Warning:- Even writing a warning is hard. If you do not have a practice that deals with dukkha then please don't read this. Just be warned - seeing the system-for-the-rich for what it is has to leave you in a state of helplessness. The only thing about seeing the system-for-the-rich for what it is is that the path is the only solution - at least we have a solution. Why is the path the solution? Nature, paths come from nature. But again be warned, nature wants nature to survive, nature only wants humanity to survive if humanity will fit into nature eg the path for all.
So the warning became the solution - the path.
Look at anything in the world that is evil, destructive or harmful. It traces back to the bottom-line - accumulation of the system-for-the-rich. This is not the bottom-line of making a profit because small-scale people-to-people profit-maing is just trade; per se trade is not harmful. It is the bottom-line of accumulation where the strategies for enabling this accumulation put profits before people on a global scale. The root cause of evil action in this world is this bottom-line of accumulation.
On a local scale of "small is beautiful" then we have a bottom-line, and people put in that bit extra to make that extra bit of money. On the small level we push boundaries for the bottom-line - for our families. The sila of most people will not allow significant breaking of these boundaries, occasionally people do and they feel disturbed. But in the end the bottom-line of trading with its boundaries has sufficient sila that we survive. Would that we could return to such trading? Where trading was basically barter using money with human boundaries that tended to hold bottom-lines in check and where the scale of individual greed is not that harmful.
Now we live in the system-for-the-rich where the bottom-line of accumulation is the rule and there are no sila-boundaries. Let's see what zandtao means by no sila-boundaries. Global corporate strategies for profit leads to war, poverty, drone-killings; on an individual level we can see the harm and prevent it, but when accumulation has no boundaries - putting profits first the world suffers.
Let's trace a few things back.
Middle-east wars. These wars are based in the accumulation of oil profits. Middle-east countries are authoritarian - dictatorships with Islam as religion mostly. Apart from Israel! Some of these states ally themselves with oil industry such as Saudi, and there is no war. Others don't and they are slowly being picked off. Post-WWII Israel was created ostensibly as a homeland for Jews; in principle a Jewish homeland is legit as would be other homelands such as for Kurds and many others.
What is the connection? The oil industry was concerned about oil being controlled by Arabia, a nominal continent where all spoke Arabic, followed Islam, and controlled the oil. So put Israel in the middle to divide it. But Israel was not to be a harmonious Jewish state accepting land boundaries, Israel was put in the hands of zionists. The background to zionism was that they sought the lands of Eretz Israel:-
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Eretz Israel - Zionist objective?? |
Expanding Israel |
zandtao suspects that after WWII many Jews went to Israel for a homeland after the horrors of the holocaust. Whilst the initial Palestinian displacement was unfair, that might have been ameliorated - perhaps in the end acceptable with reparations - if the lands of Israel had not been expanded by Zionist leadership. Because of the ongoing Zionist expansion the fears of Israeli people have lent themselves to defensive rhetoric. The Likud party was formed in 1977 as the National Liberation Movement but it has zionist objectives rather than liberation.
Netanyahu is prime minister and chair of Likud, and recently has enacted expansionist moves in Palestine, Iran and Qatar. These moves have been supported by the Western arms industry, and politically western governments have not gone against what Israel has done even though western peoples as a whole tend not to support these Israeli moves.
Underlying the Middle-east wars, the bottom-line of the accumulation of the oil industry is at the root of the way Israel has expanded, and wars have been started in countries not compliant with the oil industry. Anything goes to increase oil accumulation. Take away the oil accumulation the pack of cards collapses. Israel returns to be a Jewish homeland, and the peoples in "Arabia" return to dealing with their own national authoritarianism.
Now add in the defense industry, the MIC, they reinforce the objectives of oil accumulation. Their accumulation cements the need for war. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall there was no "red" enemy to finance the sale of weapons, so the "red" enemy was replaced by the enemy of Islam - formally described as terrorists; War on Terror became associated in many minds as anti-Islam. Even more problems associated with the oil accumulation of the system-for-the-rich.
Let's trace back a less tangible aspect of the system-for-the-rich - the global economic system. Attending uni and earlier we learn certain "rules of economics" such as supply and demand and money is presented as a facilitator of barter. These are the rules of economics for "small is beautiful", and in our daily lives this is how we spend money. For most people the tacit assumption is that our economic system is an expansion of this and equally the tacit assumption is that our governments control that economic system for our benefit. This is so far from the truth.
There are 2 economic systems - the global economic system and the "rules-of-economics" system of daily life (local system), and the local system functions inside the global, i.e. the global system is dominant. Now the global system is the system-for-the-rich, and there is a revolving door between corporations, governments and institutions (finance and otherwise) to enable this.
