesting, so a BRICS boycott is possible. I worry about China using its Treasury bill surplus to buy up land and housing. The cubicle homes being foisted on us by Newson aren't where anyone I know wants to live. But it could mean an influx of Chinese immigration, which might also spur communities to protect themselves economically.
And Israel is imploding. I think they're the black hole that will suck NATO and the Five Eyes in after them.
But for all the sharks in the water that I labelled in my book, I never saw the 'pandemic' coming. That's done more to wake up some of us than anything else. So who knows what the straw will be that breaks the overloaded back of this camel?
I don't know if it was intentional but I love that you put 'taking the reigns back' instead of reins. It really is the question--who rules? We're the ones being driven by the reins, when we need to reign over ourselves.
"So who knows what the straw will be that breaks the overloaded back of this camel?"
Who knows is right. So many big illusions falling. So necessary and destructive at once. Given the level of absurdities on display - I like to think this tells us we're close, but I suspect that means a lot of chaos. All the more important that people have something constructive and meaningful to focus on. What can I do about this? And what you lay out as possible in your book is a perfect example of steps people can take to reclaim their lives.
I'm hopeful your book will provide an opening to more meaningful questions and conversations. Gonna be really interesting.
Great ideas, Tereza! I think about these things often... how to empower ourselves locally. Also, I've been wanting to read your book too and will suggest we do so in our Book Club...
What a wonderful honor, Neshma. Yes, you've put a tremendous amount of effort towards organizing your island of sanity in a mad sea. My book can be frustrating for those who are more activists than strategists, and I suspect your book club includes both. There are many books on what we can do now to build community and weather the changes, and they're valuable. As far as I know, my book is the only one that looks at the system change of taking back money creation, backed by the mortgages, at a local level.
What you are talking about is Debt Free Money and any person who has introduced it has been assinssinated. It has been achieved twice Script Money in the USA , that lead to the War of Independence. In the UK it was the Bradbury Pound 1914 -1918 controlled by the Banksters.
Yup. A chapter of my book is The Short Eventful Life of Sovereign Money about Ben Franklin's colonial scrip. That's the model my economic system is based on.
Tereza, thank you for showing us a glimpse what is possible once the Empire has been dismantled. Your vision depicts a well-considered, sane and humane way of living that aligns with a society of mature individuals. For it to be realized, more of us need to outgrow the tendency to exploit, hoard and make war. May it be so!
What a fantastic, fantastic post. Thank you for your vision and your dreaming. I have a felt sense of possibility in reading this.
"Looking back, we can’t imagine where we’d be if things had continued the way they were. The uncertainty of how to live one day to the next, the loneliness of no connection to those around us, the constant stress of every day life all seem like a bad dream. But now, we have woken up."
I love this so much.
Thank you for articulating the possibilities.
What do you envision as the next practical steps to getting ready?
Thank you SO much, marta. I can already picture you in my slower, saner, smaller world.
Hmmm ... what a tantalizing question. Paradoxically, I'd say, doing nothing. We're really in a time of waiting, biding our time, being patient.
There's an odd effect that pissing off a psychopath with an assault rifle (if you glanced at my last post) has had on me. I'm not choosing fear--I think this was something I was led to. But I wake up and say, "I get to spend one more day in my beautiful house. I get to dance one more time with my friends. I get to talk one more time with my amazing daughters."
Instead of looking around at the long list of things I need to do, and things that I could be worrying about, I decide that today is like the last day of a vacation, when you savor everything. I don't feel resentful about making the bed one more time, and doing it again tomorrow. I may not get to do it tomorrow! Who knows?
Does that seem macabre? I think it's how the stoics thought. In any cases, it's doing wonders for my sense that I'm not getting anywhere, my life is going nowhere, there's no meaning to anything I do. I get to just be today. And maybe tomorrow, yippee!
I did see your last post, Tereza, but didn't follow it closely. Did that woman comment on your post? What a shock to find someone who has written thoughtful discerning posts at times, then come out with such mind boggling hate. I'm sorry that she's directing that around.
I love your shift that's under way in you - appreciating and savoring all the deliciousness. I think that's under way in me too, in my own way. I'm finding an extra spark of love - for the color of my tea, the flowers in the tea steeper, the laughter of my son, snuggling with him (he's nine, so it really could dry up soon!), laughing with my husband.
My husband has been on a jury this week. He is the perfect person to be a on jury, if I may say so, as he's calm and not easily ruffled, he cares about the world, is aware of biases, seeks justice. And it was a horrific case. What a juxtaposition in my life of softening more to be delighted, and loving my husband while he is witness to something horrible in the justice system, seeing him get rocked by this experience.
