What If
What If …?
Junious Ricardo Stanton
During the 1960-70;s when the US government targeted Southeast Asia
(Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia) to expand its imperialist and
neocolonialist empire, there was great opposition to the wars in that
region and someone asked the question, “what if they gave a war and
no one came?” There was much resistance and noncompliance towards
the war and military conscription. Protesters burned the American
flag, men burned their draft cards, refused induction, some left the
country, a few had the courage of their convictions and went to jail
rather than kill for the war profiteers and the US
military-industrial complex. It was a tumultuous time in America. The
country was deeply divided along racial and ethnic, ideological,
class and political fault lines.
Having lived through that era I see numerous similarities to what is
going on in this country today. History is repeating itself. Back in
the day, we had to sift through the lies and propaganda about the
reasons for the war, the casualty numbers and the outlook and
prospects for victory. We need to do that again now as the US
prepares for even more war.
As a young man I opposed the Vietnam war, I could not see myself
going halfway around the world to fight and kill people I did not
know for abstract concepts like freedom and democracy that me and my
people did not have or experience in real time here in America! To
me that was hypocritical especially when the draft was taking Black
men languishing in the US racialized cast system in disproportionate
numbers compared to White males and because well to do Whites were
able to get out of being drafted!
On top of that my mother’s family had been traumatized a
generation earlier when the US government took their property in
Caroline County Virginia to expand Fort A.P. Hill a military training
base there. They were given just thirty days to vacate their property
and they weren’t given any compensation for its confiscation and
appropriation by the government. They were put off of their own land
by a government that gave them no respect when racial caste and
oppression was the law and norm in this country.
I always sensed a pall of sadness whenever my great aunt and her
husband with whom we lived and other relatives spoke of those
occurrences. Their experiences shaped my stance on Vietnam despite
being brainwashed by the public education propaganda and
indoctrination system to be gong ho regarding US imperialism,
manifest destiny and such.
I also heard tales of my great uncle who served as a Dough-boy in
WWI. He lost an eye in Europe “fighting for his country” and
returned to America to face deeply entrenched racism and rigid color
cast restrictions. Growing into young adulthood during those times,
fairness and justice were critical aspects of patriotism. In my mind
it was a two way street a mutually beneficial agreement and
arrangement between the government and its citizens not just mindless
obedience to the government. I did everything I could not to go off
to war and fight for a government that had so egregiously wronged my
people.
Fast forward to 2024, the nation is still deeply divided along the
same lines as in 1960’s and 70’s but now we add the immigrant,
gender, trans and LBGTQ+ chasm and hardening economic apartheid to
the mix. In 2024 it appears, if one is observant, the ruling
oligarchs are heading towards more wars, they are moving beyond the
proxy wars like Korea before the escalation in Southeast Asia and
the various “police actions” and covert ops towards direct
confrontation with nations like Russia China and Iran.
In 2024 war takes on a new face, we’re seeing economic sanctions,
commercial coercion, asymmetric cyber-warfare, geoengineering, aerial
drones, unmanned boats and advanced technology being employed by the
US, its allies and potential adversaries alike. Yet as with most
modern wars the main casualties are innocent civilians, men women and
children. Classic examples of this are the genocide and ethnic
cleansing being perpetrated by Israel on the Palestinians and the
devastatingly injurious consequences of economic sanctions the US has
imposed on over twenty nations around the world!
Like most invaders and aggressors the Israelis justify their war
crimes under the guise of “defense”. Rubbish! The whole world
sees what is going on in Gaza. Two international criminal courts
have issued condemnations but they lack enforcement powers! Plus the
United States and it allies fully support the bloodbath there as well
and the escalating war in Ukraine/Russia. The US and its NATO allies
have given the green light to the Neo-Nazis in Ukraine to directly
attack Russian territory which they are doing. None of this is going
to end well. The US economic sanctions are just as deadly but they
are tolerated since they receive very little media coverage and no
bullets or missiles are used!
What if there was a revitalization of a bona fide Peace Movement and
people were willing to sacrifice for Peace to the same degree we
acquiesce to war? What if people stopped believing and tolerating the
government’s lies and asked what are the real costs of human
suffering on all sides and called the government on its war
profiteering and warmongering? What if more people supported the
young students who stood up for Peace against Israeli genocide, or
demanded an end to the wars in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin
America? What if the young people now subjected to conscription and
mandatory military service said Hell no we won’t go? What if people
were more sensitive and empathetic towards the suffering of their
fellow man, what will it take for us to see it’s only a matter of
time before the government warmongers turn their sights on us? What
if we asked ourselves what would we do if a global war was staring us
in the face; because it is. What if we boycotted and unions called
strikes until the government changed its policies? What if you, me
and more people were willing to sacrifice for what is right instead
of remaining disengaged as the world teeters on the brink of war?
