Growing the soul means maturing what one emphasizes in relationship

Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D., Aug 08, 2024

I have been hearing a lot lately about finding a “high value” partner, someone that can support you comfortably in all the worldly ways and “love you forever” in all the emotional and romantic ways.

This strikes me as not only selfish and short-sighted but spiritually primitive. Yes, we are taught, even today, seventy-odd years past the 1950’s, to search for a “forever person” who will sweep us off our feet and offer heaven in a bottle… or, at least, a nice suburban enclave with nice schools. We give lip-service to those intangible qualities that make up what we know to be a morally, ethically, and spiritually “good” person.

I sometimes wonder if we were offered a choice between a rich, handsome lout/ entitled princess and a grounded, creative, funny, dependable, and caring workaday Joe or Joline, how many of us would opt for the former. What we say we want, and what we go for are often at odds, because the allure of material security and success frequently hold sway over spiritual integrity and adventure.

Does this betray your level of spiritual maturity? Ummm. Yes. But that is why I am writing this article. It is a kind of spiritual education on spiritual relationship, based on the discussion I offered in a previous article on the ascension from “having” to “doing” to “becoming” to “being,” In this article I specifically apply that discussion of spiritual development toward romantic relationships.

If you have not read this previous article on the spirituality of having, doing, becoming, and being, here is the link. In the meantime, read on…

The high value mate (to “have”)

The lowest level of spirituality involves “getting” or “bagging” a partner high in evolutionary “mate value” to match or exceed your own. This is called “marrying up” or “pairing upward” in the dating marketplace. But marrying up based on what?: On physical attractiveness, financial income and security, social reputation, professional advancement, country club candidacy, and so-forth. Is it understandable to think that “I want to aim for the highest station in worldly life”? Yes. Is it spiritual? No. To aim for the “having” is to dispose of (or neglect) the doing, becoming, and being. It is superficial, contractual, and hollow but it promises all the thrills the physical world can offer. It promises comfortable survival, but not deep thriving, and it comes with its own hazards:

Men and women have different bases of “mate-value” depending upon the sex, and this valuing is far from soulful.

The men who have high mate value are the ones with high status, guys who are intelligent, ambitious, with good incomes. These kind of men, even when they’re older can be very attractive to a lot of women.

For women the biggest thing contributing to our mate value is physical attractiveness. Yes, lots of other things count big time, like intelligence, great personality and all the rest, but these things are mainly attractive for specific men. In terms of general attractiveness it’s the physical stuff that’s important for women’s mate value.

Nor are these worldly aspirations any guarantee of honorable, loving treatment.

The thing is, a guy who’s good looking, wealthy, etc.; he’ll have lots of options but it doesn’t mean he’ll make those options happy. Having high mate value is not the same as having high value as a partner, paradoxically.

If a guy has high mate value he might not appreciate you and treat you the way you want – and there is actually research evidence showing that guys who are good looking basically aren’t so nice, and the same goes for wealthy men. They don’t have to try that hard.

Oops, turns out you might not want to invest in this short-term venture where you might be disposed of as soon as your “market value” diminishes. Let’s try the next level.

The high quality mate (“to do”)

“High quality” mating, involves finding someone with a proven track record and skills that will allow them to be a reliable partner in child-rearing, providing, sharing chores, going on adventures, and generally co-creating or making a life together. Here one emphasizes steadfastness, willingness to work, communication, protection, contribution, loyalty, affection, and so forth. High quality mates depend more upon what they can do and share than what they have. In this sense, “high quality” connotes a certain equality and mutual input, a kind of dance, where both people may have different roles, but the respect they accord each others’ contributions is strong and laced with appreciation.

I talk about this kind of relationship when I discuss, the “Social Man” in my book, The Spiritually Confident Man: Pioneering a New Frontier of Co-Creative Masculinity. Here you have the modern version of equality between the sexes in which something else presides than “what you can get me”. The new indicator of a successful relationship is: “What can we do together in a fulfilling way?” This is, by all means, more developed than simply using one another to get up in the world. However, this “high quality” framework still lacks concern for the independent spiritual and emotional growth of one’s romantic partner. There is still a somewhat contractual (versus unconditional) understanding of committed relationship.

