正信的佛教 – 圣严法师的法鼓全集解答群疑

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佛教在世界性的各大宗教和思想中，显得非常特殊。凡是宗教，无不信奉神的创造及神的主宰，佛教却是彻底的无神论；唯物思想是无神论的，佛教却又坚决反对唯物论的谬误。佛教似宗教而非宗教，类哲学而又非哲学，通科学而又非科学。这是佛教的最大特点。

佛法的化世救人，自始便以心为主，心即是精神，可用烦恼，智慧两个名词来说明。 烦恼增加则精神混乱，智慧增加则精神清明；若在精神混乱的状态，任你用任何宗教，哲学，科学的手段来处理，都无法解决其问题于永久；但若能得智慧显现，则一切问题，无论是属于物质范围或精神范围，都将迎刃而解。 所以佛陀在世时，对于物质世界的自然现象，不多做解释。例如：世界有边无边，世界有始无始等这些问题，在佛陀看来都与解脱烦恼无关；重要的是如何运用修行的方法来消解烦恼，启发智慧。

此处的智慧不是认识的分别心，而是无执着的自在心。既然心得自在，尚有什么精神或物质的拘限呢？所以佛法不重视诸法现象的探究，而是着重于如何转识成智，否则容易本末倒置，执着幻化的现象以为实体。 心体无形，无相，亦不离形相，科学仅及于现象。现象多变而恒变，所以科学永远不会成为最后的证明，顶多是头痛医头，脚痛医脚的情况下向前努力。

正如老子所说： “生也有涯，知也有涯，以有涯逐无涯，殆矣！” 道家是自然主义者，是属于物质的真正了解者；而佛法认为了解自然也是多余的事。若得心明，自然就在其中；仅仅了解自然而融入自然，也不等于自我中心的执着获得解脱。科学仅及于物质世界的分析和教化，科学的态度当然需要。总而言之，佛法涵盖了科学，而不受科学所限制。

然而，佛教自公元67年左右，由印度传入中国，虽已有了近二千年的历史，中国的整个文化，也都接受了佛教文化的熏陶，佛教的根本精神，却因为民间固有的习俗加上神道怪诞的传说而湮没。故到晚近以来，许多略具新知的人们，竟把佛教看作充满牛鬼蛇神的低级谜信，也以为佛教的存在，不过是旧社会给我们留下了一截尚未蜕化的尾巴而已。

同时随着佛教在全世界的更广泛的传播，也有许多诚心追求无上正等正觉的人们，在学习佛法的过程中都会遇到众多似是而非的困惑，疑问和误区。 圣严法师根据他几十年的实证研究， 并参考了太虚大师及印顺法师的一部分见解，配合时代思想的要求，针对许多浅显而实际重要的问题，在1963-64年期间写下了《正信的佛教》予以解答，为大家指点谜津， 期能帮助读者略窥佛教的真貌。此后的几十年间，鉴于此书多次出版，受到教内外及海内外的巨大欢迎和反馈，读过该书的人又不断向法师求教一些层面更广的问题。 圣严法师慈悲，虽然多年来身体多病，事情繁多，时间太少，体力不济，仍然在百忙中坚持，于1988年写下了《学佛群疑》作为续篇， 以资后学。

佛陀的时代并没有留下成文的经典，最早的经典传诵也不是成文的书籍，而是凭以口传口，代代相传。 另外由于流传的地域越广，时间越长，经典的内容越多，便见有不同的分歧观点。这就是形成部派佛教的原因，之后又渐渐地出现了大乘经典。无论是小乘，大乘的各种经典，均须出于佛教徒中的大修行者所传，而任何一个派系，都认为他们所传的才是真正代表佛说，这便形成了所谓 “部执”的思想。其实佛陀说法的对象有不同程度，人有不同根性，所以接受不同程度及不同修行方法的佛法。这些教法有些互相有出入，彼此矛盾，前后增减。而如果对这些经典全部予以否认，或采取怀疑的态度，便无法使人获得无尽的利益，也就产生不了佛法化世的功效。 如何折衷，取舍？ 圣严法师开示认为，佛教界一般以三法印和四依为基准来评判佛法。 三法印指：诸行无常，诸法无我，涅磐寂静。 四依是指：依法不依人，依智不依识，依义不依语，依了义不依不了义。 从三法印的原则看一切经教，就可以过瀘而见到什么是纯佛法；用四依来衡量一切经典，也可极其容易地发现何者是佛法， 是我们可以依据和信赖的佛法。以此标准，即可明辨哪一些是佛的根本教义，哪一些是随顺世俗要求而说的方便教义。

由于圣严法师和法鼓山佛教会的鼎力支持，我们现在都能够在网上查找到 《正信的佛教》，以及《学佛群疑》。

此外，圣严法师创办的法鼓山还把他们更多系列的研究心血，和多年的翻译工作成果公之于世，奉献给大众，让更多追求智慧真理的人们受益。 法鼓全集2020纪念版 堪称一百多年来中国大乘佛法信，愿，行的修证成果的总结和写照。 Section 9 of 2020 Edition of Dharma Drum Collection contains several books in English translation of various sutra and meditation guide.

南无阿弥陀佛！感恩圣严法师！感恩法鼓山佛教会的道友们！ 感恩众位佛法同参们！

Lotus Sutra (妙法莲华经）- an Introduction

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As crises facing humankind have become more numerous and more acute, interest in the Lotus Sutra has begun to increase. Lotus Sutra takes up the main part of Tiantai Threefold Lotus Sutra (法华三部经), which is the composition of three complementary sutras that together form the “three-part Dharma flower sutra“ – the essential doctrine of the Tiantai Lotus Sec ( 天台宗，也叫法华宗). Rev. Nikkyo Niwano (1906-1999) is one of the founders and first presidient of the Japan Buddhist organization Rissho Kosei Kai. He wrote a study guide to the Tiantai Threefold Lotus Sutra and illuminate to people who adhere the teaching of the sutra the many spiritual benefits, among them:

“First, this sutra makes the unawakened bodhisattva aspire to buddhahood, makes a merciless one raise the mind of mercy, makes a homicidal one raise the mind of great compassion, makes a jealous one raise the mind of joy, makes an attached one raise the mind of detachment, makes a miserly one raise the mind of donation, makes an arrogant one raise the mind of keeping the commandments, makes an irascible one raise the mind of perseverance, makes an indolent one raise the mind of assiduity, makes a distracted one raise the mind of meditation, makes an ignorant one raise the mind of wisdom, makes one who lacks concern for saving others raise the mind of saving others, makes one who commits the ten evils raise the mind of the ten virtues, makes one who wishes for existence aspire to the mind of nonexistence, makes one who has an inclination toward apostasy build the mind of non‐retrogression, makes one who commits defiled acts raise the mind of undefilement, and makes one who suffers from delusions raise the mind of detachment. Good sons! This is called the first inconceivable merit‐power of this sutra.”

This sutra dates back almost seventeen centuries. In the mid‐fourth century Kumarajiva (鸠摩罗什 344‐‐413) journeyed from Kucha （龟兹）, his homeland in Central Asia, to India for study and there he became learned in the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism. When he had completed his studies and was about to leave India on his mission of carrying the Buddha’s teachings to other countries, his teacher, Suryasoma, recommended the Lotus Sutra to him, telling him to transmit it to the east and disseminate it there. In 401 Kumarajiva finally reached China, where he became an eminent translator of Buddhist scriptures. In the dozen years before his death he translated a number of Mahayana texts into Chinese, and the most important and best known is his elegant translation of the Lotus Sutra.

Following its transmission to China, Buddhism flourished there, producing many distinguished monks. Among all those monks, the great patriarch of the Tientai sect (天台宗, 也叫法华宗), was founded by Zhiyi ( 智顗 538‐‐597), who made an exhaustive study of all the Buddhist scriptures available to him. As a result, he concluded that the core of Shakyamuni Buddha’s teaching is revealed in the Lotus Sutra, and thus in the latter half of his life Master Zhiyi dedicated himself to studying, explaining, and disseminating this sutra.

First, the Lotus Sutra reveals and explains the infinite possibilities open to human beings. People have an infinite capacity for degeneracy if left unawakened and unmindful of discipline, yet at the same time they have an infinite capacity for elevation if they live in accordance with spiritual truth. Today, people are simply falling ever downward. Unless we stop now and think and completely change our way of living, we will certainly destroy ourselves. The Lotus Sutra reveals and explains both the theory and the practice necessary for bringing about such a change. Thinking that there is no answer for human foolishness, we are likely to become deeply depressed. But if, through the Lotus Sutra, we come to the realization that it is possible to change human nature for the better, fresh hope and courage ceaselessly well up in our hearts and minds.

Second, the Lotus Sutra teaches that, since all non‐living and living things, including human beings, are manifestations of the great life‐force of the universe, all of them are equal in terms of the fundamental value of their existence. A view of the world based on this thought naturally gives rise to a basic principle of living that can be stated as follows: “When human beings enjoy coexistence and mutual prosperity, respecting the life‐force inherent in all existences, including themselves, and loving that life‐force completely, great harmony will be achieved in this world. The ultimate happiness of human beings lies in such a state of mind.” People have so far tended to consider all non‐living and living things except themselves as existences at their disposal and have exploited, consumed, and destroyed them at will, and one result of this kind of thinking has been the pollution of nature. If we do not correct our wrongdoing immediately, we cannot be saved. The Lotus Sutra not only makes us keenly aware of these facts but also serves as an always dependable guide to the new way of living necessary for us now and in the future.