What a world.
<3 <3 <3
I'm ready for the slower, saner, smaller world for sure.
And then my son threw up 3 times yesterday and plans are upended and I get worn out by the needs of a sick kid stuck at home. My prayer is to find the beauty in it all today.
Interesting vision. Not sure how realistic this is (especially without a significant calamity happening first) but I do hope it will become a reality one day soon.
We might have two different definitions of 'actionable truths.' I believe there's nothing we can do as individuals or communities that will make a real difference. As long as the banks own the houses and issue the money, we all work for them no matter what we do. My book, How to Dismantle an Empire, describes the system changes that would enable communities to take back their sovereignty. But I think we need to know what we want. Otherwise, even with a significant calamity, we'd waste the opportunity for change. Just my 2 cents.
We DEFINITELY 100% need to know what we want and in articulate it clearly and with great detail.
The enemy have their detailed plans and we can never win if all we do is just say "we are against that" without having our own vision for what comes next.
Most conversations I have end with the other person saying, "Sounds nice but how is it going to happen?" I quote David Graeber in saying that no one has a blueprint for how change happens, you just need to be ready when it does.
The new addition in this episode is the questionnaire. When I go into the details of how you would do things, I lose people. But I thought that starting with the Y/N questions of what they want to accomplish might be a better place to start. And I'm carefully not including certain goals like "Give everyone who needs it a house, an education, food and healthcare." Once you have a need-based system, any system of reciprocity is shot. You need to start by asking "Is it gov'ts job to take care of people or to enable people to take care of themselves?"
I think the questionnaire is a great addition. First people have to engage those questions, before they can get to the 'it's possible' stage. And in doing that they must move past their own defeatism.
Yes!! That's exactly what I wanted. First, someone gets to the point of saying, 'yes, I would like to do this.' Then they're in the process of figuring out how, which makes a place for my system to land in their imagination.
The detail of every aspect of our lives described here is both encyclopaedic in its breath and inspirational in its vision. I’m more than half way done with your book (I had to get ready for an event all last week and am trying to catch up on lots of reading now) and I’m at the point of where it gets into your fiefdom vision. It was really nice to get the Cliff’s Notes here as the money aspect if the hardest for me to grasp.
Oh, thank you so much, Tonika. Was your fundraiser yesterday? I'm so eager to get the deets but I can wait for another forum where you can tell more than just me.
I'm so glad that Kathleen pushed me to do this. What's possible has always been so present to me that it makes me ache with impatience. I can understand why people don't dare to hope and resign themselves to little tweaks as the only realistic changes.
I'm glad you've made it to the fun part of my book and are past the 'give up hope all ye who enter here' part. The first four sections are really to show why those little tweaks will never work--the cards are impossibly stacked against us while they own our labor for free.
I'm thinking that these questions are really the place to start. It opens up the door to the imagination. Appreciate you, Tonika, you're such a warm and genuine person.
Hahahaha! You’re right, the first two thirds of your book are “abandon all hope, all ye who enter here”. 😆 but I am learning quite a bit.
Yea, fundraiser was yesterday. It was a wild night. I’ll tell you about it next time we link up. Spent the day doing family stuff today to make for the absolute lack of parental connection this whole week.
I appreciate you too, Tereza. You are also exceptionally warm and genuine. I guess we attract that which we are. Grateful for your kind words and for the human that you are.
Thank you for the questionnaire; we were talking about this earlier and it's nice to see it fleshed out.
You wrote, "People are responsible for their own decisions so there are no lawsuits allowed[...}". But what about all the lawyers that would be put out of business? Are they going to have to become productive members of their commonwealth? Horrors!
Haha! I do think there's still a function for lawyers in class-action suits against corporations and Constitutional law on why it's a contract that was never valid in the first place, and has been violated in the second. But we may need to train a new crop of lawyers for that too.
I second what Kathleen and Katie have said! And I'll add this: To portray the future in words as though it has already occurred is one of our most powerful methods of manifestation... And you've done it compassionately and brilliantly. I love this! I love the way your mind works!! Xox
Thank you so much, Mary. I've long thought about a sci-fi novel or play (no hint there ;-) that portrays what it would be like to be living in my system. To do it justice would require something like UklG's The Dispossessed, that shows the pitfalls and hardships that would go into it. But I'm glad Kathleen pushed me to overcome my perfection paralysis and get something sketched out that puts this place of accomplishment into our i-mage-a-nations.
Yes! I can totally see a fictionalized version of your system. I'm glad you mentioned Le Guin's book -- I'd never heard of it before, but it's on my list now. Yay Kathleen! Yay overcoming perfection paralysis! I love how we push and support one another... 😊
• “Zionism is a White Supremacist Colonial Ideology That Relies on the Genocide of the Palestinian People for its survival.”
