JULY 28, 2023 ON MY CORNER ASK YOUR VENDOR What is your best nickname? G Junior. — Gary Leverett, #554 Big Mike. — Mike Jones, #113 T-Love. — Teresa Basham, #570 Joe Smoogums. — Joe Woods, #103 Halster. — Hal Klenk, #88 Tambito or Cuba. — Roberto Isla Caballero, #347 Ronahnonamacon. — Justen White, #543 Rubber Ducky. — Juliano Sanchez, #174 B-Man. — B-Man, #172 Chill (not Will). — Mansel Williams, #96 Pony is actually my nickname! — Pony Bush, #305 Kung Fu Panda. — Cindy Gere, #279 Fuzzy. — Ken Parks, #490 GROUNDCOVER NEWS War, peace, commodity fetish and compliance culture The goal of U.S. foreign policy is to keep and extend the United States dollar as an indispensable global financial tool. Money is created at will by those in command. The gods of wealth and power create the illusion of eternal supremacy through their human servants. Many are those who succumb to this illusion and keep their noses to the grindstone with no time or energy to look honestly at their lives. Even in this dark age of chaotic and confusing conflict, there are those who speak the truth and many who understand simple and clear when they encounter it. Both Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy warned us of the military industrial complex and the need for peace. The war machine has grown like a cancer in the commodity-fetish culture of the capitalist political economy. “The invisible hand” (market forces) control resources, labor, production and distribution in order to maximize profit. War profiteering becomes central to budget and policy decisions. Despite the worldwide desire for peace after World War II, the warmongers moved to force Hollywood to glorify war and prepare for the next one to combat communism, the eternal enemy. General Reinhardt Gehlen, Hitler’s chief of intelligence on the Eastern Front, was recruited for the Cold War. His contacts in Ukraine have received CIA support from the time the Office of Strategic Services was dissolved into the CIA (in order to focus on regime change in the USSR and stop the Chinese revolution). The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a key player in the Cold War, was created to encircle the USSR. France’s invitation included the commitment to help them regain control of Vietnam and Algeria if they joined NATO and help in this effort. The promise that NATO’s nation Join Ken Parks August 14 at the AADL! membership would not move east was part of German reunification. The fact that the promise was not put in writing is the U.S. rationale for NATO expansion and aggressive war games with nuclear weapons nearby. NATO war crimes in Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, and the de facto war in the Ukraine are now spreading to Asia as plans for war with China continue. KEN PARKS Groundcover vendor No. 490 parts, usually self and other. Identity thinking can fixate on a separate self and intensify the separation from reality. This is a violation of natural law which clarifies the interrelatedness of everything. The basic step towards freedom is to recognize ignorance and give it up. The addiction to violence and war is born from a belief in dualism, the need to be a good person facing many “bad actors.” Facing reality is a challenge which is best countered when we The endless culture of war feeds an addiction to the adrenaline rush that violence gives to many. Those who glory in violence may be wellpaid in service of the empire. The supremacist ideology which promotes settler colonialism and subsequent imperialisms is deeply rooted in pathological ego formations. The struggle for peace and freedom begins with unconditional love, which is expressed through action. The accumulation of wealth and power by any means necessary is the religion of the global “commodity fetishism” culture, sometimes called the Washington Consensus of rules-based policy. War is the center for all decision-making as the corporate state revolving door for financial interests extends the “full spectrum domination strategy” into the digital age. Information control and the demand for your time is the front line in the war of full spectrum dominance. The demand to be in compliance with bureaucratic fiats based on terms and conditions that no one fully understands takes so much of our time that we easily forget to make our own life a priority. Preparations for nuclear war lie behind the mass shootings and the violence of everyday life, as democracy is replaced by autocracy at work and play becomes sensationalized consumerism. Our addiction to self-destruction is shocking. Scientists design food that is addictive with no real attention to nutrition. The data on this violence in food production and consumption points to sharp declines in mental and physical health. The many hormone-disrupting chemicals increase the health challenges we all face. The trauma of ignorance is wedded to a belief in dualism, the error of splitting reality into two pause for a breath with each obstacle and compost the energy of dualism into the energy of completion. Reality is complete by itself, all its parts are interrelated and united. To separate anything from reality is the error of dualism. The experience of this completeness is the simplest and most elusive of experiences because it has no cause and cannot be contrived. There are moments in history — such as the Awakening of Shakyamuni under a tree and Jesus on the cross — that instill awareness and gratitude for the completeness of reality. We have many ancestors. Indigenous-centered living opens the door to a grand display of our shared heritage. We share air, water and sun as well in the blessings of interrelatedness. We are at a crossroads of history now and clear choices can be made that help us discover our true nature. When compassion, loving kindness and wisdom arise, the struggle of humankind will change course from war culture to happiness culture. Our addictions to ignorance will be composted in the best way as we learn to benefit all beings without exception, self and others seamlessly. Please visit the following sites vfpgoldenruleproject.org, annarborcoalitionagainstthewar.org annarborcommunitycommons.org for more information. The Golden Rule sailboat team will be at the Ann Arbor downtown library August 14. We are planning Water Ceremony with Beatrice Menase Kwe Jackson, one of the indigenous elders of Michigan, and the Golden Rule on the Detroit River at Milliken State Park on August 15. See the flyer to the left for more details. Let’s keep in touch! 3
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