by Bill Swartz When I was a little kid growing up in York, Pennsylvania, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house. It was a brick rancher with a walk out basement and it was built in the 1950’s. I always felt happy there. Safe, warm and hopeful. It had a real post-war …
“Of course you can fix the fragment of a piece. But then it will deteriorate because what it is connected to has been ignored.” (From the film Mindwalk). We can no longer afford to look at the world in terms of isolated pieces. That is a deluded view of reality. Because the truth is that …
Continue reading A Whole New View: How to Keep the Great Idea Alive
 “The moment I jumped off of it was the moment I touched down.” – Alanis Morissette ——–---------------- It was 1 a.m. on a starry night in Nebraska and we were speeding down an empty interstate. Miles Davis played on the stereo and the dashboard glowed amber. I opened the windows a few inches to …
“I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head.” …
4 spectacular quotes: “My life has been a path at the edge of uncertainty. Today I think we educate kids to be settled in a comfortable chair. You have your job. You have your little car. You have a place to sleep. And the dreams are dead. You don’t roll on a secure path. All …
Daniel Burnham (Chicago architect): “Make no small plans. They have no magic to stir people’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that your work will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. …
At least a few people in each of over 70 countries have read this (thanks to the magic of WordPress). https://clearblueskyoutwest.com/2019/06/30/the-most-destructive-policy-youve-never-heard-of/
JAMES BALDWIN: “The excluded begin to realize, having endured everything, that they CAN endure everything. They do not know the precise shape of their future, but they know that the future belongs to them. They realize this. . . and begin, almost instinctively, to forge a new morality, to create the principles on which a …
Martin Luther King, Jr. said that nonviolence is the most powerful weapon on earth. Gene Sharp agrees. Sharp (who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize) developed a list of 198 Methods of non-violent resistance and wrote books describing how to deploy them successfully. As you’ll see in the video below, Sharp’s proven …
Continue reading There are 198 methods of non-violent resistance. (Marching is only one of them).
Don't forget who we were before the garish gold plated loudmouth entered the room. When HE's here — all ham handed — we’re sure to get ornery on fear and see the sacred web strained. But we know the way back. Remember feeling the warm embrace of your first love. That flower bloomed years before …
"For power truly to feel itself menaced, it must somehow sense itself in the presence of another power - or, more accurately, an energy - which it has not known how to define and therefore does not really know how to control. . . When power translates itself into tyranny, it means that the principles …
Continue reading Forging a new morality & creating the principles on which a new world will be built
(Forwarded to me by a friend). “Cousin - I think you know I love this country. I grew up same as you did. I've got K.T. Oslin and old Hank in my phone. I love warm raspberries plucked right off the bush in the sun and fields of corn and hayrides and sunsets in the …
Continue reading A MESSAGE TO PEOPLE WHO STILL SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP
Here’s a CLEAR PLAN TO SAVE AMERICA, a compelling view of where we are, how we got here & what we need to do now at this crucial moment in history. https://www.c-span.org/video/?461581-1/senator-bernie-sanders-delivers-remarks-democratic-socialism
THIS APPEARS TO BE SOMETHING WE SHOULD ALL BE PAYING CLOSE ATTENTION TO: (1st of 3) Dire warning of where this country is heading. NYTimes Op Ed VIDEO CLIP: "I want you to be scared, because if you’re not worried about encroaching fascism in America, before long, it will start to feel normal & when …
Continue reading NEW YORK TIMES: If You’re Not Afraid of Fascism, You Should Be
Martin Luther King, Jr. said that nonviolence is the most powerful weapon on earth. Gene Sharp agrees. Sharp (who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize) developed a list of 198 Methods of non-violent resistance and wrote books describing how to deploy them successfully. As you’ll see in the video below, Sharp’s proven …
Continue reading 198 Effective Methods of Non-Violent Resistance (Marching is only one of them)
ONE POLICY (championed by leaders of both parties) leads to poverty, pollution, racism, severe inequality, loss of good jobs, unnecessary wars & many of the other serious problems we face. **But there's GOOD NEWS: We can end this one policy & prioritize people & the planet. Unbeknownst to most of us, REPUBLICAN & DEMOCRATIC …
Continue reading THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE POLICY YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF
JAMES BALDWIN: “The excluded begin to realize, having endured everything, that they CAN endure everything. They do not know the precise shape of their future, but they know that the future belongs to them. They realize this. . . and begin, almost instinctively, to forge a new morality, to create the principles on which a …
“Of course you can fix the fragment of a piece. But then it will deteriorate because what it is connected to has been ignored.” (From the film Mindwalk). We can no longer afford to look at the world in terms of isolated pieces. That is a deluded view of reality. Because the truth is that …
Continue reading A WHOLE NEW VIEW: How to Keep the Great Idea Alive