As we get into struggles of the 21th century, Master Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022) placing the Lotus Sutra in its historical context (around the time when Mahayana Buddhism was just emerging, and had to distinguish itself from non-Mahayana schools, which it terms “Hinayana” or “Lesser Vehicle”), and expounds on how this sutra can be the most important guidance to take the path of Bodhisattva in our modern time, and why this sutra firmly proclaimed that _everyone_ could become a fully enlightened buddha in his writing Opening the Heart of the Cosmo – Insighs on the Lotus Sutra (2003). Shining sixty years of study and practice, Master Thick Nhat Hanh demonstrates the practical and direct applicability of Buddhist teachings to today’s issues, from the Palestinian-Israeli tragedy to the threat of terrorism and the degradation of our environment.

Previously, the primary goal of early Buddhism had been to become a saint (“arhat”), liberated from samsara, with the joy of nirvana, but not an actual buddha oneself. Moreover, this path was restricted to renunciant monks, and not open to everyone. In this sutra, the Buddha proclaims that he taught this as a skillful means, because if he had said right away that people could attain buddhahood, no one would believe it. Now, however, the time being right, and people having understood the basics of the Four Noble Truths, etc., he could give this profound teaching. All the teachings and vehicles (Sravakayana, Pratyekabuddhayana, Bodhisattvayana, etc.) point to the one single vehicle: the buddhayana, the path to full buddhahood for all sentinent beings.

Another greater Master, Venerable Hsuang Hua (1918-1995) had organized Buddhist Text Translation Society (BTTS) since 1970 to translate many important sutras. Among them, the English translation of Lotus Sutra and Venerable Hsuang Hua’s comments, are available to the public on the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas Website. He dedicated his virtuous life to translating sutra, which he considered it his most important duty:

“The work of translating the Sutras is sacred work, and it will last for endless generations. We are common people doing the work of sages. Not only is this our duty, it is also very meaningful, for we can benefit others and establish merit. In the past, the kings and emperors used their imperial authority and the strength of the government to carry out the translation of the Sutras. Now we are merely using our strength as ordinary citizens. If we can produce some results, I believe the national leaders will also become involved in this work in the future. Right now, we must first lay a foundation. We must first gather strength among the people.”

天台宗的 两大基本特征是法华思想和观音信仰。南怀瑾先生在《禅宗与道家》一书中指出，“自陈，隋之际开始，经历唐，宋，元，明，清千余年，凡知识分子，士大夫及爱好形而上学的人士，无不从事天台 ‘止观’。” 在下层社会，天台宗流传更为广泛，民间 的“家家念弥陀，户户有观音” 便是真实的写照。 《法华经》综合调停了大小乘经典的派别门户之见的偏颇之处，诱导大小三乘归入唯一佛乘，处处指出，二乘三乘是权非实，唯一佛乘才是究竟。

法华思想把佛与众生放在完全平等的地位上，宣扬只要坚持修善，阐提 （断灭善根的人，Sanskrit: Icchantika ) 亦能成佛。 法华经二十八品中，以第二《方便品》，第十四《安乐行品》，第十六《如来寿量品》，第二十五 《观音普门品》最为重要。 《方便品》是迹门的眼目，迹门为“权”（方便法），本门为“实”（实相理）。 《如来寿量品》是本门的精要，《安乐行品》是法华修行的规范，《观音普门品》是化他无究的应用。根据天台宗的看法，《观音普门品》成了《法华经》的归宿，因为“眼目” 亦好，“精要” 亦好，最后都要落实到应用。

反过来，接受了法华思想和观音信仰，亦就为传播天台宗提供了可能。 因此对于这样一本举足轻重的经典，古往今来都有众多佛教祖师大德研究宣扬《法华经》。 其中现代的，圣严法师著的 《法华经讲要》， 循着原典经文的次第，讲解原典的内容宗旨，脉络分明，一目了然， 又兼融了先贤古德的疏解。圣严法师对每一品的心要，经义所指，于全经的连接位置何在，于整个佛法的修证次第中扮演的角色，都对这本重要的经典予以节要而深入的指点。

While we pay tributes to the great works of these Bodhisattvas, we hope Lotus Sutra shed the light to more and more people in their path to liberation.

We Need a Peaceful Revolution – an Interview with Robert Kennedy Jr.

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While China’s harvesting human organ from falungong members is atrocity, Jeffery Epstein, who affliciated with a huge network of high profile elites, involving in the human trafficling crimes sexually abusing under age children horrifying, we are in another gilded age with big corporations dominate our society and international relations in a globalization setting. The general situation is the corrupt merger of the state and corporate power with revolving door between government politicians, government agencies and corporation power. Politicians entering their career with modest income end up millionaires and billionairs after decades in the position. Executives of big corporations got out of size compensations. The corruption had infiltriated mind, body and spirit of modern world. We need a total purification, we need a peaceful revolution from these toxics.

In an interview with UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers, Robert Kennedy Jr. spoke of the traditional liberal Democratic value passed down from his uncle President John Kennedy and his father Senator Robert Kennedy. His father generation had an antipathy and suspicion of war and the military industrial complex. They did not want corporations running the American government. They were completely against censorship. They were against the use of fear as a governing tool, and they spoke out about it often.

Robert Kennedy Jr. had spent forty years litigating against the regulatory agenies in the United States. He spoke of the domination of democratic governments by corporate power as the center of issues. The government regulation started out not strong enough to protect the public interest. Widespread corruptions take advantage of legalizd bribery, as well as illegalized bribery. The rules supervising conflicts of interest are just ignored, systematicaly ignored. We have what they call honest graft and dishonest graft.

The result is a systematically hollowing out the American middle class, through wars, through bank bailouts, through lockdowns, etc. We are just printing money to make billionaires richer. During the COVID lockdown, there was a $4 Trillion shift in wealth fromt the American middle class to this new oligarchy of billionaires. We created 500 new billionaires with a lockdown and the billionaires we already had increased their wealth by 30%. The total cost of the lockdowns was $16 trillion. That is jus one of the assaults.

Then we got the bailout of the Silicon Valley Bank, the War in Ukraine, which is costing us $113 billion. The war in Iraq, and the wars that followed that have cost us $8 trillion. For all those wars we fought, American people bear all the cost and the consequence. That is $24 trillion in total loss! Is it any wonder that we don’t have a middle class left in the Unived States of America? Unless we rebuild the middle class and rebuild our economy, we can not maintain democracy when there are high concentrations of wealth in the same place with widespread proverty.

The political climate become more polarised than ever with good reason. To some extent co-opted by Bill Gates, by the World Economic Forum, and the billionaires’ boys club in Davos in the same way the COVID crisis was appropriated by them, to make themselves richer, to impose totalitarian controls on society. and to stratify our society with a group of very very powerful and wealthy people at the top, and then the vast majority of human beings with very little power, very little sovereignty over their own lives. Every crisis is an opportunity for those forces to clamp down controls.

In the same token, there is a shift from habitat preservation, regenerative farming. We need to reduce carbon, whether you believe in climate change or not. Anywhere there is carbon, there is also mercury, ozone particulates, aluminium, there is all these other kinds of really horrible toxins that come from burning hydrocarbons. What we see is a shift from those concerns, but more towards carbon capture, which can be monetized by the corporations and exploited without seeing any real benefits on the ground. There are also geo-engineering solutions, which Robert Kennedy Jr. oppose. Look at the kind of geoengineering solutions that are being pushed, tends to be by the same group of people who also have IP(patent rights) rights in a lot of those technologies. There is definitely an optic of self-interest and self-serving.

This combination of corporate and government power, which colluded to get farmers to switch over to heavily nitrate fertiliser dependent for farming and chemical dependent farming is very toxic. That was a deliberate systematic and GMO farming. Once you get all the farmers to switch to carbon-based fertilisers and to monocultures, this is a way of corporate power to destroyig small farmers. We want to have democracy, we need a broad ownership of our land by a wide variety of yeoman farmers, each with a stake in our system. As Thomas Jefferson said, wiping out small farmers and giving control of food production to corporation is not in the interest of humanity, and we need to help those farmers transition off the addiction that we imposed upon them in the first place.

With so many important issues going on, vaccine is a issue that for most American, is not on their top list, but they have far reaching consequence.

Examples most egregious of those issue are like the Environmental Protection Agency effectively run by the oil industry, the coal industry and the pesticide industry. The Big Pharma runs FDA – FDA get 50% of its budget from Big Pharma. The CDC spends half of its budget purchasing vaccines, NIH essentially is a incubator for new pharmacetical products. It doesn’t do the basic research people want them to be doing – where diseases, allergic diseases are coming from, autoimmune disease and neurological diseases, why are we seeing this explosion? Those kinds of studies don’t get done. Studies do get done are studies for the pharmaceutical products, and then NIH collects royalties when pharma company sells those product. You have the regulator that is essentially a partner with the regulated industry. Department of Transport is run by the railroads in our country, by the airlines. The banks have utterly corrupted the SEC. Media has corrupted the FEC. That was how pernicious the systems are, particularly polluting corporations, the military industrial complex, the financial industry.

