Sustainability and Politics: Bahrain, Freedom, Toxic Coffee Video

Friday, December 30, 2011

Bahrain, Freedom, Toxic Coffee Video - The New York Times

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/12/28/world/middleeast/100000001248905/toxic-coffee-in-bahrain.html

Customers at a coffee shop in Bahrain, where citizens desiring democracy gather, regularly get tear gassed, and hope to replace the family-run dictatorship in that country.

This is a very inspiring video at the end of 2011 -- showing the courage of active protestors and the malevolence of repression and greed.

Physics dictates that majority numbers outweigh the needs of an elite few -- eventually these people will have freedom. We should pray for them, help support the idea of democracy (not capitalism), AND help make ours a more perfect union. Which is also suffering currently under the greed of an elite few, for example willing to let national parks close because they won't help close corporate tax loopholes or give up George Bush-era tax breaks favoring the wealthy.

See the comment above again on physics. It is my opinion that those in the few guilty of repressing and selling the rest of us short -- there and here -- should be jailed for a long time.

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I've been thinking some about the Winter Solstice, the Mayan end of the 30,000-year-cycle on 12/21/12.

What if in fact the world did end? Even though this probably will not happen, to live consciously it is honest for us to take a bit of an inventory.

Am I happy with how I've lived my life? (Yesterday, I thought mostly yes, with some areas for improvement, as below.) Are there changes I would make?
Would I have tried to forgive those that were hostile or disappointing to me?
Would I spend more time with those I loved the most, telling them that, feeling that more?
Would I be happier, grateful for what I have, what I've experienced, the joy, the beauty in this world?

Maybe the answer is yes to all of the above.
So this time can serve as a point of rebirth for all of us. If we think about it.

Because somewhere along the line I realized I think maybe mankind deserves it. !
The way we are killing each other, killing the planet.
How selfish we are, and snotty to those around us. Petty, competitive. Why is this? Do we have to behave this way? (I say no, it greatly detracts and misdirects energy from the full-time celebration in which we could engage, the great multi-cultural, multi-rhythmic dance we can sustain here.)

Maybe God or the Great Universe is fed up, and will pull the rug out from under us.
Don't think I can say we could blame Him/Her/It.

But it probably won't happen. (Probably not! This time.)

Still we are finite on this ride.

It is a time to think, am I happy with how I've lived my life?
Hopefully most of us can say yes.

For the part of us that have a little worry, a little sadness....
This is the time to be present.
This is the time to be the person you want to be, that can die at peace, that can hope to every day be able to look yourself and the Universe in the eye and say, how beautiful, smiling, and thank you. Let's do that.