What if we decided to be resolute and steadfast for Peace even in the
face of an onslaught of propaganda and lies, government coercion and
force? What if peace lovers had the courage of our convictions, what
type of world would this be?
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Metanoia On The Solari Platform
For several years I have been hosting a program entitled Metanoia on the Solari Report platform created by my good friend Catherine Austin Fitts
https://home.solari.com. Metanoia is an interview program where we present thought leaders and activists who are working to transform and change society for the better. We discuss current events from the perspective of doing the work to better ourselves our communities and the world. Health advocates, nutrition specialists, social critics, writers, Website hosts, metaphysicians, mystics people who have a genuine heart for humanity. The latest program has been posted. Full disclosure Solari is a subscription service similar the The Trends Journal or The Kiplinger Report. However you can watch a snippet of this episode at https://live.solari.com/w/sh9rJmDQeYAt6114XdEKFi. My guest is Geoff Shoun O’Keefe the Executive Director of Zen Peacemakers an organization committed to self-transformation, healing, and promoting peace around the world.
If we are to alter the planet’s current trajectory towards war devastation and human annihilation we need to change how we think, rethink how we think, what we think about, what we think is possible and create a new vision for ourselves and our world. Zen Peacemakers offers a way to cultivate peace and personal transformation in a simple, easy, non-dogmatic, non-ideological, apolitical way. We can all use more peace in our lives, please check out the promo.
Here We Go Again, More Pandemic BS
Here
We Go Again, More Pandemic BS
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
If
it didn’t pose such an existential threat to humanity via their
lies, propaganda, money grubbing and lethal vaccines, the latest
declarations about Monkey Pox would be comical. The World Health
Organization is up to its old tricks, generating public fear and
money for Big Pharma by using hyperbole to shill for more and more
vaccines to supposedly mitigate yet another non-existent global
health emergency. This time its Monkey Pox once again; by the way.
We
are conditioned by the plutocracy’s mind control apparatus to have
short memories, not remember events at all. In 2022 the media tried
to frighten us about a virus called Monkey
Pox
but it fizzled once it came to light Monkey Pox was mostly spread in
males through homosexual activities/contact with multiple partners!
That sounded the death knell for that incarnation of Monkey Pox, but
they never sleep they kept at it.
Here
they come again. This time the “they” meaning Big Pharma, the
globalists at the World Health Organization and people like Bill
Gates have renamed and rebranded Monkey Pox to keep the scam going.
They have rigged the narrative so that it is more frightening with
the potential to infect more victims. This time they’re suppressing
the homosexual causal issue, they’ve changed the name to Mpox or
mPox, they’re saying it’s a zoonotic virus meaning it can jump
from animals to humans, that it’s most specific to West and Central
Africa (where have we heard that before, I know AIDS?) and it is
spreading so fast the WHO must declare a global health emergency
(where have we heard that before?).
Here
we go again! On August 14, 2024 WHO
Director General Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus
called for another monkey pox global public health emergency!
According to the WHO fourteen thousand people in the Democratic
Republic of Congo contracted the virus resulting in five hundred
fifty five deaths. Five hundred people died in one country and the
WHO’s Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus is trying to induce panic and
hysteria just like he did for COVID by claiming there is a pandemic
going on! Coincidentally there are two vaccines available to fight
this “pandemic” so step right up and get your doses before we are
swamped and inundated by MPox
Please keep in mind there are eight billion people on this planet we
call earth and Africa has according to World O Meter 1,519,750,314
billion people or roughly 18.3 percent of the world population!
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/africa-population/
One billion is one million times one thousand. So let’s do what
the globalists don’t want us to do which is think logically,
clearly and critically. Out of one point five billion people in
Africa only fourteen thousand people contracted Mpox and fifty-five
died; so where is the emergency?! What’s the fuss? Yes it is tragic
people died but let’s not allow eugenicists and “crisis”
profiteers like Bill Gates to hype this into something it is not!
Keep in mind the previous demographic for Monkey Pox was homosexual
males who had sex with multiple partners! Now they are trying to
convince us, the “virus” can jump from animals to humans. If this
is so, is laboratory tampering a possible cause for this new
mutation?!
What
the globalists are attempting to do is jin up statistics using the
same PCR test they used to jin up the numbers for COVID so they can
get governments to rush out and buy the vaccine for the newly
rebranded Mpox. We’ve seen this before with COVID, Bird Flu and
HIV/AIDS. The globalists’ playbook is thin they use the same
tactics over and over again mainly because they work. They work
because we are not paying attention because we are distracted by
their media exaggerations and lies which are designed to generate
fear and anxiety. When we are afraid we can not think clearly and we
are easily manipulated and duped, which is what they are attempting
to do now with this new Monkey Pox campaign.
