Cannibals

Straight up.

The wealthy cannibalize society by hoarding wealth and stealing its dignity.

Throughout recorded history, this has been a fact.

It has never stopped.

It's a fact.

It has never stopped.

Why should it?

The wealthy are a crafty type of parasite, for the most part.

They feed off their host to the point of weakening it.

But the rule for the wealthy is not to bleed the host so much that they die.

In recent centuries, the French Revolution is a good point, in fact, demonstrating how the wealthy lost control of their greed.

Centuries of no justice, enslavement, and destruction of the common good to enhance the coffers of the wealthy made a lot of ordinary people in France really upset.

They were so upset that they believed chopping the heads off the wealthy would lead them to a better society.

It alleviated the immediate problem of the local wealthy ignoring the needs of the host they were feeding on, but it wasn't a cure.

Killing is never a cure.

Government-sponsored killing, primarily of the non-wealthy, is a part of the cycle of justice put into place by the wealthy so that the larger society never addresses the source of the problems we all face.

People who cannot and will not share.

Some of us may recall the words of the golden rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Or, as the wealthy use that same sentiment but with a twist, do unto others before they do unto you.

Wealth does a terrible thing to people. 

It enhances their character flaws.

If a person were a small ass, they would become an enormous ass with a wealth injection.

Sharing is not a trait that we are born with.

It is a fact.

If you are not aware of this, please look into the current human genome project to understand how we are all born with a selfish nature. 

Are Babies Born Good? by Abigail Tucker, Smithsonian Magazine, 2013.

Sharing has to be taught by "caring" people.

Some of us get the lesson while others are naturally predisposed to be resistant to sharing.

Others still may have had bad parents who never took the time to instruct or demonstrate sharing with others outside their immediate family.

Sharing means giving up some of your resources to help another.

On a hostile planet with a rapidly changing environment, resources to keep you alive are critical.

It's obvious why an inborn trait of not sharing would be a universal fact in all of humanity everywhere.

Hoarding resources allows the individual to survive and pass on their genes.

However, this biological method of survival is antimatter to a society.

Society is all about cohesion, right?

Sticking together?

The rugged individual who is the self-made man, always winning, the top dog, the alpha male, or the wealthy, is the complete opposite of what a community stands for.

Right?

The wealthy tell the poor we are better than you because we won't share.

So, in point of fact, the wealthy are the best at being humans who survive to pass on their genes and their inhumanity.

They survive at the expense of the lives that they destroy.

Is there a cure?

Is there a way to prevent this cannibalism?

There has been a cure right in front of our faces.

Love.

Love is the answer.

Love derives from our better angels.

We all have the instinct not to share.

But right there from the very beginning of our lives, a whisper tapped us all on our hearts.

You may or may not have recognized it. 

The wealthy shout in our faces to follow their example, to deny each other and ourselves, to serve them.

Some listen to those callous voices, thinking they will be like them one day.

Yet in the quiet spaces of all of our lives, the voice of love asks us to do more.

Love asks not to do one act of love but to do many acts of love at the same time.

Love knows we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Love knows we can share bread with the lost.

We can heal those who cannot repay us.

We can protect those who cannot defend themselves.

We can lift the hopeless and hold them in our arms till they feel safe.

We can wipe away the tears.

We can do all that any one of us can in just one day and do it again the next.

Love is stronger and more profound than the instinct of the wealthy not to share.

Love is a code that has existed in this universe long before the Earth was formed.

Love is a code, as elaborate or as simple as those who want to hide from it versus those who want to walk with it.

Love is wealth that can never be taken away.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Never Done

When we owned a home, the North side of the house had a problem with peeling paint.

Every summer, I had to get the ladder out, scrape the bubbling paint, and repaint it.

Each early spring, my father went out to trim the old growth on his fruit trees.

During the previous growing season, the tree would sprout sucker branches, which would leach out the tree's strength and divert that energy away from the growing fruit.

Sometimes, there is never enough time to complete what we need to do.

That's why there's a tomorrow.

Many tasks take more than one day to accomplish.

Completing a portion of the task each day with due diligence will help us reach our goal.

