(One minute read) 

Every day of our lives we are bombarded with appeals for money for help – from saving the environment to saving people, children, and donkeys.

The purpose of this new Flipboard Magazine ” #SILENT WITNESS TO SCREAMS OF HELP” is to afford a platform for projects that do not get much attention. 

The second reason is to enable you the individual to act without donating money directly.

So if you are like me here is a giving that you or your children could do tomorrow.

I recently watched a documentary about a school for deaf children.

This school is in Kabul Afaganstian run by a few individuals on fresh air.

The words here are silent, but the classrooms are full of life. And for these children just coming here during a war has not been easy.

In Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, people with disabilities are stigmatized. 10,000 children in Afghanistan have no communication with the world. They are left to lead lives of solitude, without the opportunity for education, or often, work. These children have committed no crime, they have nothing to be ashamed of — they are deaf.

If (deaf children) don’t go to this school, they literally have no way of learning how to communicate with anyone else. 

The operational needs of the school are big.

There is a lack of teaching material and books and no money to buy them.

 You could lend a helping hand.

They need children’s books. Old laptops, Paint bruises & paint, coloring pencils, or any other items.

All that is necessary is to put a box together and post it to them. 

The School for Deaf Children. Kabul Afaganstian.

To send a box from the UK/ Europe – 15cm X15cm weighing 5 kilos would roughly cost £60. which is quite expensive. 

Here is the solution. 

For instance, there is a total of 8.82 million pupils in 25000 schools in England.

As a school project to send a box, the cost would be minable plus the benefits of educating surrounding such a project would totally outweigh any costs.  

( Four minute read)

It is well known that the word ‘democracy’ originates from Ancient Greece and means ‘power of the people.

In its literal sense, democracy as an idea encompassing economic, political, the vote and not a flag however if democratic governments do not assume more power in technology governance as authoritarian governments grow more powerful, the digital world—which is a part of our everyday lives—will not be democratic.

Because capitalism, on the one hand, and genuine democracy, on the other, are completely incompatible with one another social democracy does not exist anywhere in the world.

The reason for this is that under capitalism, wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very small minority of the population.

A recent study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at the United Nations University reports that the richest 1 percent of adults owned 40 percent of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10 percent of adults accounted for 85 percent of the world’s assets. In contrast to this, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1 percent of global wealth.

This is the basic reason why the working class majority feel powerless and not really ‘free.

Why?

Because they do not own any significant amount of the means for producing and distributing wealth, which people need in order to live. It means that the vast majority of us are forced by circumstances, to become economic slaves to the rich minority that are now with technology domineering the free market in all its forms.

—————-

So Democracy is not a society where everyone can have an equal say in the issues that concern them.

Capitalism’s leaders having little or no interest in public involvement in politics, outside of election time. This meant that the capitalists had no economic interest in maintaining those, who worked for them. After all, these workers could always be replaced by others in the queue, looking for work.

This was the thinking of the employers in the earlier period of capitalism and, still is today in the less developed parts of the planet. Such is the sophistication of modern wage slavery.

The key element has been private ownership of resources, by a small minority, right from slave owning societies through to feudalism and then, to capitalism. 

Even now, many people realise that there is something seriously wrong with the present system (wars, poverty, pollution, inequality, covid-19 etc.).

However, it is the awareness of an alternative to this which is missing.

It is quite obvious now that we are rapidly become indifferent to democracy because of social media populisms, artificial machine learning, all reducing our world organisations and governing parliaments into talking shop.

With AI knowledge becoming the driving power that is going to shape the future any new systems will require free education, and a universal basic wage in order to share wealth we need in order to live. 

It is time to imagine what real democracy would look like and to create institutions and mechanisms that could be the building blocks of genuinely democratic societies.

What is lacking is a more radical agenda, an international grassroots-based network promoting and struggling for participatory democracy as an alternative and ultimately a replacement to the existing system.

Through such a network, social movements, activists and ordinary citizens across the world could exchange ideas and experiences, learn from each other, and develop common campaigns and struggles.

Citizens acting collectively to express their demands and the political system has begun to adjust according.

In short, all protests reflect precisely the way democracy should work:

—————–

One could ask how has capitalism got such a grip on Democracy.

The prime reason is the planet’s resources. They do not belong to the people as a whole. Instead, they are in the hands of a small, privileged, rich minority. As a result capitalism’s ideology and indoctrination dominate the thinking of the vast majority of participants.

Up to now those who administer capitalism want the electorate to vote for the main parties but power within Democratic society is now shifting with Technology companies taking many aspects of tech governance from democratically elected leaders.

