161 results for author: Dave Svetlik

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XXII: THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE OF PLANET EARTH

Preamble We the People of Planet Earth, in Order to form a more perfect World Unity, establish Universal Justice, insure Global Tranquility, provide for the peaceful common defense, promote the general and Universal Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty and ongoing Operational Planetary Integrity to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for Spaceship Planet Earth. Article I Hereafter and henceforth, the ongoing operational integrity of Planet Earth shall be central to all human decisions and actions. We have but one Spaceship Earth to carry us forward on our Cosmic Journey. We travel to places unknown. ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XXI: THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF THE PEOPLE OF PLANET EARTH

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people – the people of Planet Earth – to dissolve the economic manipulations and predations which have divided us, and to assume our intellectual and ethical responsibility to protect the ongoing integrity of Spaceship Earth for ourselves and our posterity, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to their actions. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator and the Universe with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, the ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XX: SOLUTION

“There was a house made of dawn. It was made of pollen and of rain, and the land was very old and everlasting. There were many colors on the hills, and the plain was bright with different-colored clays and sands. Red and blue and spotted horses grazed in the plain, and there was a dark wilderness on the mountains beyond. The land was still and strong. It was beautiful all around.” - - N. Scott Momaday The picture painted by Momaday is of grace and dignity and beauty. It is a picture of what was and what might be. It is a picture of us and our planet Earth, our home. But we the people of planet Earth face great crisis at this moment on our ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XIX: AMERICA BECOMES THE HOST

While mentally struggling for an appropriate title for this particular article in the Wealth and Money series, “THE EMPIRE DEVOURS ITSELF” came to mind. But this misses a critical distinction. The people of America are not the corporate and moneyed power structure in control of our government, our military and our economy. They are not the empire. Indeed, the people of America have become the victims of the empire. We are now the “colony.” If we are guilty of any wrongdoing, it is the sin of complacency. But complacency unwittingly enabled the U.S. corporate and banking power structure to exploit and impoverish the people of Latin America, ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XVIII: THE POWER BEHIND THE “POWER”

“The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” - - Henry Kissinger, justifying the U.S. overthrow (and assassination) of Chile’s democratically elected president, Dr. Salvador Allende, in 1973. “Even Kissinger, mad as he is, didn’t believe that Chilean armies were going to descend on Rome. It wasn’t going to be that kind of an influence. He was worried that successful economic development, where the economy produces benefits for the general population - not just profits for private corporations - would have a contagious effect.” - - Noam Chomski - Secrets, Lies, and Democracy "make ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XVII: IT IS ALL SO UNNECESSARY

“The dark ages still reign over all humanity, and the depth and persistence of this domination are only now becoming clear. This Dark Ages prison has no steel bars, chains, or locks. Instead, it is locked by misorientation and built of misinformation. We are powerfully imprisoned in these Dark Ages simply by the terms in which we have been conditioned to think.” “Neither the great political or financial powers of the world nor the population in general realize that the engineering-chemical-electronic revolution now makes it possible to produce many more technical devices with ever less material. We can now take care of everybody at a higher ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XVI THE DEATH THROES OF EMPIRE

“Men and women of the United States armed forces in armored vehicles patrol the streets of Baghdad. They pass in the way of so many who have come before them: the Egyptian charioteers of Ramses II, the Macedonian phalanx of Alexander the Great, the Roman legionnaires of Caesar and Trajan, the Crusaders of Richard the Lion-Hearted, the legionnaires of Napoleon, the Camel Corps of Lawrence of Arabia. All of these have come through the Middle East. Many of them have come with the best of intentions, by their lights, to bring stability, even freedom to the Middle East. All have passed away. The Middle East has been the graveyard of empires.” - - J. ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XV: AN EMPIRE IN DECLINE

There is a life cycle to empire - a historical evolution in the birth, maintenance, and loss of world preeminence. Conceived brutally through conquest, or peacefully as in the transfer of power from Great Britain to America after the first and second world wars, the birth of a new empire is always led by the relocation of major centers of knowledge in science, technology and engineering. This is so because the long term outcome of leadership in these fields is a genuine increase in human wealth — in the ability to sustain ever more humans with an ever rising standard of living. To be certain the wealth has often been inequitably distributed, but ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XIV: THE FRIGHTENING PHILANTHROPIST

“Philanthropy, is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice that make philanthropy necessary.” - - Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Philanthropy in the United States is not just the voluntary activity of a donor. Philanthropy in general, including the work of foundations, is generously tax-subsidized. The assets transferred to a foundation by a donor are left untaxed in two respects: the donor makes the donation more or less tax-free, diminishing the tax burden she would face in the absence of the donation; and the assets that constitute a foundation’s endowment, invested in the ...

WEALTH AND MONEY, PART XIII: THE ROBBER BARON THEFT OF TECHNOLOGY

The investment - - and the enablement - - began 3.6 million years ago in Tanzania when two early humans stood upright and left the “Laetoli Footprints” in the wet volcanic ash. We do not know what these humans knew, but they had mastered enough of their environment to survive, because we are here today. We owe them a great debt. A million years passed. Hammerstones and sharp stone cutting flakes were in use. Another million years passed and handaxes arrived. Hearths appeared 790,000 years ago. Humans had learned to control fire. Two hundred thousand years ago innovation in stone technology accelerated. Points were hafted to shafts to make ...