If you want to achieve peace, you got to put yourself in the other guys’ shoes, you have to understand your opponents’ position. Robert Kennedy Jr. spoke of the end of cuba missle crisis happened because President John Kennedy reached out to Khrushchev directly and said, ‘let’s settle this between us’, and their settlement was secret and remain secret for many years. President Kennedy and Khrushchev were both surrounded by people who DID want to go to war.

We don’t want constant war in our country, we can not afford them. The CIA needs to be regoranised in a way. Most of the people who work at the CIA are very good public servants, and we need them to function. But we really need to separate the espionage functions of that agency and the plans division – the division that actually does dirty tricks, kills people, and makes wars that invovles itself in actions because what happens is, that operations tail begins to wag the espionage dog. The information gathering, analysis, that is the function that the CIA was created to perform. From very early on, Allen Dulles, essentially corrupted the purpose of it by getting the CIA invovled in assassinations and fixing elections. CIA has been invovled now in fixing coup d’etats or attempted coup d’etats in about a third of the countries in the world, most of them democracies. So our national policy as a country is to promote democracy. The CIA’s policy has been the opposite.

Where Did the American True Spirit of Democracy Come from?

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Pastor John MacArthur said in one of this sermons: ” You do’nt need information about the disappointments in our culture, the disappointments in our world, you don’t need to know that everything is upside down, as in Isaiah Chapter 5, bitter has been swapped with sweet, good has been swapped with bad, and we are living in an inverted and upside down world. But I want to give you a perspective biblically, so you can understand what is going on. The first thing I want to say is, you have to understand this, what is happening in our country and largely in our world, is a Divine Judgement. Mark that in your mind. It is a Divine Judgement. Joe Biden is not in charge of this, God is. “

Pastor MacAuthur continues to say, ” This is the wrath of Abandonment. This is historical as God allow all the nations to go their own way. The history of the world is the history of Nations going their own way and consequently experiencing the wrath of Divine Abandonment. This is what is the view in Romans 1:18. The wrath of God revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrightenousness. “

Spiritual leader Marianne Williamson spoke of Consciousness, Spirituality and Politics in America on in a presentation with Harvard Divinity School. She reminded people that William Penn, an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonial era, was an advocate of democracy and religious freedom known for his amicable relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Native Americans who had resided in present-day Pennsylvania prior to European settlements inthe state.

Is U.S Constitution and Supreme Court Outdated for Constructive Change ? – an Exploration of Public Trust and Social Contract

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Eugene Luther Gore Vidal, one of our greatest intellectual treasures, was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the social and cultural sexual norms he perceived as driving American life. Beyond literature, Vidal was heavily involved in politics. He is boasted John F. Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, amonst others his best friends. He had always said USA is a country founded by rich white wealthy men, FOR rich white wealthy men, the country they wanted was a nirvana for the small percentage of the wealthy, it was never built for majority of the poor. The United States of Amnesia-Gore Vidal (2013) [Documentary] What an amazing, brilliant man who lived life fully; and saw the whole picture.

Written by 55 of the richest white men of early America, and signed by only 39 of them, the constitution is the sacred text of American nationalism. Many Americans have opinions on the constitution but have no idea what’s in it. The book We the Elites: Why the US Constitution Serves the Few – a class analysis of the US Constitution, (Pluto Press, 2022) is an adroit collection of essays exposing the constitution for what it really is – a rulebook to protect capitalism for the elites. Author Robert Ovetz’s reading of the constitution shows that the system isn’t broken. Far from it. It works as it was designed. The misplaced faith of social movements in the constitution as a framework for achieving justice actually obstructs social change – incessant lengthy election cycles, staggered terms, and legislative sessions have kept social movements trapped in a redundant loop. This stymies progress on issues like labor rights, public health, and climate change, projecting the American people and the rest of the world towards destruction.

In this Democracy At Work program – Economic Update: Why The US Constitution Is An Obstacle To Change, Prof. Wolff presents updates on the US banking crisis, plant closing injustice, growing child labor in the US, Biden’s budget’s tax “proposals,” and a new book that shows US homelessness is an economic problem. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Prof. Robert Ovetz on how and why the US Constitution blocks social change.

One of the premises within the US political parties is that private capital is to be left to those who are entrepreneurs, and not to go after the profit making. If businesses start being created under a democratic process brought on by the labor that produces the goods and services that creates those profits, the only response to stop would be outright fascism (we already operate under that in way already). Power that be always talk about free enterprise, until that freedom goes from the few to the masses.

The Homelessness is a Housing Problem discussion a very pressing issue offering a case in point about the homeless is an economic issue. Gregg Colburn, an assistant professor of real estate in the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments. Ph.D. in Public Affairs, … and Clayton Page Aldern, a writer and data scientist. They team up to seek to explain the substantial regional variation in rates of homelessness in cities across the United States. In a departure from many analytical approaches, Colburn and Aldern shift their focus from the individual experiencing homelessness to the metropolitan area. Using accessible statistical analysis, they test a range of conventional beliefs about what drives the prevalence of homelessness in a given city—including mental illness, drug use, poverty, weather, generosity of public assistance, and low-income mobility—and find that none explain the regional variation observed across the country. Instead, housing market conditions, such as the cost and availability of rental housing, offer a far more convincing account. With rigor and clarity, Homelessness Is a Housing Problem explores U.S. cities’ diverse experiences with housing precarity and offers policy solutions for unique regional contexts.

In the book Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s urgent mission to bring healing to homeless people Hardcover – January 17, 2023, the non-fiction, award winning author, Tracy Kidder has given new insight into a difficult and disturbing feature of contemporary America: an ever increasing homeless population.  Kidder shadowed Dr. James O’Connell as he treated the homeless of Boston in clinics and from a mobile unit on the streets at night. The powerful story of an inspiring doctor who made a difference, by helping to create a program to care for Boston’s homeless community. Tracy Kidder spent five years following Dr. O’Connell and his colleagues as they served their thousands of homeless patients. It all started when Jim O’Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School and was nearing the end of his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, the chief of medicine made a proposal: Would he defer a prestigious fellowship and spend a year helping to create an organization to bring health care to homeless citizens? Jim took the job because he felt he couldn’t refuse. But that year turned into his life’s calling.

Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor Paperback – Illustrated, August 6, 2019 is written by Virginia Eubanks is an American political scientist, professor, and author studying technology and social justice.  Eubanks launched a powerful investigative look at data-based discrimination and how technology affects civil and human rights and economic equity. The State of Indiana denies one million applications for healthcare, foodstamps and cash benefits in three years―because a new computer system interprets any mistake as “failure to cooperate.” In Los Angeles, an algorithm calculates the comparative vulnerability of tens of thousands of homeless people in order to prioritize them for an inadequate pool of housing resources. In Pittsburgh, a child welfare agency uses a statistical model to try to predict which children might be future victims of abuse or neglect.

Author aruges that since the dawn of the digital age, decision-making in finance, employment, politics, health and human services has undergone revolutionary change. Today, automated systems―rather than humans―control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain needed resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data, the most invasive and punitive systems are aimed at the poor. The U.S. has always used its most cutting-edge science and technology to contain, investigate, discipline and punish the destitute. Like the county poorhouse and scientific charity before them, digital tracking and automated decision-making hide poverty from the middle-class public and give the nation the ethical distance it needs to make inhumane choices: which families get food and which starve, who has housing and who remains homeless, and which families are broken up by the state. In the process, they weaken democracy and betray our most cherished national values.

Eubanks offers historical context about the role of the poorhouse in earlier American societies to explain how, through technology, we’ve built a digital poorhouse that is just as abusive and stigmatizing. This is a critical read for anyone who is trying to understand poverty in America and why well-intended technology is only going to be used to exacerbate existing social inequities. “Automating Inequality” is ethnography at its best, on par with Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed” or Matt Desmond’s “Evicted.” This book details how algorithmic technologies are upending basic government programs supporting the unhoused in accessing shelter, providing access to welfare, and managing child services programs. 

With so many school shooting, another topic at the center of debates is Gun control. As a Buddhist, I am strongly against the use of weapon for the danger of violating the precepts of not killing – one of the very important precepts in the Buddha’s teaching. But after these several years of research into American social political and economic system, I can understand why there are also strong arguments about keeping the gun for self protection. Just like Marijuana, Fentanyl and many other additictive drugs, the government did not spend any resources to prevent the usage in the first place – another case of resources misallocation.

One of these arguments came from John R. Lott, Jr., an American economist, political commentator, and gun rights advocate, on his battle with disinformation over gun control! In this book, Gun Control Myths: How politicians, the media, and botched “studies” have twisted the facts on gun control Paperback – July 3, 2020 John brings together an impressive array of data and statistical analysis to argue that much of what we hear in the mainstream media — and from politicians — about gun violence and gun control is incorrect and biased. He has a point – well, several actually. This book should be read by anyone concerned about gun violence and, most importantly, by anyone who writes about gun violence. The book might not change many opinions, as positions in the gun violence and control argument are set pretty hard…but perhaps even those with the firmest-held beliefs will be forced to reflect and think carefully about some of John’s data, analysis and conclusions. They should, if they are truly interested in the truth.