Something important is missing— deeper advocacy for and from your partner. Let’s try the next level…

The high virtue mate (“to become”)

A virtue is a “moral, social, or intellectual” “trait of excellence”. In relationships these virtues might be evidenced by interpersonal generosity, courage, joy, mercy, dignity, tenacity, selflessness, honesty, justice, and discernment. In a high virtue relationship, you don’t just “go along to get along” or “get while the getting is good” but you have a moral tensile strength to stand up for yourself and your partner in the face of adversity, and you have the truthfulness about yourself and your relationship to express humility and open yourself to growth.

In practical terms, one is willing to listen in high virtue relationships to the wisdom of one’s higher self as well as that of the other person. Partners are not only willing but eager to learn more deeply about each other. “Wanting and working for the best in the other from the best in yourself” becomes an operational motto and commitment on the part of persons in relationship. Increasingly one is being loosed from the strictures of self-satisfaction and involvement toward finding great self-fulfillment in service with others. One delights in growth, spiritual and otherwise, and can admire and appreciate sacrifice. One learns to “pay forward” sacrifices others have made for one’s own growth and advancement.

This high virtue relationship lends itself well to a “virtuous circle” in society and community in which the success and benefit of one adds to the success and benefit of others. It is far more substantive, and broad and deep in its reach and implications. Virtue supports and serves as the foundation of moral, mental, emotional, and social health.

This sounds amazing, but let’s “level up” one more…

The high spirit mate (“to be”)

Finally we arrive at the “high spirit” mate. What is there left to have, do, or become? Not much. The previous developmental embodiments of relationship have largely taken care of the having, doing, and becoming. What, then, does it mean to “be” in relationship? How is this an advancement?

As one sheers away all the attributes of relationship and selfhood, as one ascends through having, doing, and becoming, a precious human/spiritual gem is uncovered, that of what I call “divine genius” in my book, The Spiritually Confident Man. Divine genius is that nowhere-else-in-the-universe special gift that you and you alone have to offer this existence. You have been honed and “sanded” through all the having, doing, and becoming. Many of the conceits and insecurities have fallen away. Your mortality and vulnerability are at their utmost, allowing you to be creatively, lovingly, and urgently offering your “core” and deeply drinking in the core of your partner.

Gone are the conceits. Insecurities may still linger, but they do not exercise a censorious power. There is a certain boldness that comes from knowing you can leave everything on the table, so that you can “see what happens” if you fully open and devote yourself in trust of the spirit. This is the time of active faith within you and between you and a romantic partner. It is a time of integration more than a time of transcendence. Instead of simply leaving sex behind, for instance, you may delve into spiritual sex (tantric, etc.). Instead of “walking off into the sunset”, you probe toward the stars.

You have nothing to lose, and everything to freely receive. Grace abounds. You have lived a good life, and now it is time to offer that life on the altar of divine guidance in which the subtlest and deepest intuitions direct you beyond preference, beyond duty, beyond even simple learning, to a certain denouement, an unleashing, an “untying” of all life knots, and a complete freeing of the spiritual self (from one’s ego) into the freed spiritual self of your romantic partner…

The true spiritual union of freed selves choosing each other.

All blessings,

Zeus

(by Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D. and Regina Meredith, September 2021)

NOTE: This if for education and information purposes ONLY.  It is NOT medical advice.  It should not replace consultation with qualified medical or health professionals.   

Introduction:

First, Covid-19 and the SARS-CoV-2 virus (and its mutations) are now endemic.  That means they are not going away, and that they will be part of our circulating viruses from now on. There will be no herd immunity.  Even conventional experts admit this.  Given this and despite all the fear surrounding Covid-19, this endemic development CAN be a good thing (less deadly, less problematic), IF we prepare for it.  This document is a primer for people to help prevent and treat Covid-19 as well as deal with the aftereffects, including the many variants or mutations that have arisen and are bound to arise in the future. 

Second, it is most important, is to see Covid-19 as a spiritual opportunity and an opening to greater confidence and awareness around our health.  A sense of responsiveness, exploration, opening, and curiosity, and a no-BS engagement of effective practices and therapies should take the place of fear and anxiety.  You CAN have a conversation with this virus, and, if all goes well, reach equilibrium with it over the span of three to four weeks with some possible lingering effects and healing over the next months. Anxiety and fear is the second highest risk factor for Covid, giving you a 28% chance of a worse outcome.  It cannot be stated how much staying calm, thoughtful, and open can help. 

