Trust – In Community or Private Spaces

In a day when we keep hearing about people with power abusing it, and couples going thru cheating drama, how do we negotiate trust?

It’s hard to accept at face value when the one accused either denies it or blames the outsider for their own behaviour. My position on this is that the one in power and the one inside the relationship are the ones who should be controlling themselves. Lolita, Jezebel and Eve are stories. Most men aren’t Chippendale dancers. Let’s be real here.

And if you’re walking thru life around those you’re attracted to with your eyes on their goody bits and your tongue dragging, the issue is yours. Never theirs.

Are you expected to be chaste before, outside marriage? Well according to the main religions’ holy books yes. But these days few of them would kick you out if you weren’t a virgin. So is shame as deep a river as it used to be? Are men and women really bred to be hunters now? Probably not. So what motivates the predator now?

And let’s be honest, these days marriage just isn’t as high a priority as it used to be, People are more about the career track than finding their ideal mate. Or even their co-parent. To make 12 babies for the good of the temple, like they used to. So what would be the purpose of a man raping a reluctant spousal candidate? Or a woman trapping a man with false pregnancy claims?

It seems like most of the big stories are off the table then. So shouldn’t the rest be about people practicing some self restraint?

Yet here we go again/still with news stories about someone who stepped over the line of good taste, discretion and self control and blaming anything but themselves. And their spouse sits there, supporting them. It boggles my mind! Have we learned nothing since Bill Clinton and Jim Baker?

It’s not up to your partner, boss, or the police to control you. Keep your panties on and your zip up. Or leave the room.

You should be your own moral compass. And if you can’t be due to an impulse issue or sex addiction, seek counselling, You need it.

And in that House ….. (a story/ish)

And in that House

And in that house were rooms
That you’d see anywhere
In any other house
Maybe not laid out the same way
Maybe not in the exact same colours
Maybe not the same furniture
Or even the same people either
Maybe there’ll be a family
Of how many generations
Or a few friends sharing the rent
Or maybe it will sit empty cuzz
Some speculator bought it
Since the land has value
Is there a plan for the area?
Or something they can extract?
How long has the house been there?
Does it have bug or rodent infestations?
How many ghosts and demons
does it have inside it’s walls?
Was anyone beaten or killed inside?
Does any of this change the way
it’s taxed, protected or sold?
Is this house on the tourist map?
Or is this the one that has too
much blood and gore on it’s floors for you to want to go inside?
Does this house belong to you?
Or is it just an image you’ve seen when you walked by?
All of that goes thru your mind when you consider it.
Even if you are just in the neighbourhood for a moment.
But what would you want to know
if you were the one going to buy it?
Besides the price.

Q – Have you heard of the term ‘Quiet-quitting’ and what does it mean to you?

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“Quiet-quitting is the concept of performing your job expectations and not going above and beyond,”
Andrea Bartlett = Humi

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‘Others say it’s about setting healthy boundaries or not mindlessly buying into ‘hustle culture.’ And then there are those who say it’s about taking back control of your time and standing up to employers expecting you to do more without paying you more.’
source

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Back in the day of working in union ‘shops’, this used to be called ‘work to rule’. It was a strike tactic to let the boss know they needed to up their game at the negotiation tables.

Which kind of covered both concepts of quiet quitting. You didn’t think you were getting treated fairly, weren’t happy with your boss, place of work, or work life balance. So you only did what you thought was necessary. Nothing more, nothing less. Boundaries dude!

….

And the start of this seems to be blamed/linked to the pandemic. They say the risk of losing it all can shift your priorities, so yeah. That makes sense. Who wants to be stuck in the rat race while your family could be taken from you tomorrow? Not me! Money just isn’t worth that time lost.

So what about your job would you drop? And what would you down size in your life to achieve that? Because the boss? Aint gonna do whatever you want just to keep staff.

They’re too busy screaming that ‘nobody wants to work anymore’!!

Civil Disobedience – Rules of Engagement – Protest, Strike or Riot

It’s pretty much a given that whichever you pick, you’re breaking a law(s).

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You may be occupying space that isn’t yours. Intruding on their peace, quiet and autonomy. Their right of passage and ease of function.

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If you’re engaging with them and they don’t want to participate, it’s pretty difficult for them to refuse.

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If you stay for awhile, past a day or two, you are occupying their space.

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You are going to attract the attention of the media. Which may give them bad press. You may embarrass them. Is it deserved? (where there’s smoke there’s fire!)

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You may stop or impede productive tasks and possibly block trade or service.

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Even if you intend a peaceful demonstration, there’s no way you can insure they or the security/police will remain peaceful.

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As an organizer, you are responsible for the safety of your members.

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Be sure not to litter. Or impede orderly traffic thru the site.

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You must be prepared to pay all citations, court costs, lawyers’ fees, or contracted obligations – theirs or yours. Accrued debt isn’t allowed.

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You cannot destroy property.

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Still up for it? And to what degree?

Q – Fair Trade – What Crops/Herds/Practices Adversely Affect Communities Around the World?