Another book The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America Hardcover – June 1, 2021 Carol Anderson powerfully illuminates the history and impact of the Second Amendment, how it was designed, and how it has consistently been constructed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable. The Second is neither a “pro-gun” nor an “anti-gun” book; the lens is the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans.

The recent instance of a young African teen were shot when knocking someone’s door is an reflection of the deep anxiety of America. Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education Paperback – November 1, 2006 The author Danielle Allen, a professor of public policy, politics, and ethics at Harvard University, brought focus back to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 and to the famous photograph of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, being cursed by fellow “citizen” Hazel Bryan, Allen argues that we have yet to complete the transition to political friendship that this moment offered. By combining brief readings of philosophers and political theorists with personal reflections on race politics in Chicago, Allen proposes strikingly practical techniques of citizenship. These tools of political friendship, Allen contends, can help us become more trustworthy to others and overcome the fossilized distrust among us. Sacrifice is the key concept that bridges citizenship and trust, according to Allen. She uncovers the ordinary, daily sacrifices citizens make to keep democracy working—and offers methods for recognizing and reciprocating those sacrifices. Trenchant, incisive, and ultimately hopeful, Talking to Strangers is nothing less than a manifesto for a revitalized democratic citizenry.

Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism Hardcover Using both individual and aggregate level survey data, Marc Hetherington, an American political scientist, shows that the rapid decline in Americans’ political trust since the 1960s is critical to explaining this puzzle. As people lost faith in the federal government, the delivery system for most progressive policies, they supported progressive ideas much less. The 9/11 attacks increased such trust as public attention focused on security, but the effect was temporary. Specifically, Hetherington shows that, as political trust declined, so too did support for redistributive programs, such as welfare and food stamps, and race-targeted programs. While the presence of race in a policy area tends to make political trust important for whites, trust affects policy preferences in other, non-race-related policy areas as well. In the mid-1990s the public was easily swayed against comprehensive health care reform because those who felt they could afford coverage worried that a large new federal bureaucracy would make things worse for them. In demonstrating a strong link between public opinion and policy outcomes, this engagingly written book represents a substantial contribution to the study of public opinion and voting behavior, policy, and American politics generally.

Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism Hardcover – November 24, 2020. takes on the media’s misreporting on Black Lives Matter, coronavirus, Joe Biden, Silicon Valley censorship, and more. For the past four years, five-time Emmy Award–winning investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Sharyl Attkisson has been collecting and dissecting alarming incidents tracing the shocking devolution of what used to be the most respected news organizations on the planet. For the first time, top news executives and reporters representing every major national television news outlet—from ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN to FOX and MSNBC—speak frankly, confiding in Attkisson about the death of the news as they once knew it. Their concern transcends partisan divides. We have reached a state of utter absurdity, where journalism schools teach students that their own, personal truth or chosen narratives matter more than reality. In Slanted, Attkisson digs into the language of propagandists, the persistence of false media narratives, the driving forces behind today’s dangerous blend of facts and opinion, the abandonment of journalism ethics, and the new, Orwellian definition of what it means to report the news. 

With loving kindness taught by the Buddha, with divine principle as our guideline, with a sincre notion that we are all equal at the soul level, everyone of us all can strive to make this World Be A Better Place ! Because in uplifting others, we uplifting our own spirit.

亚非新闻工作者日的感想：辛亥革命和民主宪政

Posted on by PathFinder

4 月24日是亚非新闻工作者日。近来北京长峰医院：29死惨烈火灾遭遇8小时网络静默， 4个年轻人「約死」跳崖張家界 ，胡鑫宇失踪案牵动广大网友们的心，2023三月份又有116名法轮功学员被非法判刑， 三年的疫情，联想到李文亮医生，任志强先生，铁链女的遭遇，彭帅， 三位学者，旅美经济学者秦伟平先生; 中国经济学者胡星斗教授；北京独立时事评论员吴强博士， 焦点访谈：2017北京市在寒冬驱逐“低端人口”，背后有何秘密？ 共产党用酷吏统治中国。据悉，从2019年末开始，中国公安（警方）多地拘留或传讯了十几名律师和公民运动人士，包括著名律师丁家喜、曾任大学老师的张忠顺、戴振亚等。另一名人权行动者，法学博士许志永因担心被捕，已躲藏起来， 警方也已就其下落询问过家人。此次抓捕是四年前“709”事件之后对公民运动最大规模的打压。2015年7月起，当局在中国20多个省份抓捕了上百名律师及维权人士，被称为“709”事件。多位被检控的律师曾经处理过政治敏感案件。4月10日，中国政治活动人士许志永和维权律师丁家喜涉嫌颠覆国家政权案遭重判， 许志永被判有期徒刑14年，丁家喜获刑12年。

我们看到历史在倒退，似乎又回到了封建满清时候的压迫，奴役和文字狱。 不免回想起辛亥革命。

在文明起源旧民主主义革命 — 辛亥革命 中， 袁腾飞的观点是，  第一次工业革命以后，整个世界的物质财富突然暴增了大概十倍以上，这个时候仅靠原来的帝王阶级所掌握的知识体系，已经无法管理好这个世界，必须由新的知识体系和阶层来接管。但是法国历史学家亚历克西·德·托克维尔(Alexis de Tocqueville)的经典名著《旧制度与大革命》(The Old Regime and the French Revolution) 却向人们揭示了改革可以产生红利，但改革本身绝不必然就是红利。怎样使改革之利最大化、改革之弊最小化，无疑是对执政者的执政水平与政治智慧的重大考验。

托克维尔所提出的自由与民主的矛盾问题，中国固然也需要面对，但中国需要面对的更大的矛盾，乃是当年严复就为之苦恼的富强与自由的矛盾问题。“中华民族的伟大复兴”已被提上政治日程，这是近代以来无数中国人的梦想，不过中国革命追求的社会主义事业还禀有一种更高的使命，那就是建设一种有利于人的自由全面发展的新制度，这无疑与托克维尔所期盼的有助于塑造卓越人性的自由技艺有相通之处。这恰恰是社会主义政治哲学与改革事业面临的最大难题之一。

辛亥革命为20世纪中国的历史性进步打开了闸门。20世纪中国发生翻天覆地的变化，而这样的变化之所以能够发生，是由辛亥革命拉开的序幕、开启的闸门。革命后不久，虽然出现了军阀混战、国家分裂、民众困苦的混乱时期，但不过是历史长河中的一段插曲。从1911年到1949年，短短38年就诞生了中华人民共和国，这个由乱到治的过渡时间并不是很长，与主要西方国家近代革命之后由乱到治的过程相比更是如此。 

 辛亥革命具有世界性意义。辛亥革命的发生是国际环境下内外情势共同作用的结果，受到世界形势的重大影响。辛亥革命是世界尤其是亚洲殖民地半殖民地国家民族解放运动的重要组成部分，打击了帝国主义的殖民体系和侵略势力，鼓舞了世界殖民地半殖民地国家尤其是周边国家的民族独立和解放斗争。孙中山的三民主义、世界大同、天下为公等思想．对亚洲乃至世界各国也产生了重要影响。所以，列宁认为：辛亥革命不仅标志着“地球上四分之一的人口可以说已经从沉睡中醒来，走向光明，投身运动，奋起斗争了”，而且也意味着“极大的世界风暴的新的发源地已经在亚洲出现”，“我们现在正处在这些风暴以及它们‘反过来影响’欧洲的时代”。 

辛亥革命“开创了完全意义上的近代民族民主革命”，在中华民族几千年历史进程中提出了一个新的奋斗目标，这个意义非同小可；推翻了统治中国几千年的君主专制制度，建立起共和政体，这是其最大的历史功绩，是了不起的事情；在思想领域内也引起十分深刻的变化，主要表现为民主精神高涨和思想得到很大解放。

著名学者辛灏年先生所著的 谁是新中国 – 中国现代史辨 一书对中国现代历史作了极为严谨的辨析之后，指出，辛亥之后中国民主过渡的艰难反复历程，与欧洲前专制国家的民主过渡历程并无二致，为民主过渡的必然历程所使然。这对于提高中华民族的民族自尊心和民族自信心，昭示中国民主统一 的前途究竟何在，及其与中华民国前途的关系，无疑具有重大的意义。一九九四年三月，本书作者怀揣着一个明确但是危险的答案，一个历经十数年不为人所知的痛苦研究才获得的重大成果，和数十万字已经整理好的研究资料，离开了故土，告别了亲友，来到了异国他乡，为的是要在一块自由的土地上，来完成他的著述，来回答历史的种种诘难，来证明 —— 谁，才是真正的新中国。本书高屋建瓴、气势恢宏，但又深入浅出、说理绵密。既具有发人深省的理论魅力，又具有冷峻沉雄的论辩风格。