Our nation has reached a point where our political, economic, social and environmental challenges seem overwhelming. Here are just a few examples: 50% of children in the U.S. live below or near the poverty line. (Columbia University School of Public Health study here ) 20 individuals now have as much wealth as the poorest 150 million Americans –half …
“My life has been a path at the edge of uncertainty. Today I think we educate kids to be settled in a comfortable chair. You have your job. You have your little car. You have a place to sleep. And the dreams are dead. You don’t roll on a secure path. All of us should …
THE LAST GASP OF PATRIARCHY AND CARTESIAN THOUGHT (Don't miss the four great video clips below. They're the heart of this post). "Mindwalk is a 1990 film set at Mont Saint Michel, France. It's directed by Bernt Amadeus Capra and is based on the book The Turning Point by his brother Fritjof Capra (the author …
Once we have an awareness of the web of relationships in our community and how our own actions can have an impact on others, we are more likely to act consciously and make deliberate choices informed by that awareness. We often think our community or country is broken because of the surface political, economic and …
(Please see two short videos below. They're very sharp and you'll be surprised how crisply they define our problem and a potential solution -- one that 500,000 people are already working on). As it stands, Congress does not represent the interest of most of the people in this country. Members of Congress really only …
Less stuff. More adventure. More passion. More joy. 1. Incredible wing suit jump footage. This is absolutely beautiful. Filmed during jump off of Aiguille du midi in the French Alps. These 2 fellows soar like birds. (2 minute video clip): https://www.facebook.com/reffetvince/videos/449292328611195/ 2. Climbs El Capitan with no ropes in less than …
Some related thoughts at this other article here on this blog: "A WHOLE NEW VIEW" https://clearblueskyoutwest.com/2017/08/10/a-whole-new-view/ Click on this link to return to HOME PAGE and see other posts on this blog. https://clearblueskyoutwest.com
The political center for the last 20 years has not been as innocuous as we might think. We supporters might have had our minds on what was best for citizens and the environment. The problem is that centrist leaders (Republican & Democratic moderates) have been championing the interests of their corporate donors at the expense …
Continue reading IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME: How We Prioritize People and the Planet
If we miss the message in the following three quotes, we tip the balance too far towards INDIVIDUALISM and too far away from COMMUNITY: ---------------------- Dostoevsky put it this way in the Brothers Karamazov: "Today, everyone asserts his own personality and strives to live a full life as an individual. But these efforts lead not …
"If you don't think this is a problem, go back and take a look at the Roman Empire -- right before the fall." - Robert Reich Reich really nails a key problem in this article: http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/a-handful-of-ultra-rich-dynastic-families-are-bleeding-the-country-dry-and-destroying-american-democracy/ Here are some statistics and facts to consider: The game is rigged. (If you doubt that, just read this: …
Martin Luther King, Jr. said that nonviolence is the most powerful weapon on earth. Gene Sharp agrees. Sharp (who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize) developed a list of 198 Methods of non-violent resistance and wrote books describing how to deploy them successfully. As you'll see in the video below, Sharp's proven …
Continue reading 198 Effective Methods of Nonviolent Resistance (marching is only one of them)
”Only to the extent that a man exposes himself over and over again to annihilation, can that which is indestructible arise within him. In this lies the dignity of daring.”* ~ Zen teacher Graf Durckheim “My life has been a path at the edge of uncertainty. Today I think we educate kids to …
Hey #resistance ! It's happening. A judge gave the go ahead for construction and the bulldozers are warming up to destroy a chapel on land owned by nuns. A giant oil company is about to attempt to plow through Lancaster County to continue building the controversial Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline. The pipeline won't help Pennsylvanians. It …
Continue reading Lancaster Takes a Stand Against the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline
Black men nearly 3 times as likely to die from police use of force, study says http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/20/health/black-men-killed-by-police/index.html Police 3 times more likely to use force on blacks than whites, study shows http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/12/health/police-use-of-force-on-blacks/index.html Fast forward to 1 minute in.... https://youtu.be/1eQINR0u7xo https://youtu.be/xQWe4MK_8Xo
38.3 percent of black children live in poverty. 10.7 percent of white children live in poverty. Article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/us/black-children-poverty-pew-research-center.html
"When a white person kills a black man in America, the killer often faces no legal consequences. In one in six of these killings, there is no criminal sanction, according to a new Marshall Project examination of 400,000 homicides committed by civilians between 1980 and 2014. That rate is far higher than ones for …
(Please don't miss another solution in red at bottom). This video clip is 2 minutes & 30 seconds long and very informative. Narrated by Robert Reich. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik1y4ZNSjek After you watch the video, check out this companion website also has some really compelling stats and graphs. More importantly, it lists issues and …
Continue reading INEQUALITY IS REAL, IT’S PERSONAL, IT’S EXPENSIVE & IT WAS CREATED.
