Music by The Refusers

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Never Alone Music Video



Sometimes we need to be close to the Earth and express our humanity. It is my belief that to be a well balanced and well functioning human being one needs to be both connected to Heaven and Earth. This entry is for that part of you concerned with everyday living.




Sunday, September 26, 2010

The Wisdom of Sri Aurobindo - Part 2



The theme of these wise sayings are about Medical Science and Natural Healing.  Sri Aurobindo's words are very similar to those of Mary Baker Eddy.

1.  For nearly forty years behind the wholly good I was weakly in constitution;  I suffered constantly from the smaller and the greater ailments and mistook this curse for a burden that Nature had laid upon me.  When I renounced the aid of medicine, then they began to depart from me like disappointed parasites.  Then only I understood what a mighty force was the natural health within me and how much mightier yet the Will and Faith exceeding mind which God meant to be divine support of our life in this body.

2.  Disease is needlessly prolonged and ends in death oftener than is inevitable because the mind of the patient supports and dwells upon the disease in the body.

3.  The doctor aims a drug at a disease;  sometimes it hits, sometimes misses.  The misses are left out of account, the hits treasured up, reckoned and systematised into a Science.

4.  Medical Science has been more a curse to Mankind than a blessing.  It has broken the force of epidemics and unveiled a marvelous surgury; but also, it has weakened the natural health of Man and multiplied individual diseases, it has implanted fear and dependence in the mind and body;  it has taught our health to repose not on natural soundness but rickety and distasteful crutch compact from the mineral and vegetable kingdoms.

5.  We laugh at the savage for his faith in the medicine man;  but how are the civilised less superstitious who have faith in the doctors?  The savage finds that when a certain incantation is repeated, he often recovers from a certain disease;  he believes.  The civilised patient finds that when he doses himself according to a certain prescription, he often recovers from a certain disease;  he believes.  Where is thte difference?

6.  The north country Indian herdsman attacked by fever sits in a chill stream of a river for an hour or more and rises up free and healthy.  If the educated man did the same, he would perish not because the same remedy in its nature kills one and cures another, but because our bodies have been fatally indoctrinated by the mind into false habits.

7.  It is not the medicine that cures so much as the patients faith in the doctor and the medicine.  Both are a clumsy subsitute for the natural faith in one's own self-power which they have themselves destroyed.

8.  The healthiest ages of mankind were those in which there were fewest material remedies.

9.  The most robust and healthy race left on Earth were the African savages;  but how long can they so remain after the physical consciousness has been contaminated by the mental aberrations of the civilised?

10.  We ought to use the divine health in us to cure and prevent diseases;  but Galen and Hippocrates and their tribe have given us instead an armoury of drugs and a barbarous hocus-pocus as our physical gospel.

11.  Medical Science is well meaning and its practitioners often benevolent and not seldom self-sacrificing: but when did the well-meaning of the ignorant save them from harm doing?

12.  The spirit within us is the only all efficient doctor and submission of the body to it the one true panacea.

13.  If all remedies were really and in themselves efficacious and all medical theories sound, how would that consule us for our lost natural health and vitality?  The upas tree is sound in all its parts, but it is still an apas tree.

14.  God within is infinite and self-fulfilling Will.  Unappalled by the fear of death canst thou leave to Him, not as an experiment with a calm and entire faith they ailments?  Thou shalt find that in the end He exceeds the skills of a million doctors.

15.  Health protected by twenty thousand precautions is the gospel of the doctor;  but it is not God's evangel for the body, nor Natures.

16.  Man was once naturally healthy and could revert to that primal condition if he were suffered;  but Medical Science pursues our body with an innumerable pack of drugs and assails the imagination with ravening hordes of microbes.

17.  I would rather die and have done with it than spend life in defending myself against a phantasmal siege of microbes.  If that is to be barbarious and unenlightened, I embrace gladly my Cimmerian darkness.

18.  Surgeons save and cure by cutting and maiming.  Why not rather seek to discover Natures direct all-powerful rememdies?