辛灏年先生以一个学术工作者的身份郑重声明：作者在本书上卷所为之辨析和辩护的中华民国与中国国民党，只能是那个曾作为亚洲第一个民主共和国、并艰难推进了民主建国历程的中华民国，和那个曾创造了、并曾艰辛捍卫过中华民国的中国国民党。即由孙中山先生和蒋介石先生及其真正的继承者们所开创、所捍卫、所建设的中华民国和中国国民党。而不是顶着中华民国的国号，却要抛弃中华民国的国统；承继了中华民国国统，却又要背离整个中国；挂着中国国民党的招牌，却要菲薄孙中山先生的三民主义理念、诋毁中国国民党的基本民主性质、歪曲中华民国民主建国的艰辛历程、否定曾在艰难时代为台湾的繁荣和进步奠定了历史基础的蒋介石先生 – 即一方面企图将中华民国和中国国民党的历史传承予以腰斩，一方面则企图诱导整个台湾走上分裂祖国和割断历史之路的中华民国和中国国民党 —— 如果这样的中华民国和中国国民党已在出现、或有可能出现的话。在书的前言，辛灏年先生把他十数年耗尽心血的研究成果献给了一百年来所有为新中国奉献的人们：

  • 半个世纪以来，用智慧与痛苦、鲜血和生命才凝就了本书主题的 —— 中国大陆人民；
  • 中华民国的缔造者，共和制度的创建者，现代中国的开拓者，和中国民主进程的历史领袖 —— 孙中山先生；
  • 领导了北伐，统一过中国，赢得了伟大卫国战争胜利，奠定了台湾民主繁荣基石的民族英雄 —— 蒋介石先生；
  • 一百年来为推进全中国从专制向民主过渡而前仆后继、万难不辞的 —— 所有先贤和先烈们；

此外，辛灏年先生还u提出了许多很好的观点：什么是中华民族的进步？ 那就是我们念兹在兹的先民主，后统一。 辛灝年：中國命運與臺灣前途（上）, 中國命運與臺灣前途（下）, 辛灝年妙答挑釁提問 : 我愛中国 你愛中共（高清晰版）。辛灏年观点（上）：香港应该成为中华民国特区 | 以及 （下）：联邦制是要分裂中国。

香港陶傑：兩岸三地不想告訴你的辛亥革命真相【時務論壇】谈到日本对于辛亥革命的重大支持和贡献。

馬前總統最近訪問中國，高喊「國共憲法一中同表」、「九二共識又活了」、已經死去的東西會復活嗎？豈不成了殭屍？！所謂「一個中國、九二共識、反對台獨」其實是中共給藍營政治人物下的緊箍咒！是“一个编造出来的共识，就是一种政治强迫，是专制主义在对待台湾问题上的一种强盗式的表现”。受到輿論關注的「台灣地位未定論」有什麼現實意義？台灣地位和聯合國「公民與政治權利國際公約」有什麼關係？當反戰疑美思潮興起，台灣民眾準備好抵抗中國了嗎？兩岸關係與啟蒙理念：文明和野蛮的界限何在？ 訪談节目里， 內容包括了認祖歸宗、啓蒙運動，聯合國「公民與政治權利公約」，民族自決，台灣地位，文明與文化的區分等等議題。曹興誠先生講出了至理名言：要有獨立國格！「中國只是共產黨的地盤，中國人民根本沒有任何領土！」真希望台灣所有的企業家都能像曹興誠先生一樣，腦子清楚，願意放棄一己之私的利益，將精力錢財和時間奉獻給國家。非常值得讚許。

大陆外交部长秦剛提出: ” 只要有台獨台海就沒有和平! ” 他所說的台獨是什麼呢? 只要台灣不被中華人民共和國政府直接管轄就是台獨，這是中方對一個中國的定義。台灣對這種事顯然無法接受，所以中方不會讓台海有和平了! 文化部前部長、作家龍應台18日在《紐約時報》刊登文章指出，中國侵略的威脅以及如何應對這種威脅，正在分裂著台灣社會，指責某人「舔共」或透過發起危險的「反中」行為來煽動緊張局勢，已成常態。對與中國發生衝突的恐懼，正在撕裂寬容、文明以及對民主社會的信心。从另一个角度来说，一个文明的社会应当允许不同观点的表达和公民权利的行使，但绝对不应是简单粗暴的暴力方案。【苑举正】美政客煽动台湾人人持枪！台大教授揭露：美国政治的4大丑恶嘴脸。

[字幕经精确校对] 辛亥革命与中国宪政 _ 张千帆  Xinhai Revolution and China’s Constitutionalism by Prof. Qianfan Zhang 是十几年前的演说，放在今天也一点都不过时，而且似乎更是针对今天。张千帆教授是中华人民共和国法学学者、作家。现任北京大学法学院教授、中国法学会宪法学会理事。1980年，张千帆考上南京大学物理系，1984年赴美国留学。1989年获得卡内基·梅隆大学物理学博士学位。后曾从事物理学博士后研究的工作。1992年，张千帆入读马里兰大学法学院，转攻社会科学。[1]但由于财政问题无法支付法学院第二、三年学费，张千帆最终一边担任学校电脑中心咨询工作一边在法学院旁听。1995年，张千帆入读德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校，1999年获政府学博士学位

张千帆教授谈到辛亥革命百年之际，中国正陷入不可自拔的专制及其必然带来的官僚腐败和社会危机。 武昌起义终结了千年的皇权统治。但皇权的结束远非真正意义的共和的开始。 虽然改革开放让中国摆脱了大饥荒和大革命的威胁，并逐步回到世界文明的家庭中，但是共产党的专制结构与清朝帝制并没有发生本质的变化。人民实际上并未做过一天的主人。民权不张，公权必然无限膨胀。乔取豪夺，强征滥拆，欺压百姓，甚至草菅人命之事无所不在。当公权力至高无上，横行无忌， 政府变成掠夺和腐败的总根源。改革的几十年来，人民的劳动成果遭到各级官员和少数既得利益者的攫取与瓜分，人民收入的增长必然跟不上财政收入的增长，社会贫富差距必然不断拉大。

张千帆教授直指弊端：改革一方面彻底瓦解了全体官民对正统意识形态的最后一点谜信，造成不可遏制的腐败，堕落，庸俗和拜金主义。 另一方面极大透支了中国的自然资源并破坏了生态环境。 只要政治体制不变，这个破坏过程就没有止境， 直到威胁每个人的基本生存。承载几千年文明的中国从来没有像今天这样没有信仰，没有是非感，没有道德勇气，没有自我反省和净化的能力。 贪官污吏从来没有像今天这样多如牛毛。空气从来没有如此混浊，食品从来没有如此不安全，草原和湖泊从来没有萎缩如此之快。 如果这一切在国内不可维持下去，那么今日中国也在历史上第一次呈现对外扩张的趋势。这种扩张一方面体现为中国向发达国家输送廉价劳动力和产品， 通过低人权优势压榨国内工资，消耗国内资源以吸引国际投资并维持增长；另一方面则体现为利用欠发达国家和中国同样的体制弊病攫取它们的资源， 借以满足国内维持增长的需要。这种掠夺不仅触发被掳夺国家人民的反抗，而且也 将中国直接卷入和发达国家资源争夺之中。中华民族将沦落到文明废弛，腐败横行，资源耗竭，环境破坏，民不聊生的万劫不复之地。

张千帆教授呼吁公民意识的觉醒才是实行宪政的最有效推动力。然而，既得利益者想尽一切办法封锁信息，实施愚民政策，恐怕宪政将是遥遥无期了。皇权与皇民，相互滋养，生生不息。突破怪圈，在于突破世俗对人间权力的盲从和追逐。只有这样，人才可能对宪法有神圣感，宪法才可能有凌驾一切权力之上的地位和约束力。至于儒学是不是治病的药方，如演讲者所说，这可以进一步讨论。病诊对了，找药方应该成为下一步的重点。张千帆教授讲出了文化核心，即深烙在骨子里的帝王崇拜和被深刻在民族潜意识里的权力崇拜，将专制政体剖析得淋漓尽致！影片中的每一句話都是精準到位，張教授心中肯定有一股愛國情操，如果沒有用心在中國社會的各個層面，沒有從專制的假像中找出真正隱藏的魔鬼，是不可能寫出這種文章，滿腔的憤慨，激勵人心的文字，這才是真正的愛國！

[字幕经精确校对] 辛亥革命与中国宪政 _ 张千帆 Qianfan Zhang， 内容目录：

  • 0:02:59 前言
  • 0:09:29 第一部分：专制的病症与罪恶
  • 0:11:10 第一部分的第1小部分：专制政权的罪恶
  • 0:18:48 第一部分的第2小部分：专制社会的病症
  • 0:29:21 第二部分：中国道德与政治人格及其缺陷
  • 0:30:14 第二部分的第1小部分：人类的人格类型及其进化（未展开讲）
  • 0:30:34 第二部分的第2小部分：儒家传统人格及其缺陷
  • 0:35:37 第二部分的第3小部分：近代中国的人格变异
  • 0:45:57 第二部分的第4小部分：权力体系下的人格堕落
  • :59:53 第三部分：中国道德人格的复兴与重建
  • 1:02:21 第三部分的第1小部分：传统道德人格的复兴
  • 1:09:52 第三部分的第2小部分：当代道德人格的重建
  • 1:18:16 第四部分：中国政治人格之建构
  • 1:19:36 第四部分的第1小部分：建构公民人格，再造社会契约
  • 1:28:56 第四部分的第2小部分：国家统一与族群和睦的宪政基础
  • 1:35:58 特别谈及台湾问题
  • 1:37:45 第四部分的第3小部分：中国宪政之障碍与国民的历史责任
  • 1:43:36 宣言（献给每个中国人，尤其是有血性的中国青年）
  • 1:45:25 学生提问

Ukraine War – BLOOD is on the WESTS HANDS

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The Russia Ukraine War has been in our background for the last 14 months. I had been feel very confused by this war initially but had strongly calling for ending this war. Alas too many arguments in the west media try to criminalize Putin. U.S government (Biden Admin) has been in strong support of Ukraine. The western media including editorials in the Washington Post, mostly has been accused Russia as invader.