Increasingly, companies are taking over state roles or develop products that affect fundamental rights.

Systematically scoop up private data, often without consent.

Since technologies evolve faster than laws, discrepancies between private agency and public oversight are growing and this disparity between the public and private sectors is spiralling out of control.

There’s an information gap, a talent gap, and a compute gap. Together, these add up to a power and accountability gap. An entire layer of control of our daily lives thus exists without democratic legitimacy and with little oversight.

Why?

Because decisions that companies make about digital systems may not adhere to essential democratic principles such as freedom of choice, fair competition, nondiscrimination, justice, and accountability. Unintended consequences of technological processes, wrong decisions, or business-driven designs could create serious risks for public safety and national security. And power that is not subject to systematic checks and balances is at odds with the founding principles of most democracies.

With Artificial Intelligence the outcome of elections are not going to make any real difference to their way of doing business or our way of life.

Employment is accurately described as being exploitation since the value of what the workers produce in the form of goods and services is much greater than the value of the wages/salaries which they receive. The surplus value is pocketed by the capitalist class and is a very important source of the wealth of the ruling class.

Without a system of clear legitimacy for those who govern—without checks, balances, and mechanisms for independent oversight—it’s impossible to hold technology companies accountable. 

Only by building a global coalition for technology governance can democratic governments once again put democracy first.

Right now, though, there are no international criteria that define when a cyberattack counts as an act of war. 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

(Six-minute read)

Here in this part of the world, we have just celebrated Easter.

If we remove its religious consequences in the end the Roman authorities and the Jewish council wanted Jesus dead.

He was a political and social trouble-maker.

He was killed – like so many people before and after him – because of the kind of life he lived, because of what he said and what he did. To Jesus, the whole institution fundamentally misrepresented God. The system was wrong.

Since our arrival on earth, we have excelled in one thing killing each other and all most everything around us.

On May 8, 2021, we will be marking 76 years since the end of the Second World War in Europe.

 Understanding world history would be impossible without understanding the conflicts that have shaped it.

Although there are many inventions and technological developments that were created by militaries throughout history, we can fairly say that most people would prefer to avoid military service. 

Worldwide in 2020, there are 30,277,850 million people serving in the armed forces, not including paramilitary units, according to Wikipedia.

The problem today is that our traditional definition of “war” is outdated, and so is our imagination of what war means.

Wars and conflicts may decide political boundaries, move populations, and generally shape just about everything but future wars will be driven by a multiplicity of different drivers such as climate change, artificial intelligence, lack of freshwater,  ( Already a factor in many of the below-listed wars) mass migration all coming together to create a major open conflict.

As a result war as the term’s very definition will not only become subject to debate, both politically and philosophically but difficult to catalog.

The world is a battlefield and we are at war for all the wrong reasons. 

The easy answer might just be too many and this is a 21st reality.

According to the International Crisis Group at the end of January 2021, there were at least 70 worldwide outbreaks of crisis/wars.

The Syrian Civil War. (15,898 deaths.) Afghanistan war. (143,958 deaths) The Iraq war. ( 25,223 deaths) The Yemeni War. ( 3,473 deaths) The Somali War. ( 26,418 deaths) The South Sudan war. (50,859 deaths) The Darfur war. The Ethiopian war.

With the arrival of Covid-19, these wars have all but disappeared from our TV screens.

FOR EXAMPLE THE CURRENT Genocide Emergency TAKING PLACE IN MYANMAR.

Today’s with Social Media local difficulties have a habit of becoming to morrow’s international crises/wars.

The Middle East makes it the most war-torn region in the world.

In the last 3,400 years, people have been in peace for only 268 years, and the total number of casualties from wars since the dawn of history is estimated between 150 million and 1 billion. Worldwide in 2020, there are 30,277,850 million people serving in the armed forces, not including paramilitary units, according to Wikipedia.

With almost half of the world war-torn.

What Then Must We Do?

The intent of the United Nations’ is not questioned, but in principle, it has been unable to achieve peace and in fact, things are only worsening.

The war in Afghanistan has been ongoing for 17 years. The Syrian war has been active since 2011. Since 2015 Saudi Arabia and its allies have attacked Yemen. God only knows how long the Palestinians in Gaza will have to endure to achieve peace.  

The 15-member Council of the Un has been unable to end these conflicts.

Why? 

Because the UN can never take an initiative without the approval of 5 countries including Russia, the USA, England, France, and China. An interesting fact is that these countries confront each other in the Syrian war.

