September 20

 Supposed to get warm today--into the 80s. Possible early rain. No errands planned.

Yesterday we shifted from the news very early. When it became repetitive and featured segments that were neither interesting and/or informative the put on our own re-runs. Most of our news really comes from internet sites and by that I mean various news outlets where I can read the stories I want.

Everyone and then the talking heads do say something interesting but usually as a throwaway line. This morning did have a bit of a departure from that. Joe Scarborough asked Richard Haas if the U.N. still had relevance and Haas (who has written a couple of books I found very interesting) bluntly replied it hasn't much relevance any more. He mentioned the failings: keeping Russia from trying to annex Ukraine, failing to respond effectively to the various conflicts in Africa, etc. Haas is right but the present impotence of the U.N. has been foreshadowed from the beginning. The U.N. (and, therefore, the U.S. because of our treaty agreements) engaged in the Korean conflict BECAUSE the Soviet Union was boycotting and couldn't block the resolution in the Security Council. The world has become far more complicated. It is not a world dominated by the victors in WWII. You can see that in how many "developing" countries have refused to fall into line with the U.S. and its allies on the Ukraine-Russia conflict. We haven't figured out how to navigate the more complex world.

John Michael Greer has a good piece on his Ecosophia site today. His arguments mesh well with another article by the Honest Sorcerer on Medium which details a long list of crises our politicians and power brokers simply aren't dealing with. Instead our "leaders" are ignoring them, pooh-poohing them, gaslighting those who mention them, or simply saying there isn't anything we can do. Greer's article notes that our "leaders" are more interested in maintaining a status quo that maintains their power and wealth for as long as they can. Who gets hurt isn't important so long as it isn't them. Who falls into poverty isn't important so long as it isn't them.