But according to John Joseph Mearsheimer, Blood is on the Wests Hands – Russians have been sayinbg since April 2008 that this is all about NATO expansion. Nato expansion simply is an existential threat to Russia, but Americans simply refuse to believe it. John Joseph Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation. Mearsheimer’s books include Conventional Deterrence (1983), which won the Edgar S. Furniss Jr. Book Award; Nuclear Deterrence: Ethics and Strategy (co-editor, 1985); Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (1988); The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), which won the Lepgold Book Prize; The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007); and Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics (2011). His articles have appeared in academic journals like International Security and popular magazines like the London Review of Books. He has written op-ed pieces for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune.

A brilliant explanation from J J Mearsheimer. proving there are still some highly intelligent people in the USA. Let’s just looking up some other people who gave similar opinion of Mearsheimer.

In Around the Corner: Reflections on American Wars, Violence, Terrorism, and Hope by John W. Davis, Paperback – January 14, 2021. The author, an American politician, diplomat and lawyer, gave a collection of heart breaking, and insightful essays. Real people and actual events emerge from this collection in ways you won’t forget. Each draws us deeper into the questions we raise when we demand others serve in the secret world for their country. we find more thought provoking true stories from the Cold War, its bloody aftermath, and our own America today. Rain swept streets and dark corners serve not only as background, but also as metaphor. Around dark corners on a rainy street, what seems at first glance clear, might not be so. We see only indistinct outlines, as through a glass darkly; what may be true, could as well be only partly so, or even tragically false. So too with our beliefs about who we are. He observes events, people, laws, chance, and history from the perspective of a soldier, historian, liaison officer, husband and father.

On Western Terrorism – New Edition: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare (Chomsky Perspectives) Paperback – Illustrated, April 15, 2017. A conversation between Chomsky and Vitchek, with a lot of shared knowledge of the issues and conflicts that they are discussing. A sharp and direct to the point sternly criticize of America’s role in the international affair, such as the indiscriminate atom bombing of Hiroshima at Nagasaki, the Cold War and the nuclear blackmail, the military aggression against Korea and Indochina, adventures in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, and Cuba, the rise and downfall of the Marcos dictatorship, the anti-Soviet wars in Angola, Mozambique and Afghanistan, the instigation of the Iraq-Iran War and the military aggression against Iraq, the so-called humanitarian air-festival on Yugoslavia, the 9-11-01 ‘terrorist attacks’ and the so-called Al Qaeda threat, the second military aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan, the continuing provocative attacks against China and North Korea, the “war on terror”, up to the Arab Spring, Libya-Syria fiasco, Guantanamo and the drone warfare. Indeed a must-read book about Western Terrorism.

Retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor (U.S. Army Colonel, Former Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense | 02-09-2023), who had posted in Twitter: “Having failed for at least 20 years to acknowledge Moscow’s legitimate security interests in Ukraine, Washington and its allies will inevitably confront new facts on the ground.” He also came out to say that China is SERIOUS About Peace in Ukraine as Key to Belt and Road.

Scott Ritter, a former Marine intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union, implementing arms control agreements, and on the staff of General Norman Schwartzkopf during the Gulf War, where he played a critical role in the hunt for Iraqi SCUD missiles. From 1991 until 1998, Mr. Ritter served as a Chief Inspector for the United Nations in Iraq, leading the search for Iraq’s proscribed weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Ritter was a vocal critic of the American decision to go to war with Iraq. He resides in Upstate New York, where he writes on issues pertaining to arms control, the Middle East and national security. Mr. Rotter’s 10th book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika. His book SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump is a history of America’s corrosive affair with nuclear weapons, and the failed efforts to curb this radioactive ardor through arms control. The book’s title refers to the allusion by Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the American atomic bomb, to dueling scorpions when discussing the deadly nuclear rivalry between the US and Soviet Union, and signals the dangers inherent in the resumption of the perilous US drive for nuclear supremacy.

Brian Berletic, US geopolitical analyst and debunker; former US marine officer came out to talked about NATO is FAILING in Ukraine, Sets Sights on Taiwan Danny haiphone show/ Brian Berletic and Angelo Giuliano.

Jimmy Dore is the star of several Comedy Central specials, author of the bestseller “Your Country Is Just Not That Into You”, a writer / performer for the Off-Broadway hit “The Marijuana-Logues”, the host of a weekly radio show in Los Angeles, and on-air host for The Young Turks. “ A crucial, profane, passionate voice for progressives and free-thinkers in 21st century America. Jimmy will anger you if you’re a conservative and enrage you if you’re a liberal.”

Chris Hedges: NATO to Blame for DANGEROUS Escalations in Ukraine War. and many others.

Filmed on five possible front-lines across Asia and the Pacific over two years, Nuclear war is not only imaginable, but planned. told in chapters that connect a secret and ‘forgotten’ past to the rapacious actions of great power today and to a resistance, of which little is known in the West.The greatest build-up of NATO military forces since the Second World War is under way on the western borders of Russia. On the other side of the world, the rise of China is viewed in Washington as a threat to American dominance.

Stephen Edward Schmidt is an American political and corporate strategist, media commentator and founder of The Warning. He is founder of The Lincoln Project, a group founded to campaign against former President Trump. Schmidt’s candid, full interview was conducted with FRONTLINE during the making of the two-part January 2020 documentary series “America’s Great Divide: From Obama to Trump.” Watch Part One here: https://youtu.be/SnMBYMOTwEs and Part Two here: https://youtu.be/l5vyDPN19ww.

Why has U.S. security policy scarcely changed from the Bush to the Obama administration? National Security and Double Government offers a disquieting answer. Michael J. Glennon challenges the myth that U.S. security policy is still forged by America’s visible, “Madisonian institutions” – the President, Congress, and the courts. Their roles, he argues, have become largely illusory. Presidential control is now nominal, congressional oversight is dysfunctional, and judicial review is negligible.

The book details the dramatic shift in power that has occurred from the Madisonian institutions to a concealed “Trumanite network” – the several hundred managers of the military, intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement agencies who are responsible for protecting the nation and who have come to operate largely immune from constitutional and electoral restraints. Reform efforts face daunting obstacles. Remedies within this new system of “double government” require the hollowed-out.

The author Michael J. Glennon, is Professor of International Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He has been Legal Counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1977-1980); Fulbright Distinguished Professor of International and Constitutional Law, Vytautus Magnus University School of Law, Kaunas, Lithuania (1998); a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC (2001-2002); Thomas Hawkins Johnson Visiting Scholar at the United States Military Academy, West Point (2005); Director of Studies at the Hague Academy of International Law (2006); and professeur invité at the University of Paris II, Panthéon-Assas (2006-2013). Professor Glennon has served as a consultant to various congressional committees, the U.S. State Department, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. He is a member of the American Law Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law.

The Spiritual Trap of Abbassy

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The recent report of Dalai Lama apologizes for asking a young boy to suck his tongue reflect a long time under spin of public uneasiness about abuse of spiritual power by the teachers who are in the position of doing so. This is valid concerns. There is really a delicate dance in searching for spirituality and avoiding falling into trap of abbassy. For that very reason, the Buddha had taught us for the sake of protection the precepts as they are Protection for Buddhist Practitioners. I personally came from an area in China where Chan Buddhism (禅宗）is the dominant force, so I am not familiar with the Vajira Buddhism tradition.

Chan Buddhism is Chinese version of Buddhism popularized by the the 6th Patriarch of Chan Buddhism Master Huineng. He spent all his life in the south part of China, mainly taught from Nan Hua Temple (南華寺) in GuangDong Province of China. Master XuYun ,  (simplified Chinese: 虚云; traditional Chinese: 虛雲; pinyin: Xūyún; 5 September 1840? – 13 October 1959), a renowned Chinese Chan Buddhist master and an influential Buddhist teacher of the 19th and 20th centuries, was also came from south east part of China.

What I learned is, the function of Buddhist precepts is not to prohibit us from saying or doing certain things, but, rather, to remind us not to do things that may cause harm, both to ourselves and to others. In other words, the Buddhist precepts function to protect ourselves and others. Therefore, the Five Precepts and the Bodhisattva Precepts are protective shields that allow one to a) feel peaceful in the practice, b) cultivate an appropriate sense of shame, c) repent frequently, and d) regulate behavior at any given time, in order to continually uplift one’s character.    These five precepts are:

  • 1) I undertake the rule to abstain from killing.
  • 2) I undertake the rule to abstain from taking what is not given.
  • 3) I undertake the rule to abstain from sexual misconduct.
  • 4) I undertake the rule to abstain from false speech.
  • 5) I undertake the rule to abstain from taking intoxicants that cloud the mind.