I have regarded Vanessa Beeley as a beacon of light on the truth since her reporting on Syria, and in particular her exposé on the White helmets.
What a shame that she trashed all of that goodwill with such an absurdly ignorant, hate-filled ad hominem against all White people superimposed against the actual (non-White) perpetrators celebrating under the Star of Remphan.
I am now suspicious of the Palestinian Liberation Movement itself and will have to look into who created it and who is funding it. I hope it is not another NAACP, or BLM to keep people divided and mutually antagonist towards each other.
Agreed that the photo she put at the top was regrettable. But I don't think it's necessarily connected to the Palestine Liberation Movement. It has an authorship to a group called Restless Beings. The PLM statement is very long and I haven't finished all of it but I've been impressed with what I read. I think you would like it.
Tereza I love that you have not only thoughtfully considered the 'how to' in dismantling an empire, but created a blueprint for what could come next. The practical steps and elements behind a vastly improved, human-centric, community-focused world.
"Any sense of money’s solidity was gone. Suddenly, everyone realized it was just an idea—an idea for which they were giving their lives away. "
Brilliant. Dead-on.
Your framing the conditions - in the not-too-distant future - is eerily plausible.
May this vision of what's possible and realistic permeate our world. I think a big challenge to taking the reigns back lies in a defeated populace that can't imagine what is actually, practically possible, and you are providing that blueprint.
Excellent.
My book group recently decided we will include non-fiction. I'm going to order the book (finally!) and after reading suggest it. I'll keep you posted on that.
Thank you for using your formidable mind to such good ends. Such a promising vision.
Best.
What an honor that I'll be read by you, Kathleen! I'm so happy that this post was the impetus. That tells me that I am on the right track to explore the vision, put tangible goals out there, and ask people if that's what they want.
Yes, those who dismiss anything good as pie-in-the-sky have no problem accepting that the sky is going to fall. So why not tie the two together? CBDC is certainly in the works. If it creates the chaos that it did in Nigeria, that would mobilize the masses. Even done smoothly, it breaks the mystique of dollars as real and backed by anything.
With the petrodollar no longer being the only currency in which oil trades, countries are already divesting, so a BRICS boycott is possible. I worry about China using its Treasury bill surplus to buy up land and housing. The cubicle homes being foisted on us by Newson aren't where anyone I know wants to live. But it could mean an influx of Chinese immigration, which might also spur communities to protect themselves economically.
And Israel is imploding. I think they're the black hole that will suck NATO and the Five Eyes in after them.
But for all the sharks in the water that I labelled in my book, I never saw the 'pandemic' coming. That's done more to wake up some of us than anything else. So who knows what the straw will be that breaks the overloaded back of this camel?
I don't know if it was intentional but I love that you put 'taking the reigns back' instead of reins. It really is the question--who rules? We're the ones being driven by the reins, when we need to reign over ourselves.
Appreciate you! Best.
"So who knows what the straw will be that breaks the overloaded back of this camel?"
Who knows is right. So many big illusions falling. So necessary and destructive at once. Given the level of absurdities on display - I like to think this tells us we're close, but I suspect that means a lot of chaos. All the more important that people have something constructive and meaningful to focus on. What can I do about this? And what you lay out as possible in your book is a perfect example of steps people can take to reclaim their lives.
I'm hopeful your book will provide an opening to more meaningful questions and conversations. Gonna be really interesting.
What a time to be alive. Appreciate you.💕
Great ideas, Tereza! I think about these things often... how to empower ourselves locally. Also, I've been wanting to read your book too and will suggest we do so in our Book Club...
What a wonderful honor, Neshma. Yes, you've put a tremendous amount of effort towards organizing your island of sanity in a mad sea. My book can be frustrating for those who are more activists than strategists, and I suspect your book club includes both. There are many books on what we can do now to build community and weather the changes, and they're valuable. As far as I know, my book is the only one that looks at the system change of taking back money creation, backed by the mortgages, at a local level.
Glad to be in your circle of possibilities!
What you are talking about is Debt Free Money and any person who has introduced it has been assinssinated. It has been achieved twice Script Money in the USA , that lead to the War of Independence. In the UK it was the Bradbury Pound 1914 -1918 controlled by the Banksters.
And your list should include the National Socialists, although I think the credit should go to Feder (I think it was) rather than Hitler.