Third, there are three phases to Covid-19 that roughly follow three weeks from initial infection.  The first week is the viral phase, uncomfortable for sure and, for some, critical.  However, the later stages (and later weeks) also have to be carefully respected and attended.  Week two, is the inflammation phase (called a cytokine storm) where the body reacts to the foreign proteins introduced by the virus.  Week three is the clotting phase, as the overreaction by the body, and dysregulation by the viruses cause mini-clots that make it very difficult for the body to get oxygen in some people.  One must aware that this disease runs basically 4 weeks in total before you are out of the woods in terms of an acute phase, and into longer recovery for any lingering effects.  

Fourth, NOTE: “brain fog” is an important issue in Covid-19.  We have had many of our friends with Covid-19 become incoherent and lose their bearings once Covid-19 kicks in and oxygen levels drop. It is essential you set up a few support people (friends or family) to help you when you get Covid-19, not only for simple things like getting around and checking in to your health status, but to help you navigate and make decisions if you get brain fog.  Get their contact information, have a discussion with them, and set up a system of support NOW, before things get critical, just like you would for tornado or fire drills.  Read and rehearse the steps below, and have the proper materials on hand.

5 STEPS TO TAKE: 

#1: FLCCC.net (Front Line Covid Critical Care) is a trustworthy source involving hands-on doctors using science and practical, expert medical knowledge to TREAT and PREVENT Covid-19.  These doctors have studied and treated thousands of people, organized research and developed best practices around Covid-19. 

Here is their webpage on protocols for Covid-19, before, during, and after exposure: https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/

#2: Watch the video of our personal Covid-19 experience (Delta variant). This should help you understand what it is like to have Covid-19 at the mild to moderate level, how to prepare, what to have on hand, and what to look for.

“Delta Variant Blues:  Our Personal Experience with Covid-19”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vKBY-ankhg

#3: *** Everyone should buy and have available two ESSENTIAL tools (Both of these cost only about 12 to 15 dollars each and can be found on Amazon or a local drug store):

• A Pulse Oximeter (small, inexpensive device that can be placed over your finger to measure blood oxygen level and heart rate). 
• A Digital Thermometer to measure temperature.

NOTE: Maintain extra batteries and regularly check your pulse, oxygen level, and temperature with these two tools even if you experience mild symptoms you don’t think are due to Covid-19. This will give you a baseline and a nice understanding of your general health, and could save your life if you develop Covid-19.  After the second week Regina had her oxygen levels dive to 87% and her heart rate skyrocket to nearly 130, producing massive fatigue, disorientation, and brain fog.  By monitoring even modest decreases in oxygen level and modest upticks in heart rate you are more likely to catch the virus early and avoid body and mind “crashes.”  Had we not mistaken our symptoms for allergies, and had we monitored our heart rate and blood oxygen level, we would have more effectively treated our condition and likely not gotten into a more urgent situation. 

Always use these tools IN CONJUNCTION with the essential therapies and supplements and lifestyle protective practices mentioned below.  Do not wait until things get dire.  Sometimes your oxygen can slip without you noticing it, and then “brain fog” will make Covid-19 much harder to navigate.   

#4: Essential therapies and supplements (from local health food store, Amazon, or Vitacost):

These are good basics to have readily accessible, much like a first aid kid.  One of the most important items is ivermectin.  Ivermectin has been shown to have significant beneficial effects in scientific studies and meta-analyses, but it is inexpensive, off-patent, and a competitor to the drug companies.  These companies have purposefully denigrated ivermectin, lied about its very high safety, and reinforced ivermectin supply shortages or prohibitions.  From what we can see, the only reliable way to get the human-prescribed form now (rather than the product for animals), is from India under the name “Stromectol” (though something that calls itself a Canadian Pharmacy).  You’ll get an annoying offer for four free Cialis or Viagra but, and it will take probably 2-4 weeks to arrive, even with free air mail and/or express mail. Order early, before Covid emergencies arise. 

If you get in trouble right away, see if you can to Dr. Aranda in the Los Angeles or others on the FLCCC.net site at https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/how-to-get-ivermectin/ for phone prescription.

1) If you contract Covid-19, FLCC recommends ivermectin at approximately 24 mg (0.4 mg/kg) a day for first five days and then weekly.  Consult FLCCC.net protocol URL link above for prevention, and post-Covid exposure dosages. It is best to take Ivermectin with a fatty meal with at least 30 g of fat. (I find vegan yogurt works well).  Contact a local holistic or integrative doctor to see if you can to get a prescription for ivermectin. (Consult your local health food store to find doctors willing to prescribe ivermectin.)  Registering with GoodRX and downloading the app to a smart phone can lower drug costs significantly with or without insurance. 