In a time of food shortage due to droughts, fires, and storms, as well as water crises, it’s critical to do something to assure the money gets to the right people.

There are organizations that are working to let you as a consumer know how you can help. Like World Vision

The movement helps local communities organize their artisans and farm/gig workers so they can be safe on the job, and get paid fair wages &/or participate in profit sharing plans.

It’s important to take part in these plans that actually help people vs companies. Sometimes it’s about knowing what to buy, but sometimes it’s more about knowing what NOT to buy.

fair trade principles:

• Long-Term Direct Trading Relationships
• Payment of Fair Prices
• No Child, Forced or Otherwise Exploited Labor
• Workplace Non-Discrimination, Gender Equity, and Freedom of Association
• Democratic & Transparent Organizations
• Safe Working Conditions & Reasonable Work Hours
• Investment in Community Development Projects
• Environmental Sustainability
  Traceability and Transparency
  source

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Study – Money gets to farmers, but maybe not all their workers?

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74% of these workers, farmers and artisans are women and women made up the majority of the leadership. They pioneer upcycling and social enterprise, refugee livelihoods and women’s leadership.
WFTO

…… consider crops

that take space and promote poverty – high market items
egs. coffee, tea, cocoa, pineapple, flowers, palm oil, beef, tobacco, sugar cane, salmon
source

The causes of hunger are related to the causes of poverty:

• Land rights and ownership
• Diversion of land use to non-productive use
• Increasing emphasis on export-oriented agriculture
• Inefficient agricultural practices
• War
• Famine
• Drought
• Over-fishing
• Poor crop yield
• Lack of democracy and rights
  etc.

conflict issues

Some companies and govts/groups support child soldiers and conflict sales such as diamonds.

So in many ways, buying local means you know where your goods are coming from and where the majority of their funds go.

Customer Loyalty, Brands, Gouging, Shoddy Service and KKK-Karens

You hear a LOT about customer service (and I’ve even had my bouts of hitting this issue).

Companies spend a fortune developing their brands. They even hire psychologists and sociologists to help them attract their base. And keep them loyal.

Then some, who actually want to develop that further, spend more time and energy training their staff on customer and colleague relations so things are actually quite nice when you deal with them.

What they began doing as PR is internalized. And it’s more than the show, but also the goods &/or services are pretty good. And when they aren’t, they are quickly repaired.

That’s the kind of place that you want to deal with. It shows and word spreads.

Now and again though, along comes that customer…. you know who I mean. No matter what you do, you cannot satisfy them. It’s not about you though. You could put it down to them being an angry person…. But they have a big mouth. And access to social media. (Where there’s fire, there’s smoke, right?)

Then no matter what their previous rep was, now they have a stain on it.

Some companies are coming up against that these days.

In Canada, Loblaws (Shoppers Drug Mart), Bell Media, Rogers are really getting a kicking these days on social media. And trust me, there are good points made and some not so true or at least not fair.

Is that due to their failure? Or are customers expressing anti-capitalist POVs? Or maybe they’re just caught up in all the pandemic stress and it isn’t really about the company?

Perhaps people are getting tighter with their dollars and actually want more than they had before from these people in charge?

Are they known for treating their staff right? Are their prices fair? I happen to think they’ve gotten too big for their britches. And they do tend to take over the lion’s share of the market, so now they don’t really care about what a customer says. Till there’s an uproar. And boy have the ones I listed here heard the uproars this past year!

But in case you feel sad for them? Worried about their future? Don’t. They have friends in high places. Here in Ontario, our premier is great at schmoozing! It’s kind of gross to watch, actually!

Q – Hate and Fear Mongering on Social Media – Can you avoid this and tell your story?

I often read news stories from around the world and comments on twitter about them. What often ends up happening is that something happens in another country and people take the story out of context, or stretch the truth to a place of ‘oh they’re all like that’, or they do that all the time’. ‘What else do you expect from them?’

example –

• wars –
  They’ve been going on for most of our existence. If you tell the story from one side, they often end up looking like a hero or a villain. No armed conflict exists where one side did all the good or all the bad. Ever.

• The people of that country don’t always support the war effort. Or at least not all of the people do. It’s the govt’s decision to go to war, not the people’s. But 9/10 x the people face the consequences (ie sanctions) , including the blame.
• Which often leads to comments about something that isn’t directly related to whether or not they’re at war. Like the way they live in family, how they relate as couples, what religion they practice, clothes they wear, how that neighbour of yours who was mean to you was of that country, race, religion and this proves they make bad decisions ….etc

why is this important to notice?

People are using this conflict between two parties to justify their hatred/fear toward people, thinking they can get away with it.

And they dig in when you challenge their POV. ie They pull their buddies into the discussion and people from that country end up feeling really hurt when they see this crowd saying awful things. They might try to defend their nation/people/govt even when they disagree. And it escalates.

I don’t think such comments being tolerated by the poster should ever be allowed by media. Even on social media sites. And maybe their role should be just to post the story, then close comments. Say something to the effect of ‘war is bloody’ or ‘it takes two to tango’. It’s pretty rare when a country enters the battlefield alone. The events described don’t happen in isolation and few commentors know the whole story. Even if they live in that country.