Yup. A chapter of my book is The Short Eventful Life of Sovereign Money about Ben Franklin's colonial scrip. That's the model my economic system is based on.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Dismantle-Empire-2020-Vision/dp/1733347607
Tereza, thank you for showing us a glimpse what is possible once the Empire has been dismantled. Your vision depicts a well-considered, sane and humane way of living that aligns with a society of mature individuals. For it to be realized, more of us need to outgrow the tendency to exploit, hoard and make war. May it be so!
Thank you for that sly little reference to my book, Katie. May it be so!
What a fantastic, fantastic post. Thank you for your vision and your dreaming. I have a felt sense of possibility in reading this.
"Looking back, we can’t imagine where we’d be if things had continued the way they were. The uncertainty of how to live one day to the next, the loneliness of no connection to those around us, the constant stress of every day life all seem like a bad dream. But now, we have woken up."
I love this so much.
Thank you for articulating the possibilities.
What do you envision as the next practical steps to getting ready?
Thank you SO much, marta. I can already picture you in my slower, saner, smaller world.
Hmmm ... what a tantalizing question. Paradoxically, I'd say, doing nothing. We're really in a time of waiting, biding our time, being patient.
There's an odd effect that pissing off a psychopath with an assault rifle (if you glanced at my last post) has had on me. I'm not choosing fear--I think this was something I was led to. But I wake up and say, "I get to spend one more day in my beautiful house. I get to dance one more time with my friends. I get to talk one more time with my amazing daughters."
Instead of looking around at the long list of things I need to do, and things that I could be worrying about, I decide that today is like the last day of a vacation, when you savor everything. I don't feel resentful about making the bed one more time, and doing it again tomorrow. I may not get to do it tomorrow! Who knows?
Does that seem macabre? I think it's how the stoics thought. In any cases, it's doing wonders for my sense that I'm not getting anywhere, my life is going nowhere, there's no meaning to anything I do. I get to just be today. And maybe tomorrow, yippee!
I did see your last post, Tereza, but didn't follow it closely. Did that woman comment on your post? What a shock to find someone who has written thoughtful discerning posts at times, then come out with such mind boggling hate. I'm sorry that she's directing that around.
I love your shift that's under way in you - appreciating and savoring all the deliciousness. I think that's under way in me too, in my own way. I'm finding an extra spark of love - for the color of my tea, the flowers in the tea steeper, the laughter of my son, snuggling with him (he's nine, so it really could dry up soon!), laughing with my husband.
My husband has been on a jury this week. He is the perfect person to be a on jury, if I may say so, as he's calm and not easily ruffled, he cares about the world, is aware of biases, seeks justice. And it was a horrific case. What a juxtaposition in my life of softening more to be delighted, and loving my husband while he is witness to something horrible in the justice system, seeing him get rocked by this experience.
What a world.
<3 <3 <3
I'm ready for the slower, saner, smaller world for sure.
I'm glad to get some of the vicarious shine from your sweet marriage and snugglable son!
And then my son threw up 3 times yesterday and plans are upended and I get worn out by the needs of a sick kid stuck at home. My prayer is to find the beauty in it all today.
Knowing you, I bet you'll succeed at that. Best of luck!
Interesting vision. Not sure how realistic this is (especially without a significant calamity happening first) but I do hope it will become a reality one day soon.
We might have two different definitions of 'actionable truths.' I believe there's nothing we can do as individuals or communities that will make a real difference. As long as the banks own the houses and issue the money, we all work for them no matter what we do. My book, How to Dismantle an Empire, describes the system changes that would enable communities to take back their sovereignty. But I think we need to know what we want. Otherwise, even with a significant calamity, we'd waste the opportunity for change. Just my 2 cents.
Thanks for reading my vision and hoping for it!
We DEFINITELY 100% need to know what we want and in articulate it clearly and with great detail.
The enemy have their detailed plans and we can never win if all we do is just say "we are against that" without having our own vision for what comes next.
I am totally onboard!
Ha! I'm so happy you feel that way.
Most conversations I have end with the other person saying, "Sounds nice but how is it going to happen?" I quote David Graeber in saying that no one has a blueprint for how change happens, you just need to be ready when it does.
The new addition in this episode is the questionnaire. When I go into the details of how you would do things, I lose people. But I thought that starting with the Y/N questions of what they want to accomplish might be a better place to start. And I'm carefully not including certain goals like "Give everyone who needs it a house, an education, food and healthcare." Once you have a need-based system, any system of reciprocity is shot. You need to start by asking "Is it gov'ts job to take care of people or to enable people to take care of themselves?"
Thanks for the response!
I think the questionnaire is a great addition. First people have to engage those questions, before they can get to the 'it's possible' stage. And in doing that they must move past their own defeatism.
