Cunning intellect, warped character, excessive greed and extraordinary ego concealed in calculated charm have carried many to the pinnacle of power and wealth.

A poorly lived life fears death.  A richly lived life views death as another part of the adventure.

War is innocent people with shredded brains, mangled bodies, splintered bones and spilled entrails covered with flies and maggots.  No amount of patriotic jargon and propaganda can change that.

We have innate trust in technology regardless of the uses to which it is put and innate trust is science regardless of whether or not it has moral or ethical foundation.  Thus society proceeds from one disaster to another confusing symptoms with disease, and cause with cure. 

The philosophy of commerce and capitalism is simple;  As few as possible should take as much as possible, from as many as possible  as often as possible.  

All sovereign governments attempt to persuade us that bravery and honor are best exemplified by awarding medals and erecting monuments to those most skilled military homicide. 

We have created societal organizations and laws which result in decimation of the earth, and countless millions of people struggling in abject poverty and dying from starvation and preventable disease so that a favored few can rise to obscene wealth, luxury and power.  Thus, we call that which is truly collective insanity, by names such as civilization and democracy.

Science asks, “What can we know?”  Practicality asks, “What can we do?”  Morality asks, “How shall we behave?”  Religion asks, “What should we believe?”  Wisdom alone is silent.

One of the principal functions of government during the past century has been to make economic crimes against people and planet legal.

Everyone knows that children make more messes than they clean up.  Everyone knows that present societal concepts of organization, particularly government and business, make more messes than they clean up.  Are we in a societal state of arrested childishness.   

If economic growth in the past century has led to such inequities as widespread poverty, homelessness, unemployment, war, violence, crime, environmental decimation, how can we believe that greater economic growth will alleviate them?

Surely there is more to life than greed efficiently practiced, ambition effectively pursued, and ego continually gratified, but one would not think so based upon the conduct of our empires of commerce and palaces of higher education.

The most persistent, pernicious propaganda is that which the rich and powerful use to persuade the poor and weak that the fault is theirs, and that riches and power are the just reward for superior intelligence, character and ability.