Democracy is an illusion, best understood historically. Most countries were feudal with landowners having power, and people were initially serfs then labourers or soldiers. When did these landowners give over power to democracy? When did the people win democracy? The structure has remained the same - landowners and labourers, rich and poor, 1% and 99%; without any structural change what has changed is that 1%-power has moved to the corporate and banking rich and the poor have become wage-slaves. Historically when we vote for governments, do the policies change with new governments? Marginally - some parties give more to the rich than others. And if candidates emerge to change the system in favour of the poor through some kind of redistribution of wealth eg taxing the rich, manipulations or smear campaigns arise repeated so much in media corporations people accept this as true. (To prevent this from happening we need conviction).
Why should you accept what zandtao is saying as true? There are indicators as they will never say this is the system - that the system is system-for-the-rich. Do policies change? If there was a democracy, policies would change to help the poor. Instead there is an increasing gap between rich and poor as many publications show, and they show this consistently - this widening gap would not happen if governments were for the people. Similar publications show the phenomenal wealth of certain people/families, wealth that could feed thousands of the hungry. None of this is hidden, but what is not spoken of is that the system is designed for this to happen. Instead of the economic system being described as a system-for-the-rich, it is described as complicated requiring "experts". When we ask these experts to explain the system they cannot using phrases like market forces yet there is one consistency - the rich get richer. Even during Covid when ordinary people were dying the rich got richer making loans, manipulating health contracts, vaccines etc.
This is not a thesis with proof, it is a description. Examine it, is it true? If you don't see truth in it, then don't accept it.
Most of the problems for people to accept that societal infrastructure is a system-for-the-rich is that their upbringing teaches them something different, conditioning and conformity says something else, and what is worse is that those who accept the above are described as dangerous. These are not people trying to cause harm but because they question the system-for-the-rich they are labelled as dangerous.
Does it really matter that there is a system-for-the-rich? If these people get rich by working harder or by being more intelligent, don't they deserve it? This is why it is so important to "trace-it-back". Above zandtao described the impact of oil accumulation, this was not hard work but harming people to enable accumulation. What about BigPharma? People now so distrust the power of these corporations they question vaccines. Historically vaccines have wiped out some major diseases but now similar vaccines are being questioned because they are produced by BigPharma. Confusing times. zandtao understands why there is this questioning because many practices of BigPharma and BigFood are toxic and dangerous to people. Given the disinformation of intended confusion it is so hard to decide. That is why we need the conviction of the path to guide us, we cannot trust what the corporations say; we have to learn to know trustworthy sources - the path.
When you trace back do you see the system-for-the-rich for what it is? Please do not accept what anyone tells you because we live in the confusing times of intended disinformation. Ask your own questions and give yourself the answers. Develop your own conviction, through enquiry you follow inner and outer journeys that bring you truth. If you rely on the opinion of others you become manipulated. The way through is enquiry but ask all questions. Don't assume anything from your upbringing, and don't assume the truth from the opinion of others - marxists, demagogues or even zandtao. Develop your own conviction, and see the system for what it is.
What do we do?
The pervasiveness of the system-for-the-rich is global so it is so hard to see what to do. Look at the system, it is so vast - and it is getting worse. People want simple solutions. Revolution? Not worthwhile for one country within the global economic system. Maybe it is better to have more principled people in charge of your country but the global system fights back so that in the end it is questionable whether people gain. Look at all the good people who fought and died in Russia. Tsar -> Leninists-> Stalin->Stalinists->Oligarchs->Putin. What did all those good people die for? In China things appear better as the Chinese people now appear better off but what is the system of Chinese government now? Is that government now part of the global system? How? Was it worth all the death and struggle of the Chinese 20th century? No simple solutions.
Is what is happening in the West better? We have confusing times with an ongoing threat of authoritarianism. Again no simple solutions.
And the solution that zandtao offers - as does Marianne, Corbyn (Corbyn does not talk of path) and others - get active - mobilising-grassroots-for-grassroots. Follow your own path. Enquire. End the restrictions gained in an upbringing of conditioning and conforming. Paths come from Nature/Divine. We don't have to ask what to do, we just follow our practice and our embodiment will become clear.
But zandtao has to be realistic. This works if we all follow our paths, and is that going to happen? That is why there is a warning to this advice. zandtao asks you to see the way things are, offers a "solution" that has no certainty of happening. But what zandtao can say for certain, if you follow your path you will feel fulfilled, and enjoy life more. And you will know there is no more you could have done. However you will have to live with your compassion.
| RADICAL LOVE AS GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM |
 | | RADICAL LOVE AS PATHTIVISM |
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