Yes!! That's exactly what I wanted. First, someone gets to the point of saying, 'yes, I would like to do this.' Then they're in the process of figuring out how, which makes a place for my system to land in their imagination.
The calamity is ongoing but it will be resolved. Nice proposals from TC
Read up your history:
Lincoln's - Greenbacks.
JFK. - Silver Certificates.
The detail of every aspect of our lives described here is both encyclopaedic in its breath and inspirational in its vision. I’m more than half way done with your book (I had to get ready for an event all last week and am trying to catch up on lots of reading now) and I’m at the point of where it gets into your fiefdom vision. It was really nice to get the Cliff’s Notes here as the money aspect if the hardest for me to grasp.
Really terrific stuff. Learning so much from you.
Oh, thank you so much, Tonika. Was your fundraiser yesterday? I'm so eager to get the deets but I can wait for another forum where you can tell more than just me.
I'm so glad that Kathleen pushed me to do this. What's possible has always been so present to me that it makes me ache with impatience. I can understand why people don't dare to hope and resign themselves to little tweaks as the only realistic changes.
I'm glad you've made it to the fun part of my book and are past the 'give up hope all ye who enter here' part. The first four sections are really to show why those little tweaks will never work--the cards are impossibly stacked against us while they own our labor for free.
I'm thinking that these questions are really the place to start. It opens up the door to the imagination. Appreciate you, Tonika, you're such a warm and genuine person.
Hahahaha! You’re right, the first two thirds of your book are “abandon all hope, all ye who enter here”. 😆 but I am learning quite a bit.
Yea, fundraiser was yesterday. It was a wild night. I’ll tell you about it next time we link up. Spent the day doing family stuff today to make for the absolute lack of parental connection this whole week.
I appreciate you too, Tereza. You are also exceptionally warm and genuine. I guess we attract that which we are. Grateful for your kind words and for the human that you are.
Not too far fetched. A good base model for organizing rural communities post the Great Taking.
One thing for sure, it will contribute to a better quality of life.
Thank you, Fadi.
Thank you for the questionnaire; we were talking about this earlier and it's nice to see it fleshed out.
You wrote, "People are responsible for their own decisions so there are no lawsuits allowed[...}". But what about all the lawyers that would be put out of business? Are they going to have to become productive members of their commonwealth? Horrors!
Haha! I do think there's still a function for lawyers in class-action suits against corporations and Constitutional law on why it's a contract that was never valid in the first place, and has been violated in the second. But we may need to train a new crop of lawyers for that too.
I second what Kathleen and Katie have said! And I'll add this: To portray the future in words as though it has already occurred is one of our most powerful methods of manifestation... And you've done it compassionately and brilliantly. I love this! I love the way your mind works!! Xox
Thank you so much, Mary. I've long thought about a sci-fi novel or play (no hint there ;-) that portrays what it would be like to be living in my system. To do it justice would require something like UklG's The Dispossessed, that shows the pitfalls and hardships that would go into it. But I'm glad Kathleen pushed me to overcome my perfection paralysis and get something sketched out that puts this place of accomplishment into our i-mage-a-nations.
Yes! I can totally see a fictionalized version of your system. I'm glad you mentioned Le Guin's book -- I'd never heard of it before, but it's on my list now. Yay Kathleen! Yay overcoming perfection paralysis! I love how we push and support one another... 😊
Beeley:
• “Zionism is a White Supremacist Colonial Ideology That Relies on the Genocide of the Palestinian People for its survival.”
I have regarded Vanessa Beeley as a beacon of light on the truth since her reporting on Syria, and in particular her exposé on the White helmets.
What a shame that she trashed all of that goodwill with such an absurdly ignorant, hate-filled ad hominem against all White people superimposed against the actual (non-White) perpetrators celebrating under the Star of Remphan.
I am now suspicious of the Palestinian Liberation Movement itself and will have to look into who created it and who is funding it. I hope it is not another NAACP, or BLM to keep people divided and mutually antagonist towards each other.
Agreed that the photo she put at the top was regrettable. But I don't think it's necessarily connected to the Palestine Liberation Movement. It has an authorship to a group called Restless Beings. The PLM statement is very long and I haven't finished all of it but I've been impressed with what I read. I think you would like it.
Maybe your questionnaire will be many feisty seeds planted on the land.
May the dismantling proceed apace, but with a revival better than the fate of this town, named Empire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi7cpEVFNgk
Maybe this'll help us snap outa da coma? Fiddler sounds like if Grappelli did Orange Blossom Special? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKtmSTcBRsg
He didn't, but there's this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKz731EJsRM
Megan & crew dismantle & deconstruct an empire... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1BILktmFZ4