As of 31 August 2020, the United nations has13 peacekeeping operations involving around 125 thousand personal, but even though it has over 125 nations contributing it remains fairly unrepresentative and ineffective due to the power of veto. 

Despite its imperfections, it would be unfair to suggest that the UN is irreformable.

Its time that the veto was removed and that all states should have the same influence. There should be no veto power in cases of mass atrocities.

The UN is now outdated and obsolete because it lacks openness, and therefore a vital component of a liberal democratic body. There should be at least one representative from each continent

 The illusion that countries can intervene in conflicts or that a few UN blue helmets are enough to sustain peace is shattered by Syria, Yemen, Iraq, the present global marketplace of death. 

With drones, we have isolated war’s physical and emotional costs. War crimes and human rights abuse are prevalent everywhere.

Do we need a UN which fails to address all of these?

We must create a moral movement against mass murder, even when the mass murder is accompanied by flags or music or assertions of authority and promotion of irrational fear.  We must make war abolition the sort of cause that slavery abolition was. We must oppose wars for rational, fact-based reasons, as opposed to fictions and misperceptions.

War-profiteering could be banned or rendered impractical.

Spreading subservience under the banner of “democracy” won’t save us while countries sell arms.  Imposing peace through armed “peace-keepers” prepared to kill won’t work. Disarming only so much, while continuing to suppose that a “good war” might be needed, won’t get us far when foreign Aid is a political football. 

How the world would look like after the Covid 19 outbreak subsides.

Therefore, if and when this present crisis abates, humanity will have to reckon with differing and extreme positions shaped by both the Utopian fantasies as well as baser emotions.

In other words, it is up to us to choose the path that is amenable to future generations instead of giving in to the hate and the vitriol that is passing around.

Having said that, there are some things that would remain the same even in the New Normal – Killing.  

We must use the present crisis to transition and transformation from killing to protection of everything that gives life. 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.  

( Fifteen-minute read) 

In these days of fake news, machine learning, online capitalism, AI data mining, popularism politics, algorithms, Growing economic and social inequalities IT CAN NOT BE OVER STATED that the right to protest must be protected.

WHY?

Because we are moving to clientelism in which powerful interests — either businesses, trades unions, civil servants, key professions, or religious groupings — are bought-off.

Because politicians seem to be able to lie with impunity with us the great unwashed having little redress when they do.

Because freedom to protest occupies the space that should be reserved for the sovereignty of ordinary citizens.

Because the post-pandemic world will be different. 

Because corporations and bureaucracies can push elected politicians around too easily.

Because bankers or civil servants, for example, seem to be allowed to dictate what regulations they will have applied to them.

Because global trade-treaties signed by existing governments bind nation-states into rules and structures that make the voters of the future powerless.

Because these trade decisions are often made in a too short-termist way. Partly because of the way electoral cycles promote short-termism and now because of the pandemic and the developing economic depression to generate revenue freedoms are second class values. 

That’s some of what we are up against this year.

If we lose the fight, our freedom to demand that our leaders receive consent will vanish as quickly as our free-market economy.  

I have no expectation of, or desire for, democratic perfection but I hope that readers accept that the beliefs or the desires of citizens will have a strong influence on democratic outcomes and as there are circumstances where a perfectly good democratic decision will result in an outcome we don’t like.

Freedom flows from the people.

It is not something bestowed on us by the government and we must understand that equal justice under the law is at stake. Our voting rights are at stake. Workers’ rights are at stake. Consumer rights are at stake, and holding corporations accountable is at stake. And again there is so much more.

It’s true that no one can change how we think or what we believe, but we can be forced to adopt values and ideologies we don’t agree with by legislation or a simple court decision.

When the threat of peaceful protest becomes a political tool our right to peaceful assembly is in jeopardy.

Remember, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can’t be found in silence. 

                                             ——————-

There is nothing like an economic shutdown to show that freedom rests in the hands of the government and not the people.

In a year that has seen spectacular curbs on our liberties, freedom to protest is more important than ever because when the government gives something away it is very difficult to take it back.

Under the cloak of the pandemic, we are now not only looking at the introduction of Covid-19 passports but restrictions to peaceful protest.

It’s a lot easier to serve the needs of small groups of people and use them to push legislation that opens the door to larger social change than it is to serve the needs of all the people.

So the government takes and doles out as it sees fit so it can promote itself and preserve the freedoms of the politicians who control it.

You probably haven’t given a lot of thought to the consequences for our fundamental freedoms.

Business shutdowns and other coronavirus pandemic-era restrictions raise an ugly question we can’t ask right now, but is democracy in retreat?