19.  It should take long for self-cure to replace medicine because of fear, self-distrust and unnatural physical reliance on drugs which Medical Science has taught to our minds and bodies and made our second nature.

20.  Medicine is necessary for our bodies in disease only because our bodies have learned the art of not getting well without medicines.  Even so, one sees often that the moment Nature chooses for recovery is that in which the life is abandoned as hopeless by the doctors.

21.  Distrust of the curative power within us was our physical fall from Paradise.  Medical Science and a bad heredity are the two angels of God who stand at the gates to forbid our return and re-entry.

22.  Medical Science to the human body is like a great Power which enfeebles a smaller State by its protection or like a benevolent robber who knocks his victim flat and riddles him with wounds in order that he may devote his life to healing and serving the shattered body.

23.  Drugs often cure the body when they do not merely trouble or poison it, but only if their physical attack on the disease is supported by the force of the Spirit,  if that force can be made to work freely, drugs are at once superfluous.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

The Wisdom of Sri Aurobino - Part 1


The quotations were taken from a book I like to pick up from time to time and read by the name of:  Sri Aurobindo - Thoughts and Aphorisms.  This book is based upon the sayings of Sri Aurobindo between the years of 1913 to 1915. This entry will be entitled Part 1 and will deal with his views of Governments and Society.

1.  Governments, societies, kings, police, judges, institutions, churches, laws, customs, and armies are temporary necessities imposed on us for a few groups of centuries because God has concealed His face from us.  When It appears to us again in it's truth and beauty, then in that Light they will vanish.

2.  The anarchic is the true divine state of man in the end as in the beginning; but in between it would lead us straight to the devil and his kingdom.

3.  The communistic principle of society is intrinsically as superior to the individualistic as is brotherhood to jealousy and mutual slaughter; but all the practical schemes of  Socialism invented in Europe are a yoke, a tyranny and a prison.

4.  If communisism ever re-establishes itself successfully upon Earth, it must be on a foundation of soul's brotherhood and the death of egoism.  A forced association and a mechanical comradeship would end in a world wide fiasco.

5.  "Since liberty has failed", cries the advanced thought of Europe, "let us try liberty cum equality or since the two are a little hard to pair, equality instead of liberty.  For brotherhood, it is impossible; therefore we will replace it by industrial association".  But this time also, I think, God will not be deceived.

6.  Democracy was the protest of the human soul against the allied despotisms of autocract, priest, and noble.  Socialism is the protest of the human soul against the despotism of a plutocractic democracy.  Anarchism is likely to be the protest of the human soul against the tyranny of a bureaucractic Socialism.  A turbulent and eager march from illusion to illusion and from failure to failure is the image of European progress.

7.  Democracy in Europe is the rule of the Cabinet minister, the corrupt deputy or the self-seeking capitalist masqued by the occasional sovernreignty of a wavering populace.  Socialism in Europe is likely to be the rule of the official and policeman masqued by theoretic sovereignty of an abstract State.  It is the chimerical to enquire which is the better system; it would be difficult to decide which is the worst.

8.  The gain of democracy is the security of the individuals life, liberty, and goods from the caprices of the tyrant one or the selfish few; it's evil is the decline of greatness in humanity.

9.  This erring race of human beings dreams always of perfecting their environment by the machinery of government and society:  but it is only by the perfection of the soul within that the outer environment can be perfected.  What thou are within, that outside thee thou shalt enjoy:  no machinery can rescue thee from the law of thy being.

10.  Be always vigilant against the human proneness to persecute or ignore the reality even while thou art worshipping it's semblance or token.  Not human wickedness but human fallibility is the opportunity of Evil. 