These
are the same actors minus the nefarious Anthony Fauci who foisted
COVID injections on the world, injections that are proving as time
goes on and research becomes more available to be neither safe nor
effective! The same could be said for AZT the AIDS medicine, this a
coincidence? Is WHO
Director General Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus
a real life Chicken Little or is he in cahoots with Big Pharma and
Bill Gates to jin up more profits or increase the death toll from
vaccines?!
Just
like they did with COVID they are concealing certain facts; in this
case the fact Monkey Pox was a condition of mainly homosexual males
and attributing the new Mpox to two viruses Clade I and Clade II
which so far both are mainly confined to West and Central Africa!
They say Clade I is more serious, killing ten percent of those
contacted. Keep in mind we have eight billion people on the planet,
one point five billion in Africa and the Monkey Pox infection and
death numbers are minuscule! Don’t fall for the okey-doke!
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Become A Champion
Become A Champion
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Watching the 2024 Olympics in Paris I was impressed by the
competitiveness, sportsmanship and the camaraderie of the athletes
who were competing and performing on the world stage. These athletes
have put in years and years of training, honing their physical
skills, developing their strengths, abilities, learning how to deal
with adversity, defeat and winning.
There are life lessons to be learned from the athletes whether they
failed to qualify, they finished last or they won a medal. What
did/does it take to perform on that level? How much commitment,
sacrifice, hard work, perseverance and persistence does it require to
be an Olympic champion? When we stop to think about it, is that any
different from any other goal or objective we set for ourselves?
Olympic athletes had to develop not only their skills but the
psychological and emotional determination to do what it takes to be
successful to become a champion. They had to manage their time in
order to fit into their daily schedules the practices, the training,
the recovery sessions, the travel to and from meets, games and
competitions.
They had to be amenable to instruction, correction and criticism
not only from their coaches team mates and competitors but from
outsiders and strangers. They had to learn how to cope with defeat,
coming up short, how to overcome disappointment, frustration and
transcend what happened yesterday and focus on the now and plan for
the future.
There are major life lessons we can all learn from winners and
champions of all kinds and stripes. First we have to have a vision
for ourselves, create an image or idea fused with confidence that we
can actually be a winner. We’ll have to overcome doubts, we have to
see beyond our present physical condition and capabilities, stretch
out and become engaged in whatever sport or activity we desire to be
successful in.
Next we have to attempt, we have to go out execute actually do it.
We may not be good at first, we may even be bad, but we cannot allow
this to deter us, we have to keep pushing, doing and improving. We
need to learn how to manage our time. The one area all humans are
equal is time. If we are alive we all have one thousand four hundred
and forty minutes in a day, no one gets more no one is ever
shortchanged; we get eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds a day.
How will you use this precious gift? How will you divide your day so
you can fit in everything you need to do to be successful: show up,
practice, learn, study, travel and compete whether it is in sports,
academics, on your job or life in general?
Only you are the arbiter of this, your parents can encourage you,
your coaches can push, exhort and teach you and want success for you,
your teammates can challenge you to do and be your best but we are
the ultimate determiners of the quality and degree of our commitment!
This means you are the central figure in all of this, you, not your
circumstances, your environment; you, driven by your heart’s desire
and willingness to commit.
Life is not a spectator sport. We are all engaged whether you are an
athlete or not. Living is not something we do from the sidelines,
margins and periphery, we have to be in the game, engaged and
participating. Sports are a metaphor for life and living. We call it
the game of life as if it is a contest. In many ways it is; we
often use synonyms for the word contest to describe life:
competition, struggle, rivalry and tournament for example. We use
terms and say things like: she or he is a winner or a loser in this
game of life.
Coming from the spiritual realm, when we enter this physical plane
from our mother’s womb, we are thrust into a world of physical laws
such as gravity yet simultaneously we are also influenced by
metaphysical, psychological and emotional dynamics as well. In life
we are constantly confronted with adversity, obstacles and resistance
whenever we attempt to endeavor to accomplish a goal or objective.
In the game of life there are certain laws, rules or principles
that have a huge baring on whatever we do, whatever we accomplish
depending upon how we use them. We are all subject to these laws; the
question is how will we use them what will we use them for, will it
be success or failure? We all use our inner faculties of
imagination, will, determination to navigate the vicissitudes of life
what William Shakespeare called the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune. No one escapes them they are a part of the life experience.
Our dreams goals and objectives need to be fueled by passion,
enthusiasm and confidence to help us transcend the challenges we will
all face in our lifetime.
Champions are not always the most gifted but they are always the
most determined and the most focused. Champions manage their time
wisely, they learn from their experiences and they find the inner
resolve and stamina to press on in the face of defeat, failure and
also success. Champions do not rest on their past failures or
accomplishments they use them to fuel them in the now, the present.