Here's an op ed by Malcolm King in "INDaily: Adelaide's Independent News" Adelaide is the 5th largest city in Australia. 'NEOLIBERALISM: Goodbye & Thanks for Nothing" It took eight years after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) for the western world to realise that neoliberalism had turned communities into strangers, pauperised the working class and …
Kindness may be the grail. . . Note: I hadn't consciously thought of the Story of the Fisher King at all when I was writing some of the fictional pieces that appear on this blog. But it does seem to loosely fit some of the themes somehow. I suppose that's true of a lot …
This program "Who deserves to be poor?" is produced by WNYC and it will blow you away. If more people understood the information in this, it would completely change the debate. Listening to this program could turn a conservative into a progressive. It's one portion of a 5 part series called "Busted: America's …
Our nation has reached a point where our political, economic, social and environmental challenges seem overwhelming. Here are just a few examples: 50% of children in the U.S. live below or near the poverty line. (Columbia University School of Public Health study here ) 20 individuals now have as much wealth …
NOTE: We have lots of challenges. But there's also some great news about our party's prospects for the future. If you're looking for compelling information on how we can turn things around, click here after you read the post below. We have more power than we think and can definitely become a strong dynamic …
Continue reading Maybe it’s time we Democrats give ourselves some tough love. Then we can WIN!
ARTICLE FROM THE ATLANTIC The WTO demonstrators were the "Occupy" movement of the late-20th century—mocked, maligned, and mostly right. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/282831/ ALSO - - CHECK THIS OUT. SOME GOOD NEWS AT THIS LINK! 12 REASONS TO HAVE HOPE: We're going to turn this world around. https://clearblueskyoutwest.com/2017/09/11/what-gives-me-hop/ Click on this link to …
Prince Ea recently posted a video that went viral on facebook to 30 million people (you can see it here on YouTube): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ESB00WsWOAU Thich Nhat Hanh demonstrates what Prince Ea is saying beautifully in his gem of a little book "The Heart of Understanding", his translation of the famous Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra is …
U.S. CORPORATIONS EARN RECORD HIGH PROFITS & PAY RECORD LOW TAXES. This is quite a win by the 300,000 people (.1%) that pretty much run the show in our country. They and the corporations they own are making the most possible money while at the same time avoiding paying their fair share …
You know, in Iceland, when their elected representatives ignored their calls and letters and pursued an agenda favoring corporations and the wealthy, citizens surrounded their parliament and here's what happened: "Protesters were calling for the resignation of government officials and for new elections to be held. The protests stopped for the most part with the …
Continue reading ICELANDERS DEMONSTRATE THE POWER OF NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=20DYE6c2EaY If you like that, you'll love this book. You'll be in a good mood for weeks after reading it 🙂
"At some point, we're going to need to decide what kind of world we're going to leave for Keith Richards."
"Of course you can fix the fragment of a piece. But then it will deteriorate because what it is connected to has been ignored." (From the film Mindwalk). We can no longer afford to look at the world in terms of isolated pieces. That is a deluded view of reality. Because the truth is that …
Continue reading A WHOLE NEW VIEW: How to Keep the Great Idea Alive
As we approach Thanksgiving, there is much to be grateful for. This old Inuit song sums it up: "I think over again my small adventures, my fears. Those small ones that seemed so big. For all the vital things I had to get and to reach. And yet there is only one great thing, the …
. What a wonderful opening line. . . ☺️ 🌊 🚴🏼♂️ 🌊
Clear Blue Sky 