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Swedish Democrats win 5.7 %

I will say congratulations to the Swedish Democracts for their winning 5.7 % of the vote in the National Election on Sunday and thus winning 20 seats of 349 in the Swedish Parliament.  This is quite an accomplishment for a political party that has been so demonized that even to mention their name in public is taboo and usually one receives an instinct responce of the word, racist.  Swedes are so afraid to admit support of this party for good cause.  One would be completely locked out of the work market and it would be career suicide to even mention your support of them in the workplace.  One might also have to bear the burden of angry words and possibly even violence directed at them because so effective has been the brainwashing for the social control of Swedish citizens.  I see nothing dangerous about this party and have the firm belief that in a democracy all have the right to be heard.  Only in a Totalitarian State are citizens denied the freedom of speech and expression and punished for their beliefs and fear used as a social control.

The Prime Minister of Sweden before the election came out in public saying that if this party won over 5 % which allows them seats in Parliament the whole economy would collapse and the government would be forced to shut down. The Swedish Banking Industry said that the swedish crown would be weakened. Oh, Chicken Little, the sky must be falling.  It didn't work for Chicken Little so why did the Prime Minister and the Banksters think that this not so well thought out political strategy would work for him.

Well, let me tell you that Jimmie Åkesson and his Swedish Democrats must be some pretty powerful politicians with super human powers if the Prime Minister believes that 20 people can totally destroy and take over a government.  Or perhaps is he afraid that they will have access to inside information that will expose all the lies and corruption of the two major parties which now have control of the Parliament?  Perhaps the Swedish Democrats will be a vehicle for the Swedish Citizens to see how easily they have been deceived into believing that this government has been working for them as they began to dismantle the social system and sell off free services to be privatized so that a rich few can prosper while the majority suffer.  Good bye Socialism, welcome Plutocracy.

So, Welcome to Parliament Swedish Democrats and remember that a calm demeanor and self confidence will put fear in the hearts of the weak and give support to the hearts of the just.  I wish you all the best.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Slave Wages in Modern Sweden

If you thought that Sweden was a nation of high paid, highly skilled workers, strong Labor Unions, workers rights, and good working conditions, than think again.  Welcome to the New Sweden that is encouraging the immigration of cheap labor from India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, China, and Eastern European countries and at a time when the official unemployment figure is around 9 %, but in reality is probably more like 35 to 40 %.  People attending school or who are on practicums are considered employed.  Also refuges, those on sick and disability pensions,  and those on social welfare are not included in the tally and they number in the millions.

There was a news story yesterday about a conflict between Kristainstad Township and a Farm that has Ukrainian farm workers that are earning 12 swedish crowns per hour when they were promised 500 to 750 euro as a monthly salary.  Last time I checked a swedish crown was worth around seven per one U.S. dollar and 9.23 swedish crowns to one Euro.

Turns out the Township has an agreement with the Swedish Immigration Department that has an agreement with a company called Anrol AB.  This is a corporate farm that projects six million kg of vegetable sales in 2010 and ships out three full trailer trucks per day to several European Lands.  This company has a collective agreement with a Union, but turns out that they have contracted workers through another company that doesn't have a collective agreement with Anrol, AB.  Here we go again.  Swedish Companies by passing around  Swedish Law and doing it by playing the shell game.  We are not responsible, the other company is.  This is the same stragery used with the Chinese Berry Pickers if you had read the August blog entry that I wrote about their predictament.  Can you see a clear pattern emerging?  I could say, Shame on you, but know that this would fall upon deaf and non-caring ears. It would have the same effect as asking a group of hungry foxes to stay away from the chicken coop.

This is a growing trend in Sweden today.  A few weeks ago it was revealed that there were building workers working for 16 swedish crowns per hour.  When the companies are caught red handed breaking Swedish Law, the government's position is usually that they should know better, or the law as written is weak, or there's nothing we can do.  The party line is we need skilled workers from outside Sweden's borders, but I think that perhaps the unofficial party line is, let's break the unions and lower labor costs.  Same thing began in the good old U.S. of A in the eighties.  Heads were hidden in the sand as illegal Mexican workers flooded over the border supplying cheap labor and thus helping to lower wages and weaken the Labor Unions.

It is sad to see a nation that once stood as a model to the world imploding from within due to the selfishness and greed of a few of wealth and political influence.  It is going the way that has lead to the collapse of all that was good in my own homeland and our national communities around the world.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Elizabeth Marklund of Piteå, Sweden - Serving the Good

This is a tribute to the efforts of an LPN nurse in Piteå, Sweden by the name of Elizabeth Marklund who has been fighting for a humane health care for patients with Dementia and other citizens with severe illness in her home town.  Here is another example of a person of compassion to take it upon herself to approach her profession in a proper manner and do what is best for her patients rather than go along with the politicians and self serving bureaucracts looking to their own comfort rather than the comfort of the people that they have failed to serve. 

For Elizabeth, I will pay her a tribute by giving her the title of a Server of the Good and wishing her all my best in all her future endeavors.  Our world needs more people like her.  She started her efforts in November of 2009 with an official letter of complaint to Socialstyrelsen, the government agency in charge of seeing to patients rights to good health and care in Sweden. It's clear that they didn't do their job if after almost a year nothing has changed.  Sweden has a funny system.  The State oversees and regulates the State.  Good system for the Politicians and Bureaucrats indeed.  Also, it's strange how those are lower levels in the organization are the one's blowing the whistle on corruption and unethical labor practices.  One rarely  hears of an RN or Doctor speaking up although it has been done here on rare occasions. Perhaps they have more to loose or are more disconnected from the patients.  Besides staff are required to sign in their contracts that they will remain silent about patients and workplace conditions and this is often used as a tool to control and threaten personal with breach of contract if they dare to speak up.  Also they are required to take all complaints directly to their boss and often the bosses never take any action.  Sounds more like the maffia than a healthcare agency.

She bought to the citizens attention the plight of eight Dementia patients in a facility in Piteå, Sweden who had one LPN to care for them per shift and no one over night.  They were locked and alarmed in over night.  Often the morning nurse would come in to find patients on the floor in the corridor lying in their own piss and shit.  These conditions were evident even though Swedish law states that overnight there should always be one RN on duty along with the LPN's and that patients cannot be locked in agains't their will.  So much for the law in the New Sweden that is more like the wild west than a progressive and civilized land.  It appears that criminality rules in the healthcare system while morality or ethics have taken a back seat.

When inspectors from the watchdog agency come to visit they have cake and coffee with the highest boss of the facility and never see or talk to staff or personal.  Elizabeth also stated that 30 million crowns was given to Piteå for healthcare and schools while at the same time the township had a profit of 24 million crowns. You make your own assumptions as to how tax money is being handled.

When the Social Democrat Politician in Piteå by the name of Peter Roslund was questioned on why the law was being broken, his answer was that we have limited resources and "that's not good". 

There was also a Debate Show on TV in which Elizabeth was present also with a Socialstyrelsen representation, Mr. Peter Roslund, and the Health Minister of Sweden who I affectionally refer to as little Maria Larson.  You see she was an LPN herself along with being a junior high teacher for a short while.  I suppose this makes her highly quilified to be a Health Minister.

Of course little Maria knew nothing about this.  Surprised, are you?  The others were serving excuses and party line statements without any substance or reality.

Elizabeth's statement directed at all these prominent officials was, "What do we do with our tax money?  We pay for egoism and greed and our leaders take more and more for themselves".  Good for you Elizabeth.  You hit the head on the nail.  Another good line of her's during the debate translates into, "We need Robin Hoods in our Society to steal back the money that the Politicians have stolen away from us".

I hope that many come to honor and support Elizabeth and join her in her efforts of seving the good in whatever form that takes within their own communities.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Gregg Hall - A Man Who Serves The Good



Here is a man in Florida who has been giving daily reports about the Gulf Oil Spill. Gregg Hall is a man who I consider to be a Server of the Good. I wish him the best of luck. Our world needs more like him.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

We are the Ones We've Been Waiting For from the Hopi Elders



by Hopi Elders


You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…


Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?

Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the one wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

--Hopi Elders' Prophecy, June 8, 2000

Political Corruption - Swedish Style



It's soon election time in Sweden so both major parties are doing their best to discredit each other.  An article came out in the Friday edition of the Metro Newspaper alleging that a number of Politicians of several political parties are hiding their court judgements of being found guilty for drunk driving, robbery along with armed robbery, murder, and rape from other party members as well as voters.  This is on the Township, County, and Parliament levels.  The prosecuted wrong doers believe that hiding their past criminal records will increase their chances of keeping their jobs and being re-elected.  They also believe that any revealing of this to the public will lower trust in them and their parties.  The lower level politicians believe that they can fly under the radar of the press since the media is concentrating their investigative efforts on frying the big fish at the Parliament and Minister level.

Saturday there was another article about a Township Level Politician who has worked in high positions in more than one city in his County.  He was convicted for murder of his girlfriend in 1985 and has managed to hide this from his employers until recently.  He doesn't think it's important that the public know and what he did in his past doesn't really matter today.  After all, people do change and one must move on with their life.  Shall we believe him and forgive and forget?

In November, 2006 an Environmental Party member was convicted of armed robbery with a knife in the Stockholm Underground.  In October, 2009 a Church Politician  (Christain Democractic Party) was convicted for rape of his own Grandchild.  Here are some good Christian and family values.  After Metro informed his party he got the boot.  In November, 2009 a Folk Party Township politician was convicted and fined for buying sex in a group sex activity with several prominent citizens in his own home.  He lost his job also.  Another Christian Democrat from the southern region of Skåne was tried and convicted for robbery in the 1990's.  The Police Chief for the whole of Sweden has been tried and convicted for organizing and running group sex activities with young teenager prostitutes for Politicians, Business Men, and other prominent citizens.  When he was arrested he was in his car on his way to meet with a young girl to give her a job interview and was carrying sex toys and B & D equipment in his car.  It was reported he liked his sex rough and liked to beat the girls also.  Perhaps he missed the part of his Police training in which he was taught to "Serve and Protect".

During the trial the names of others involved was withheld from the public record.  I suppose this was to protect the guilty and prevent further scandals.  After seeing this news, I remember commenting to my wife that I bet that there were other Ministers and Parliament Members as well as highly placed Civil Servants involved, thus the cover up.  Is it a coincidence that shortly after the Labor Minister for Sweden resigned his position after allegations of buying sex?  Perhaps if the Top Police Chief and his highly placed political associates were not so distracted by sex with teenage girls, the heavy consumption of alcohol, robbery, and rape than there would most likely not be such dramatic increases in crime in Modern Day Sweden.  Are these men who reportably misuse their positions of power to commit criminal acts themselves going to support tougher laws and tougher penalties for criminal acts?  I would think not.  Has Leadership and Honesty gone the way of the dinosaur?

Those of you in other Lands.  Does my narration on corruption and misuse of power sound a bit close to home?  Sometimes living in Sweden feels a lot like back home for me when I am following the Local and Nation News Reports.  This growing corruption in what I call, self-servers is certainly worldwide and leading to a lessening of all that is good in our Lands.

It is not my intention to throw stones in a glass house by some of my entries depicting life in Modern Day Sweden, but to perhaps do some window washing so that those viewing from both near and far will be better able to see more clearly where they reside.  Sometimes an honest view outward can lead to a more honest viewing inside one's own borders.  The distractions, dis-information, mis-information, myths, lies, and deceptions are so many.  Sometimes by learning to look beyond these shortcomings and hold on tight to the thin yet strong thread of honesty, one is able to help hold together that which is still good in our humanities, communities,  and in our world.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Gabriellas song



Here is a beautiful song sung by a Swedish Woman with a beautiful Soul.  This is some of the best that Sweden has to offer our world.