This is true in sports and the game of life. We’re all in the game
of life, which arena will you become a champion?
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Put The Phone Down and Enjoy Life
Put The Phone Down and Enjoy Life
Junious Ricardo
Stanton
A few weeks ago my wife and I
attended a family event at National Park New Jersey called the
Butterfly Festival.
It was a hot day but the park was filled with families taking
advantage of the venue. There were vendors, food trucks, face
painting and games for the children, and a tent full of butterflies
and moths with visual exhibitions and lectures teaching about the
lives of pollinators and the important functions they play in the
ecosystem.
The lines were long so I was able
to take it all in while waiting to enter the tent where the
butterflies were located. It was a diverse crowd young and old,
parents and grandparents with their children and grandchildren. The
kids were playing games, spinning the hoola hoops, with corn-hole,
bean bag tosses and running around having a good time. National Park
is located by the Delaware River so to cool off we walked and sat by
the river on the benches along the walking and jogging paths.
My wife and I noticed that most of the people on the paths had their
cellphones out, facing down preoccupied with whatever was on their screen. This was true even for families and groups of teenagers and
adults taking advantage of the trails. I was amazed, it was almost universal;
people weren’t talking to each other or interacting eye to eye they
were all on their phones texting and talking.
Yes it was hot but there was a
slight breeze by the river nevertheless people were preoccupied with
their phones. We watched them walk by and it was the same thing when
they returned back the other way, sparse human interaction even if
they were in a group, it was all about the phones.
I thought to myself how sad, how
have we devolved as a society whereby in the midst of a wonderful
natural park near a river, all some people could do was focus on
their phones oblivious to the wonders of nature all around them. Yes
the chose to visit the park but it didn’t appear to me they fully
appreciated the fullness of being there.
I see this all the time whether
I’m driving around or walking; I see people preoccupied with their
phones, like walking Zombies totally consumed by whatever is on
their screens. This applies to young and old alike, it’s amazing.
How have we allowed ourselves to be so mesmerized and addicted to
technology?
How is this phenomenon impacting
how we interact with each other and our surroundings? More and more
university studies are revealing an ironic reality, pervasive
cellphone use is adversely impacting our communication skills. There
is less eye to eye and face to face communication and the art of
person to person dialogue is declining precipitously. Humans have
traditionally used speech not only to communicate ideas, needs, wants
and plans but as a means of social cohesion and psychological
well-being. Prior to technology such as telegraphs, telephones, radio
and television human interaction was mostly conducted in close
proximity face to face and person to person. The advent of technology
has allowed humans to expand the distance between themselves yet
still communicate effectively. But at what price?
The downside of these developments
is distance limits intimacy and the feelings of closeness. In many
ways, distance dilutes the emotional linkage humans need to feel
healthy, connected and included. In the old days when people spoke to
each other they looked at one another, they paid close attention,
remained focused on them and what they were saying giving them their
undivided attention. There was a time it was impolite to multi-task
or not render one’s full attention when someone was talking to you.
Today focused attention has gone
by the wayside, smartphones and S.M.A.R.T. devices promote myopia,
tunnel vision where users stay zoned out on their device, blocking
out anything else that may be going on. Or they feel they can do more
than one thing at a time, multitasking not realizing they are
limiting and diluting their attention on both tasks even though they
may be able to accomplish the project at hand. Multitasking can be
dangerous especially if one is driving, operating equipment or
responsible for others.
On a deeper social level our
smartphones are undermining social interaction and cohesion. We often
see families sitting around a table, no one is talking to each other
all the attendees are focused on their cellphones. I’ve been in
meetings and gatherings where instead of paying attention to the
presenter or the goings on, people are scrolling and texting on their
devices. This is a classic form of addition; only its an addiction
to devices and content as opposed to substances or other activities.
Psychologists and social critics
are warning this addiction is undermining our interpersonal
communications skills. stifling our abilities to pick up subtle body
language since most human communication is via body language such as
facial expressions not just words. Human interaction is being
impacted by technology.
More and more people are realizing
we need to deprioritize technology and learn to reengage in direct
interaction, conversation and dialogue. At some family gatherings and
social events, requests are made that all cellphones be shut off put
away or collected during the event. This way people will be more apt
to be attentive, aware and engaged in what is going on while limiting
distractions from the devices.
Technology is encroaching on our lives all the time. It is
ubiquitous and all pervasive but it doesn’t have to control us! We
still have agency and we can decide when and how to use it rather
than it dominating us. We do not have to be slavishly dependent or
addicted to technology. Make time to be aware of your surroundings,
become mindful of the present moment, put down your device and
concentrate on your own thoughts and feelings.
We have the power to control our
own lives. When you are in a social setting be alert, attentive, put
down your device, listen and interact with those around you, you
might enjoy yourself, learn something new and have a great time.
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