In the late 1800s, vitamins were discovered, albeit in a preliminary sense.

It was realized that some foods made people's health stronger than others, but the reason was unknown.

Grand claims were made by health food hucksters of the day that their mixtures could cure everything from ingrown toenails to women's complaints.

People then, as now, didn't go out of their comfort zones and habits.

It was known that inmates developed sickness and death from eating just cornbread and nothing else during imprisonment, but the authorities didn't know why.

It wasn't until 1912 that Casimir Funk isolated and confirmed the biochemical properties of what he termed vitamins, after which the public became aware of their benefits.

It turns out that the adage "a man can live on cornbread alone" is not valid.

You need a whole range of vitamins to live a healthy life.

Eating cornbread only and water will lead to a gruesome death.

However, knowledge of the right things to eat didn't flip a switch in people's diets.

Society abhors change.

People, on the whole, don't like to expend energy, do they?

For many, a crisis often serves as a catalyst for taking action.

The house has to be actually on fire before they think about taking the stacked newspapers out.

People have energy at the beginning, but for most, that enthusiasm dwindles with time.

They plant an herb garden and return a few months later to find that the weeds have taken over.

Our nation needs to tend to its democracy right now.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. admonished us all that the task of achieving equality and justice for all would not be accomplished in a day.

We each have our part to do.

The forces we fight will not give up.

Evil is not lazy.

Bigotry doesn't take the day off.

Racism feeds upon ignorance every day.

Injustice sprints ahead of the common good.

The weeds of intolerance grow in the fertile soil of anger and hopelessness.

Our challenge is not to succumb to apathy.

Nihilism.

If you've never picked an acre of beans, at the start, the task seems long, hot, and daunting.

The sun beats you down and stings your eyes.

The fly bites your ankles, and the blood flows.

You take a break, but the nagging feeling persists, urging you to get up and get it done.

While you're working, a friend stops by and lends a hand.

The neighbor next door sees you working and brings you a drink of cold water.

That neighbor joins in, and then the guy across the way brings a sandwich and helps with the picking, too.

A community has come together of brothers and sisters, young and old, rich and poor, all joining hands and hearts to share in the work.

To share in the riches.

To share in the love. To share the burden of the task.

A human thing.

We will get there together, all of us, one day.

Love has always been stronger than hate.

Always and in all ways.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Hear That?

In the night, where the streetlights buzz.

The smell of cooking still lingers.

A sharp word yelled through broken walls.

A slap.

A body hits the wall.

Silence.

Hear that?

Saturday night, the lights of the city are a blur.

Running from a ghost of a memory.

Fear propels relief into the vein.

Fear turns eyes away from truth.

Funny how the world doesn't fit into the story told.

A hollow cry for help.

Hear that?

There are sounds we want to hear.

The comfort of a familiar song.

The beat of rain up on the roof.

The thrill of children who are about to eat.

The words that tell us that we are wanted.

The abiding of love.

Hear that?

You and I can hear it.

How is it that so many can't?

What has happened to make pain invisible?

What story is more important to protect, which allows suffering?

Why are peace and prosperity only for a privileged few?

How can so many hope for so little for so many?

Hear that?

It's a sound that this President has never heard.

It's a beat that puts fear in the corrupt.

It's a solo voiced by knights of this republic that makes Evil run.

It's a chorus sung by the old, the young, the weak, the poor, the sick, the forgotten, the majority, by we the people.

It's the sound of justice coming right quick.

Hear that?

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Keeping It Real

Keeping it real is a phrase that means staying true to yourself.

For the past month, we have seen leaders in our government display their true selves.

We saw a Speaker of the House stand for the people of this nation who are not afraid of the future.

We saw a leader of the majority in the Senate hide behind his office, and not until the President laid his own head on the chopping block did he meekly say I think you're wrong, Mr. President.

We saw a President who has an apparent personality disorder that doesn't allow him to tell the objective truth.

Our President can only say what he thinks we want to hear.

Our President sees no difference between doing what is right and what is wrong as long as he gets his way.

This week, we also observed the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, who kept it real.

Keeping it real.

What does that mean to you?

As you progress through life and age, you may develop wisdom.