There should be no illusions about what the deterioration of established democracies could mean for the cause of freedom globally.

The future of democracy depends on our ability to show that it is more than a set of bare-minimum defenses against the worst abuses of tyrants—it is a guarantee of the freedom to choose and live out one’s own destiny. 

In Syria and Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of civilians from certain ethnic and religious groups have been killed or displaced as world powers either fail to respond adequately or facilitate the violence.

In Hongkong, we are witnessing what’s left of democratic freedoms being quashed by China. 

In England, we are seeing a country trading freedom for desperately needed revenue.

In  Europe, even long-standing democracies are being shaken by populist political forces. 

The crisis of confidence in these societies has intensified, with many citizens expressing doubts that democracy still serves their interests. That’s the problem with not understanding how freedom works.

SO THE QUESTION should be what happens when protecting our individual liberty threatens the liberty and lives of others?

That’s a conundrum we won’t solve any time soon, if ever.

The people we elect to lead don’t know what to do so their solution is to separate, isolate, and enforce. If you have no contact with other people you can’t spread this bug, so as the bug spreads our freedoms slip away.

Many, if not most of us are just as blindsided and even panicked by what the coronavirus can do. 

Overreaction is understandable, but this is also a valuable lesson about how easily our freedoms can be taken away without our consent by the same people we gave consent to in the first place.

That’s the problem when politicians are charged with ensuring that our society is just they turn justice into a battle over what best suits their needs and these are judgment calls that only hindsight can evaluate.

This is pretty basic.

When economic success is in jeopardy our freedoms are disappearing one by one without a whimper of protest. 

We all have the right to get up and go about our affairs without getting killed by random, out-of-control violence.

This is a concept at the root of democracy. 

But we also have the right when we see politicians that sought office vowing to defend and now plan to take away with everything with crushing tax hikes, to hijacking our health care system, to destroying our sovereignty to abolishing free-market capitalism, to sneaking in WOKE-inspired legislation, to control what we say and the media we can access. 

The government has now morphed into a cult that seeks to silence all of those that disagree.

What started with PR about the right to peaceful protest is now a political issue with no solution except to sit back and hope for the best until peaceful assembly becomes too-dangerous a freedom of the past.

Our freedom to do something as simple as leaving our houses to visit with friends or attend a crowded church is so basic we don’t even think about it as one of the fundamental rights we enjoy. 

Just a handful of disrupters with rocks, frozen water bottles, fireworks, or other weapons in a crowd of thousands completely destroys the notion of peaceful protest.

If a just society means the government pacifies the people by paying for everything then that no longer matters. The crowd is a danger and the freedom of assembly turns against us with the taxpayers eventually have to pony up.

That’s not the point, though.

We are now so numbed to the words, War, Killed, Murder, Rape, Racism, (even when they are applied to children), that we don’t pay much attention anymore so it’s not surprising when it comes to freedom that we have enjoyed which our forefathers gave their lives to protect we make little effort to ensure that they prevail.  

Finally, of course, these days protests can be more than just physical peaceful assembly. If used collectively Social media protests with buying power it is probably the most effective way to make our voices heard.

Campaigns grounded in human rights/ values that affect profit will not just demand change but will achieve change.  Because they would hit the bottom line – profit.   

James Madison warned us:

“The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

If we were able to create a perfect democracy, it would be as participative, efficient, and consensual as possible. It would be sustainable, resolute, and robust in itself. It would be as wise as it wants to be. All of these features would be subordinate to the need for it to be as fair as possible.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

We should be smart enough not to repeat the mistakes of the past and angry, take no prisoners. 

The capricious nature of these restrictive orders shows just how fragile our constitutional rights can be in a time of crisis. 

in lieu of a vaccine the freedoms we take for granted were all but erased in a few short months. That includes the most important freedom we have, the freedom to simply live our day-to-day lives and maybe eke out a little happiness in the process.

telling us to hide in our homes until they think it’s safe to come out isn’t good enough if it destroys everything that makes us what we are as Americans. 

I vehemently stand against any sort of racial, cultural, or religious intolerance that threatens to divide the melting pot our country has become

When do we start checking protest mobs for implements of destruction because they are a threat to the safety and freedom of law-abiding citizens who understand that political dissent doesn’t mean destruction?  The answer is never.

We need a Green New Deal based in climate and environmental justice, which means building a clean economy that protects communities that have been neglected by policymakers for far too long.

We already lost our freedom to give consent with the COVID-19 clampdowns that flourished in Democrat-run states and jurisdictions. Picture that kind of dictatorial governing on a national scale. 

.

Progress is glacial, given what we’re up against.