Lyrics in English:

It is now that my life is mine 
I’ve got this short time on earth 
And my longing has brought me here 
All I lacked and all I gained 

And yet it’s the way that I chose 
My trust was far beyond words 
That has shown me a little bit 
Of the heaven I’ve never found 

I want to feel I’m alive 
All my living days 
I will live as I desire 
I want to feel I’m alive 
Knowing I was good enough 

I have never lost who I was 
I have only left it sleeping 
Maybe I never had a choice 
Just the will to stay alive 

All I want is to be happy 
Being who I am 
To be strong and to be free 
To see day arise from night 

I am here and my life is only mine 
And the heaven I thought was there 
I’ll discover it there somewhere 
I want to feel that I’ve lived my life! 



Thursday, September 2, 2010

Sweden- Land of Robin Hood Reversed.

Sweden at least in my view has been moving from a Socialist State to a Plutocracy.  A government that caters to Bankers and Financiers, Corporations, Pharmas and those who have more.  Labor Unions are weaker as are Labor Rights.  Social benefits are disappearing at an alarming rate.

The current reigning government has had a policy of putting more in the pockets of the rich.  Social Insurance is being cut as many really sick people are being forced back into the workplaces to work up to 50 %.  I have known of more than one with cancer or severe heart disease who has been forced back to work.  One has been hearing about cheaters and parasites destroying the social system while at the same time Politicians and State owned company CEO's are getting huge wages and retirement packages and openly caught for corruption with little more than a responce from Ministers saying that they should know better.

If one is unemployed and on minimum unemployment, then he will get 320 swedish crowns per day, but the Education or Job Coaching Companies that are growing like cancerous tumors get 300 crowns per day and may see the person once a month.  If one is long term unemployed than Townships, Non-Profits, and even Private Companies get 255 crowns per day to help what the government over and over in the media calls,
parasites to have a pratice place and we get the honor of working for our minumum benefit along with the right to pay for our own tranportation, extra lunch food, and work clothes.  A good deal for private businesses to get the State to supply them with free labor.  I wonder who thought up this idea.  Must have been a Plutocrat for sure.  This system will only increase unemployment and benefit flim flam coaching companies since there is no formal coaching education and most of the coaches are long term unemployed themselves who were given jobs to keep up appearances and fill the needed seats for all that funny money coming down the hypocracy pipeline.  If you owned a company would you hire any new personal given the option of free labor plus you can put 255 sek a day into your pocket?  Even Robin Hood if he reversed his principles would not have been as successful.

Property taxes were changed so that those who own  estates of several million pay the same as  retired folks in little houses in the forest.  Pensioners and those who collect unemployment benefits are at the hightest tax rate and pay more in percent than those with high incomes and every time there has been a tax cut for the working, the unemployed and pensioners got a tax increase.  Here is a good example of Robin Hood stealing from the poor to give hand outs to the rich.

There was also a tax rebate act passed to allow the owners of homes and condos to do repairs and get a big tax refund and besides this, to qualify, one must have a high income in the first place.   There is also a new tax deduction for those who hire a Nanny and House Keepers.  Another tax to give to the wealthier in the society paid for by cuts in the Social Insurance, Postal Service, Medical Care, Police, and pretty much all the government agencies and bureaus intended to serve the citizens.  I suppose this was a good move by the Politicians to help cut down on political scandels since several Ministers and high placed Politicians have been caught red handed paying their help under the table.  It seems to be enough to say I have learned from this experience to get off the hook.

I saw an investigative report on TV about the poor women that are forced to leave their homes and children in Latvia to work as Cleaners for the wealthy class in Stockholm.  It was failed to mention that the Swedish Banks were the leaders in bankrupting this nation by exporting their easy credit loaning practices to this Land, thus helping people to build up a debt that they would never be able to repay.  Also, I noticed that their children had modern cell phones, computers, and nice clothing and one's parents had a new roof on their home.  A Psychologist from Latvia said that these children were in danger of becoming drug and alcohol abusers and developing servere emotional problems.  Looks like the Swedes managed to export the same environmental facters since these problems are in epidemic proportions here in Sweden as in the rest of the western societies.

So in conclusion I will give two links to support my opinions:

Socialism

Plutocracy