Where wisdom comes from is learning from your mistakes.

If you don't learn from your mistakes, that's a sign too.

Time and time again, the President makes the same mistake.

The mistake that the President makes is that he believes we don't care.

We don't care about refugees.

We don't care about those who don't have health care.

We don't care about government workers.

We don't care about non-white people.

We don't care about what this nation has stood for these past 200-plus years.

This nation has stood for freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

He believes we will all be satisfied with the status quo, with White men making all the decisions and everyone else waiting around to serve them.

That's the world from which he came.

From his perspective, he's…

Keeping it real.

Physicians take an oath.

That oath they swear to says they are to do no harm.

They are to do no harm.

I think our elected officials, from dog catchers to Presidents, should take that same oath.

To do no harm.

Harming people for the sake of political power or gain is evil.

Sociopaths the world over practice that ideal as a large part of their personal philosophy.

In the book The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout, Ph.D., tells us that 1 in 25 people are sociopaths.

That means if you know 100 people, 4 of them are sociopaths.

The sociopath is the one who's making trouble and never taking responsibility for the disaster they created.

Doesn't that sound like the President?

Should the President be pitied?

No.

He knows the difference between good and evil but doesn't care which device he employs as long as he gets his orgasm, no matter what that may entail.

We, as a nation, are learning what it means to have a president with this kind of personality disorder.

I've said before that I have had a personal experience with a sociopath who almost destroyed my life.

It is both illuminating and tragic to see our nation go through the same experience I had, as we, as a nation, suffer at the hands of this man, our President.

Keeping it real.

Remember.

This, too, shall pass.

We will all learn from our mistakes.

Will we protect ourselves in the future from repeating this tragedy?

On the other hand, as a nation, will we learn to take better care of ourselves, and will we become better people?

Keeping it real.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Character

How has your winter been this year?

We are all in the middle of this time of the season.

Snow, rain, cold, dark skies.

Makes you want to stay inside and find that thing that comforts you.

Hot chocolate does it for some.

For others, macaroni and cheese, maybe a crackling fire, a favorite book to read, and some heartwarming music.

We all know that this season will pass, and ahead of us lies Spring.

We will change our garments to shake off the warm clothes and welcome the return of the sun.

Life comes in cycles, a phenomenon recognized by people worldwide.

What if a group of people didn't want the Spring to come?

What if this group of people wanted it to be winter all year long?

What would you ask these people why they want it to be winter all the time?

What would you do?

Character.

Character is a lost word in our 21st-century society.

For many, it is defined by the celebrity.

Character is recognized as the person who stands out from the crowd.

Character is defined as a remarkable individual.

That's one definition, but it's not the origin of what the word 'character' means. 

To have Character, the individual lives by a set of moral principles recognized and defined by the society at large.

A real way to know if a person has Character is when adversity strikes.

You lose your job, what do you do?

Do you immediately take drugs and alcohol and soon die from an opioid overdose?

That person has no character.

Your wife dies, leaving you penniless.

Do you rob a bank to get back the money you believe you are owed?

That person has no character.

A woman is going through a lousy divorce. 

Do you hit on her for sex?

That person has no character and is a sexual predator.

A person with Character will not sit idly by when presented with adversity.

A person with Character will not turn their back when injustice strikes.

A person with Character can be anyone, regardless of their size, age, wealth, or social status.

It is not just one definition of Character that can respond to injustice.

We celebrate the differences.

Each and everyone has a responsibility and a privilege to stand against injustice.

There are those without Character who seek to profit from adversity.

They sow seeds of fear, of anger, of myth.

Their gratification lies in creating as much turmoil as possible.

They enjoy spreading the darkness, the cold of an eternal winter of the soul.

Hold up in a cave of white stone, they blow ill winds of deceit.

However, you want to know something?

They're just some old silly bears afraid of the change of season.

Their eyes strain at the brightness and the newness of the world to come.

No matter how much they may growl and howl and grit their teeth, they can't stop the Spring from coming.

They can't stop justice and equality for all.

Why?

Because the universe itself bends towards justice.

No old bear in the White House can stop or will ever stop the rollout of justice.

Character…

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their Character. – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby