“I would rather live in a peaceful country where people engaged in thoughtful and intelligent dialogue, with socialist programs like public libraries, national parks, public schools, social security, safety nets for the underprivileged, local police and fire departments etc. ; than a fascist country with private prisons for profit, dirty air and water, a justice system that favors the wealthy, rhetoric of fear and hate to those in disagreement, where corporations are considered people, where Christians ignore every basic teaching from Jesus, and money is king.”   – Bill Parks

Walter Shaub on Despondency: “I think the greatest threat we face is despondency. The enemies of democracy, foreign and domestic, want you drowning in hopelessness. A hopeless populace is a helpless one. To that end, a hostile foreign power set up an infrastructure to weaponize social media against you./2 https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1229158648485761024?s=21

Value of Arts in Society https://www.forbes.com/sites/benjaminwolff/2019/03/19/why-the-arts-are-the-great-unappreciated-engine-of-the-u-s-economy/#23d747fe1709

STEAM not STEM: Why scientists need arts training https://theconversation.com/steam-not-stem-why-scientists-need-arts-training-89788

Why Trump’s Decision to Skip the Kennedy Center Honors Hurts America Arts are a luxury, proof that a civilization has risen above “politics and war.” https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/08/why-trumps-decision-to-skip-the-kennedy-center-honors-hurts-america

The One Reason Why Families, Companies, and Countries Don’t Get Along “When we feel chaos around us, we want strict rules to help us cope with it.” https://nextbigideaclub.com/conversation-the-one-reason-why-families-companies-and-countries-dont-get-along/22559/?utm_source=newsletter_the_lift&utm_campaign=102119

Robert F. Kennedy Jr Explains How Big Pharma Completely Owns Congress https://www.collective-evolution.com/2019/01/31/robert-f-kennedy-jr-explains-how-big-pharma-completely-owns-congress/?fbclid=IwAR0zSdvbycVzCo1s22hKRJnGLZM0tptdCl2dCqjEyhnKqcfOUBYyH-rVR58

Have we been denying our human nature for four hundred years?

How Corporations Changed Our Brains https://www.wnyc.org/story/how-corporations-changed-our-brains/

Panpsychism: Scientists Discover that Everything — from Rocks to Molecules — Is Conscious https://corespirit.com/articles/panpsychism-scientists-discover-everything-rocks-molecules-conscious

Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America: Unable to Know “What’s True,” We Will Slide, “Without Noticing, Back into Superstition & Darkness” (1995) http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/carl-sagan-predicts-the-decline-of-america.html

We need a post-liberal order now. The international, rules-based system is collapsing. Overhauling it means combining national identity with a global ethos Sep 26th 2018 BY YUVAL NOAH HARARI We need a post-liberal order now

We Need an Ecological Civilization Before It’s Too Late – one that prioritizes the health of living systems over short-term wealth production. https://patternsofmeaning.com/2018/10/10/we-need-an-ecological-civilization-before-its-too-late/

When it comes to interpreting information and making objective sense of reality, human brains are hard-wired to make all kinds of mental mistakes that can impact our ability to make rational judgments. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/12/24-cognitive-biases-that-are-warping-your-perception-of-reality

Diversity Makes Countries Stronger in the Long Run: Study https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/does-multiculturalism-work-social-diversity-global/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=global&utm_campaign=general-content&linkId=80365126

The War on Science

The Coming Collapse It is impossible for any doomed population to grasp how fragile the decayed financial, social and political system is on the eve of implosion. May 21, 2018 Chris Hedges The Coming Collapse

How a New Kind of Artist Contract Could Provide a Simple, Effective Way to Redistribute the Art Market’s Wealth

KADIST’s new resale rights proposal could help artists take back their market. https://news.artnet.com/opinion/resale-royalties-contract-kadist-joseph-del-pesco-1897169