There are no lacking of abuse of power in every religions. Catholic church had notorious coverup for the abuses of public trust. In 2019, the death of Sogyal Rimpoche, author of the best-selling Tibetan Book of Living and Dyin, unleashed a new torrent of victim revelations, accounting questions and legal rulings that further illuminate the trail of injury and insult he left behind. The imposter guru ended his days as a refugee in Thailand, beyond the reach of police and civil investigations in several countries. In 2018, at Longquan monastery in Beijing China, High-profile Chinese monk accused of sexually harassing nuns in China . An article of 1989 about Ösel Tendzin, the first American accepted lineage holder of Kagyu tradition of Vajrayana Buddhism. America’s largest Tibetan Buddhist group, has been thrown into turmoil by allegations that its leader knew he had AIDS and transmitted it to his sexual partners in a report: Buddhists in U.S. Agonize on AIDS Issue. Another report 2012 by Mary Finnagan about Young Kalu Rinpoche’s traumatic revelations highlight the dissonance between Tibetan tradition and 21st-century life. These confessional sending shockwaves through the Buddhist world.

Chris Chandler’s Expose of Shambhala as a Mind Control Cult Is Required Reading The Shambhala organization is in crisis, and Chris Chandler is perhaps the most fearless and best-informed of its critics. Shambhala’s spiritual leader, the “Sakyong Mipham,” has been outed as a sexual assaulter and heavy drinker with a bad habit of assaulting his female followers. Ms. Chandler shares her journey and reveals her understanding of the Tibetan Tantric belief system. As an insider, she was privy to much that is unavailable to newcomers and those who have not progressed sufficiently along the Tantric path. She reveals a hidden agenda, an upending of Western values and democratic governance by stealth. The Dalai Lama and the Sex-Slaver Cult of NXIVM.

These horrable instances show us the dark side of spirituality when fall into the trap, and demands us to seriously consider the implications, to raise important questions practitioners need to ask: such as, if gurus are not all perfect, what measures are you going to apply to determine if you should follow one or not? If other Tibetan Buddhist leaders are not willing to unequivocally and specifically denounce such a clear case of abuse, what does this say about the value of Buddhist practice?

The detail accounts in Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of Sogyal Rinpoche by Mary Finnigan and Rob Hogendoorn is well worth a read by anyone involved in or interested in any spiritual movement to be aware of such issues. This is a work that everyone connected with Vajrayana should read. It serves as a grave warning to exactly how far people can delude themselves. It shows exactly why people should not trust what is popular or fashionable. When eight students wrote a letter accusing Sogyal Rinpoche of decades of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, Tahlia Newland set up an online support group for abuse victims and students of his Tibetan Buddhist community, Rigpa. Appalled by the lack of ethics, the group undertook a journey of discovery during which they uncovered the depth of the trauma suffered by victims, and the fundamentalism and cult behaviour at the heart of Rigpa. They learned about destructive cults, trauma and recovery, narcissistic abuse, co-dependency, institutional betrayal, and the methods of mind control used by Rigpa, who had covered up and enabled the abuse for decades.

Readers feedbak on this book was: The most serious omission in this book is the lack of depth in discussing the Dalai Lama’s motivations providing Sogyal validation and the Dalai Lama’s motivations for not specifically condemning Sogyal until after after the scandal blew wide open. The same could be asked of many other gurus. It is an important discussion, because it cuts right to the heart of the matter: Is it acceptable in Tibetan Buddhism for lamas to behave like Sogyal? If not, what are the barriers to critically discussing and identifying specific instances of abuse by gurus in TB?

The book includes an almost forensic – yet very readable – dissection of how a sexually voracious and ultimately abusive, untrained and unqualified opportunist, Sogyal Lakar, seized the opportunity offered by a constellation of factors: Westerners’ spiritual hunger and the gullibility that thrives in the needy; an unwillingness to probe; a simple inability to ask the right questions, because of our ignorance; a willingness to indulge the sexual and culinary gluttony of someone believed to be extraordinary; the patriarchal, even misogynistic culture of old Tibet, along with its class-ridden unwillingness to be seen to criticise; the only-too-understandable urge of the Tibetan community – a community that has been slaughtered and tortured out of its own land – to pull together and look after its own, trying to sweep the appalling behaviour of one of its best-known representatives under the sofa. These are some of the ingredients of this ghastly cocktail.

After having heard about and researched into the abuse of Sogyal Rinpoche, one question was left open. How could anyone who was part of this group and witnessed the abuse, just have let this happen? Why was this allowed to grow to these extents and all involved seemingly just swooning about the abuser? The book Fallout: Recovering from Abuse in Tibetan Buddhism Paperback – July 20, 2019 gives exactly the answer to this question. It’s an honest and personal account about the process involved for people to wake up from the delusion that supporting hellish behavior would bring them to enlightenment or would set them apart and above others as exceptional beings with special insight, wisdom or realization.

Enthralled: The Guru Cult of Tibetan Buddhism Paperback – June 17, 2017 The author Chandler spent nearly three decades in the center of the hierarchy of Tibetan Lamas’ inner circles by taking care of the son of notorious Lama, Chogyam Trungpa, whose Crazy Wisdom has destroyed a significant mass of three generations’ reasoning minds.

Trungpa paved the way for the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Lamas to ‘colonize’ the United States and the West to spread out their Guru Occult Tantra to slowly undermine foundations of a liberal education and its Judea-Christian Western Civilization roots. Tantra is about chaos; i.e. creating chaos to turn social mores upside down. It changed a critical mass of three generation’s views about ‘right and wrong’; good and bad; and an ability to tell lies from the truth. Chandler has both and intimate and a bird’s eye view of how these Lamas work their western groups, together, and in collusion with the Progressive Left, the Green New Deal, and China. Once Chandler realized she had been made a pawn on a geopolitical chessboard to perpetuate a deeply misogynistic, totalitarian worldview for the future, she broke free, determined to warn others about what lies beneath the smile of the Dalai Lama and a guru-worshipping cult that goes by the name of Buddhism.

The Pros and Cons of Globalization – High Concentration of Wealth, Hidden Assets and Tax Free Inheritance

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An article in the New Yorker a while back described a bunch of millionaires and billionaires building luxury bomb shelters on private islands in anticipation of some sort of apocalyptic scenario – high-end sanctuaries for the end of days. These people are willing to pay millions to live through the collapse of society in comfort, but how many of them have spent millions – or any amount, for that matter – to change the dynamics that caused the threat in the firt place? How many of those millionaires are willing to admit that they helped create or worsen the societal onditons that are cuasing their fear? Do any of them understand that much of – even most of – what is happening today is their fault? You can not continue to sit by and enjoy your riches while the rest of the world falls further into poverty and chaos.

A trend that worth paying attention if the number of young billions below ago 35 is growing. U.S. Net Worth Statistics: The State of Wealth in 2023. According to Economist Robert Reich, America is now on the cusp of the larget intergenerational transfer of wealth in history. As wealthy boomers pass on, somewhere between $30 Trillion to $70 Trillion will go to their children over the next three decades. By the loophole of current tax system, these children will be able to live off this wealth and leave the bulk of it to their children tax free.

The Geographic Distribution of Extreme Wealth in the U.S. dwells into many perspectives of wealth distribtuion by states and offer their insights about tax reform. Another research The Wealth of Households: 2020 by U.S Censor Bureau analysis wealth by household statistics. Thebusinessinsider.com gave a good account of the situation in an article dated Sept 29, 2022: The bottom half of American families hold just 2% of the country’s wealth — while the top 1% of families have a third.

The collapse of the money supply is said to be one of the four major reasons causing the 1930 great depression. Everyone said nowadays the Fed hiking interest rate will cause recession becuase rate increase monetary policy will reduce the money supply. The argument may have some logic in it. But it ignore another major factor, the highly concentration of wealth. 如果問題是來自印鈔，那解方不是衰退，是QT。衰退一直不來，慢慢QT才是正解。雖然這會讓經濟成長停滯一段時間，但可以讓未來的人負擔減輕。

Tax engineering in Luxembourg explained in four minutes

To go into more detail, Inside the Secret World of Tax Havens: The Multi-Million Businesses in Luxembourg | Documentary investigate the world of tax havens and show how some of the world’s most famous companies are using a tax haven at the heart of Europe to save millions in tax. The small country Luxembourg the size of Wyomin had become one of Europe’s cleverest tax shelters and attracts big corporations from around the world. Secret documents reveal how companies like GlaxoSmithKline have been getting big tax breaks on billion-pound transactions in the tiny country of Luxembourg. By opening offices there, diverting profits overseas and then having their Luxembourg office lend offices in other countries money, they can avoid multi-million euro tax bills in their country of origin. In these austere times, is big business paying its fair share?

This vido dive into how it became a tax haven thanks to quick-thinking civil servants in the 1960s and ’70s who bet big on attracting financial investment from abroad. According to audience who live there, the country still have high tax just for ordinary citizens like in panama, but not for massive companies. That is why companies like amazon headquarters is in luxembourg. Ironically europeans defend that they have the best democracy, law etc. But in the middle of europe everybody acts like those fradualent countries like luxembourg or lienchenstein do not exist at all. But we all know throughout the history no crime schemes or systems etc could continue like that forever. Billionaires safehouse. Why is Luxembourg so insanely rich ? explain why the insane salaries, huge companies and some of the richest people in the world are just some elements that make the entire world why this tiny country is so rich and why it is even on the map. In this video you will find out why and much more. If every government just put a fair tax nobody would hide their money. Does not these count as organized crime?