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Leaders want political clout and sometimes they use aggressive tactics to get that.

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Sending young people off to war

• feeds the military machine
• and gets rid of poorer young people (best if they’re people the govt wants rid of – ie marginalized people are encouraged to participate)
• or at least gives them training in obedience and possibly job skills they can use after the war.

…..

Knowing that, shouldn’t we tread carefully when commenting about war? Or other things of equal weight? I think so.

Fahrenheit 451 revisited – Book bans may have gone amok!

So you know that the REPs and Christian right/fascists have been calling for books that have sex and violence in them to be banned from schools and libraries, right?

Uh huh Ms P I’ve been hearing bout that. Sounds good right?

Couldn’t be better, what could go wrong?

Welp actually! First they came for some books that should prob BE banned. Then they got racist about it, then they thought LGBTQ authors should be banned.

Ok slow down! You may be getting extreme here! You want proof of that?

What do you mean, Ms P? What proof?

Remember when they wanted books banned that had sex and violence in?

Yes, I do…..(pause)

They banned the Bible!

(screaming occurs from the REPs, Christian right and Fox News!!!)

Well they’re not wrong. Ahem.

Q – Trade – If you had a magic wand and could change how we do things as a country, what would you change?

I think we do have to show some loyalty to our trading partners IF THEY ARE TREATING US FAIRLY.

But what if they’re not? I get that times are tough and getting tougher. There are (always) wars on and environmental disasters. Shit happens! And yeah if they’re good to us, we should ride out the occasional blip.

But what if they’re not?

This is the major issue I have with NAFTA. (North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, US and Mexico). The US seems to think it means they can bully Mexico and Canada (because they have more money, clout and missiles/bombs?)

When we sit at the contract table, it’s never as their equal or partner. And we have to accept their terms more than we should.

If they cannot supply what they said they would, shouldn’t we be able to go to others? We did this time. We signed with the E.U. too.

If they keep upping their prices outside of what we agreed to at time of contract, do we have recourse? Nope. We’ve agreed to purchase what we have, no matter what it costs. That should be fixed!

We should be held accountable for our own citizens’ poverty, and advocate for our own nation first and foremost.

In any other contract that would be considered ‘bad faith’ deals. But does it in trade? Nope esp not with the USA. Within months of renegotiating NAFTA, Trump tried to say Canada needed to pay more for things we get from them….. And he refused items that led to a serious shortage of formula for babies. I think they’re still climbing out from under that?

Is there recourse when one acts like a bully? Nope. Trump was a brute to Mexico and Canada. And our leaders/negotiating team. He still is, though out of office now. He still is interfering in our concerns (ie Convoy)

So what should we do? If WEF , the World Bank, the World Trade org, and the UN had teeth, if there was a trade issue, nations could ask for help in these issues. They should have an economic and trade tribunal. At least!

I belong to a few advocacy groups and sites that send petitions to the global parties on behalf of citizens, rather than thru our govts. And recently, I got one asking if I thought the UN should have a bigger. better role in the world.. I said yes and this is why. I think they should be acting on global concerns and be able to drop countries that are misbehaving. NO MATTER WHO THEY ARE. That might resolve some of the issues they have with the other continents. Get more nations on side with the SDG 2030.

But TBH, that’s unlikely that the US will ever face sanctions. But they should. Not only for what they do to their own citizens (women, transgender, BIPOC), but also for how often they start a war and commit war crimes.

How likely will this happen? Slim to none. Unless the UN is changed.

And since that is the case, Canada should be able to seek succor elsewhere. Like the Commonwealth and E.U. And I think we’re starting to get that. Took a bit though. Thx Trump?

The Base Of Public Health

Caring for the group you belong in is different than caring for yourself, or even your household. Your basic needs depend on their accessibility to you. And only part of that is about money.

Your biggest needs are food and water. And they have to be near you and safe to be available when you need them.

Maslow would tell you that meeting your bio needs is the most important thing in your life,

Hippocrates always preferred that people eat and drink locally, From the air, soil and water you are used to. He said it was important for our long term health.

And John Snow wanted you to be sure that your toilet and your drinking water were not confused.

You might think your health is your personal responsibility, but these are all public health issues.

And now they are environmental issues. Because the world is seeing more droughts and famines. More pests like locusts. and pollinators like bees are becoming endangered, some already are (esp if Doug Ford is nearby).

With the heat, there are more fires in the summer and the icebergs are melting so the water table is lower.

No matter what you do, you can’t as an individual act to fix these things.

The rest is catch up though. Without those things in place, you will never have enough nurses and doctors. They should just be there to vaccinate you, help your child be born, check if that bone is broken or not, and help you die peacefully. If all things were equal.

But they’re not. Public health is a political beast, as we’ve seen during covid. And the people most likely to need help will be the poor, and marginalized people. The discards the govt would rather not have to deal with. But they cost a LOT to deal with, because we don’t build a system that includes their needs.

Again, there’s nothing we as individuals can do about that.

The govt and big business are well aware of all this. They just don’t care.