Mr. Reich explained in clear and easy understandable way about corporate greed. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter IX wrote: “Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people. ” Media had helped corporation to hide their profits. If the media reported on corporate profits then it would be impossible to blame the powerless.

SPOT ON ! We are not against a CEO being wealthy. We are against a CEO taking everyone else’s hard-earned money for themselves. People do the lion’s share of the work, they take more than the lion’s share of the money. These CEOs are like dragons hoarding treasure and need to be dealt with the exact same way. Greed destroys everything.

People get reporting on jobs. We get reporting on wages. You know what we don’t get? Reporting on corporate profits. Corporate America wants to keep it this way. Workers get blamed for inflation. Corporations get cover for their greed. The Truth Behind “Self-Made” Billionaires.

  • The CEO: “I’ll need a multimillion dollar bonus if I succeed, and a multimillion dollar severance package in case I fail.”
  • The executive board: “Let’s spend our profits on stock buybacks and more bonuses for ourselves. If we fail, the government will bail us out.”
  • The workers: “We just want enough to pay our rent/mortgage and take care of our families.”
  • The media: Look at those GREEDY employees!”

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” — Elizabeth Warren, 2012

The Supreme Court’s War on the People Citizens vs. United really was one of the most disasterous Supreme Court decisions in this country’s history. This 2010 Supreme Court decision, a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections, further tilted political influence toward wealthy donors and corporations, with negative repercussions for American democracy and the fight against political corruption. Dark money is election-related spending where the source is secret. Citizens vs. United contributed to a major jump in this type of spending, which often comes from nonprofits that are not required to disclose their donors. In Canada Corporations are not allowed to make any political donations and private citizens donation amounts are capped. In 2008, before the ruling, billionaires contributed $31 million to federal campaigns. In 2020, billionaires contributed $1.2 billion. Corporations should not have the political rights of citizenship, particularly those that operate in more than one sovereignty. And there are at least fifty-one sovereignties in the US.

Corporate greed is off the rails. Then they spend millions or more to fight unions. In a Nov 2021 youtube program How Wealth Inequality Spiraled Out of Control – Economist Robert Reich explained how prblem baloon into the top 1% holds 15x more wealth than the bottom 50% combined. Professor Reich pointed out: “Billionaires are not made by rugged individuals. They’re made by policy failures. And a system that rewards wealth over work.” The ultra wealth had benefits from American system – from laws that protect their wealth, and our economy that enable them to build their fortune in the first place. “Don’t blame the billionaires, blame the game,” but what if the billionaires own and direct the game? Unlimited wealth = unlimited power, the game itself is an illusion.

People are not mad at the rich for being rich. We’re mad at them and our politicians for the unadulterated corporatism that is now a signature of what used to be capitalism based democracies. They should pay their fair share! Professor Reich suggested many way to do so: closing the stepped up basis of loopholes, raising capital gain tax, fully fund the IRS, so it can properly audit the wealthiest tax, for starters. Beyond those, we need a wealth tax of 2% tax on wealth in excess of $1million. That is hardly a drop in the bucket for the super rich. That would generate plenty of revenue to invest in education, health care, so that millions of American can have a fair share of the system for both risk and rewards. The most important thing is everyone of us need to fully understand how the reality of wealth inequality, and how the system has become rigged in favor of those on the top. And demand your political representative to take action to unrig it.

In the similar token, Tobacco industry has reported a profit and tax revenue of 1.4 trillion yuan in China, Shouldn’t government charge much higher taxes for industries that create hidden damage to the society ? 2023年4月10日，中国著名的异议人士许志永，被判处有期徒刑14年，罪名是煽动颠覆国家政权罪。三大罪状：第一倡导公民权利，践行宪法规定的公民权力，履行公民责任；第二推动教育平权，随迁子女就地高考； 第三呼吁政府官员财产公示。 本片的所有收益，将全部捐给该纪录片的制作团队。制片者希望各位通过这个纪录片，能更多地了解许志永。非常感谢王志安先生利用影响力为许教授发声。墙内对舆论管控严厉至极，99%的百姓都不知道有这么一位北大法学博士为民请愿，为中国公民社会平权请愿！中国民主化，需要这样的殉道者和自我牺牲，如此这个社会才会觉醒。王志安先生的传播，实在太重要了！

关于中国经济的判断，林毅夫很可能是错的！How Can We Improve The Economy? Start By Reining In The Power Of Corporations – Robert Reich on CNN.

The Pros and Cons of Globalization 2 – Taxes, Budget, National Debt

Posted on by PathFinder

The Inflation Reduction Act signed into law authorized $80 billion in funding for the Internal Revenue Service over the next 10 years. More than $45 billion is earmarked for enforcement — part of an effort to close the estimated $600 billion “tax gap,” the difference between what Americans owe and what they actually pay. In fact, research by the Wharton School of Business concludes that the Inflation Reduction Act “would have no meaningful effect on inflation in the near term but would reduce inflation by around 0.1 percentage points by the middle of the first decade.”

And then it is reported a couple days ago that U.S. IRS to hire nearly 20,000 staff over two years with $80 billion in new funds. We wonder if that will resolve the problem of inequality? While experts generally agree that the legislation will modestly help slow the growth of prices, its benefits to the consumer is unclear.

Our Selfish Tax Laws: Toward Tax Reform That Mirrors Our Better Selves by Anthony Infanti (The MIT Press) Hardcover – October 2, 2018 written by a Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and a Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, explore the topics of Why tax law is not just a pocketbook issue but a reflection of what and whom we, as a society, value. Most of us think of tax as a pocketbook issue: how much we owe, how much we’ll get back, how much we can deduct. In Our Selfish Tax Laws, Anthony Infanti takes a broader view, considering not just how taxes affect us individually but how the tax system reflects our culture and society. He finds that American tax laws validate and benefit those who already possess power and privilege while starkly reflecting the lines of difference and discrimination in American society based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, immigration status, and disability. Infanti argues that instead of focusing our tax reform discussions on which loopholes to close or which deductions to allow, we should consider how to make our tax system reflect American ideals of inclusivity rather than institutionalizing exclusion.

 Infanti offers two comparative case studies, examining the treatment of housing tax expenditures and the unit of taxation in the United States, Canada, France, and Spain to show how tax law reflects its social and cultural context. Then, drawing on his own work and that of other critical tax scholars, Infanti explains how the discourse surrounding tax reform masks the many ways that the American tax system rewards and reifies privilege. To counter this, Infanti urges us to work together to create a society with a tax system that respects and values all Americans.

The recent CPI numbers indicated that The index for shelter was by far the largest contributor to the monthly all items increase. This more than offset a decline in the energy. Housing played a major role in the February CPI all-items index, with shelter accounting for 70 percent of the increase. There is a different argument that The Biggest Driver of Inflation Is a Price That No One Is Actually Paying. Which one is more reflective of reality?

The Book, Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age revealed the underbelly of a system tilted in favor of the few, with the many left out in the cold. David Wessel, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings and director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, unveil incredible tale of how Washington works-and why the rich keep getting richer-starts when a Silicon Valley entrepreneur develops an idea intended as a way to help poor people that will save rich people money on their taxes. He organizes and pays for an effective lobbying effort that pushes his idea into law with little scrutiny or fine-tuning by congressional or Treasury tax experts-and few safeguards against abuse. With an unbeatable pair of high-profile sponsors, bumper-sticker simplicity and deft political marketing, the Opportunity Zone became an unnoticed part of the 2017 Trump tax bill.

In another book, Red Ink: Inside the High-Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget Paperback – July 2, 2013, David Wessel, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter, columnist, and bestselling author of In Fed We Trust, dissects the federal budget in this New York Times bestseller. In a sweeping narrative about the people and the politics behind the budget–a topic that is fiercely debated today in the halls of Congress and the media, and yet is often misunderstood by the American public–Wessel looks at the 2011 fiscal year (which ended September 30) to see where all the money was actually spent, and why the budget process has grown wildly out of control. Through the eyes of key people, including Jacob Lew, White House director of the Office of Management and Budget; Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office; Blackstone founder and former Commerce Secretary Pete Peterson; and more, Wessel gives readers an inside look at the making of our unsustainable budget.

Red Ink is a sobering look at the 2012 federal budget, including an analysis of the “unsustainable trajectory” of federal borrowing—which has expanded significantly in the seven years since this book was published. The U.S. government will spend $1.28 for every dollar it receives in 2020, and is set to run trillion-dollar yearly deficits as far as the eye can see. And now in 2023, Federal budget deficit hits $1.1 trillion over six months: CBO estimates. U.S. government posts $378 billion deficit in March.

At this rate, by 2049 federal debt will equal 174 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product—the value of all goods and services produced in this country in one year. And gone are the days we could console ourselves by saying the national debt is no problem “because we owe it to ourselves.” Today, around half our debt is owed to foreign nationals, over $2 trillion to China and Japan, societies that saved while we borrowed.

Public economics and public policy: The ideas and influence of Martin Feldstein, 1939-2019 spoke of the method Martin Feldstein deployed in institutional data collection and policy making bases. Maybe congressional government need to establish committees to work on these important issues.