2) Fluvoxamine was also helpful for Regina if you have itching or neuralgia.  This is also prescription only.

3) Basic supplement kit (dosages vary depending upon symptoms)

• Organic food source daily multivitamin (1 pill)
• Zinc (50 mg)
• Vitamin D3 (3,000 – 5,000 IU)
• Niacinamide (intermediate form of Vitamin B3) (500 – 1,000 mg)
• Vitamin C (500 – 3,000 mg/day)
• Melatonin (6 – 12 mg before bed)
• Quercetin (250 – 800 mg)
• Magnesium (400 – 1,000 mg)
• Selenium (200 mcg)
• Omega-3 Fatty Acids (Vegan or Fish Oil) (1,500 mg)
• Probiotics (1 pill day formula)
• NAC (N-Acetyl-Cysteine) (1,000 mg)
• Aspirin (325 mg)
• From Patch20.com: Alpha Omega Ultimate Patch (Turmeric (500 mg), Vitamin D3 (5,000 IU), CBD (50 mg), and Omega 3/Krill Oil (1500 mg) as well as Ultimate Pain Relief Patch (with cobrotoxin) for anti-achiness, inflammation, and lingering effects (Cobra Venom (50 mcg), CBD (100 mg), Turmeric (500 mg). 

Additional aids:

• Resveratrol (75 mg)
• Lumbrokinase (fibrolytic- breaks up clotting) (from Dr. Best or Boluoke) (40 mg)
• Muscadine grape extract pills (500 mg), green tea extract (to cut down on viral replication)

Later– (2nd and 3rd weeks and on)

• IMPORTANT: If oxygen drops to 92 or 93 on the pulse oximeter, make yourself straightaway to a hyperbaric oxygen chamber (Regina did it four days in a row) or find some alternative way to get oxygen immediately into your system. You will not be infectious after 10 days or so, but the secondary effects hit in ways that can be sudden and unpredictable.
• Homeopathics seem to work for some (2x pelllets/day silicea, thuja occidentalis, allium cepa, arnica montana, causticum, 1x pellet Hyland’s seasonal allergy relief) to prevent allergic flare-ups that can attend the second inflammatory wave during the second and third weeks.
• Ultimate Pain Relief: Continue on cobra venom (see above) if still experiencing achiness.
• Continue with ivermectin and fluvoxamine if necessary. 
• Make sure you have help in this stage, because you will be past infection, but may not be mentally that awake and aware (“brain fog”).  
• Gargle and nasal spray with 1% diluted povidone-iodine solution.  

#5: Lifestyle protection against disease and enhancement of health

• EAT WELL!  It will be helpful to eliminate processed sugars and dairy during Covid exposure and recovery. Eating whole, chemical-free, non-processed foods is good health practice generally.
• Don’t overeat. Too much food stresses the immune system. Intermittent fasting helps.
• Moderately exercise outdoors.
• Get a LOT of sleep and rest (get off the go-go-go train)
• Hydrate (drink water throughout the day)
• Engage in mindfulness/meditation/intentional de-stressing
• Nasal breathing every day for nitric oxide boost, refresh nerves (6-7-8 method: breathe long in through the nose 6 seconds, hold the breath 7 seconds, out through mouth 8 seconds—Do at least 4 times).
• Gargle and nasal spray with diluted (1%) povidone-iodine to kill Covid-19 virus which tends to attach in the throat and the nasal passages.
• Eat plenty of dark chocolate and drink green tea!  Both help reduce viral replication.

For a comprehensive review of the research on environmental conditions, lifestyle, therapies, and supplements that can help you beat Covid-19, watch:

“FINALLY! Covid-19: A Comprehensive Practical Integrative Approach”

We can see that the ability to physically manifest (cardio-vascular capacity, strength, and flexibility, etc.) is limited by the body’s fitness. You can increase physical fitness and capability by wise training up to the reasonable limits of physics and the maximum load of your muscles and bones at their strongest. This training is done in a gradual fashion that stretches temporary limitations while laying a good foundation for growth. Wise training does not overstretch limits (ending in injury like a blown knee), but neither does it rest in comfort (where fitness flatlines or declines). Wise training is about OPTIMAL challenge, and, I would say, optimal enjoyment of the process and conscious learning about healthy expansion and growth of the body’s capabilities.

Mental and emotional training follow similar principles, but the medium has changed, as well as the “instruments” of growth. Now you express movement and growth not through the body but through the brain and glands, as well as the “heart” of feeling itself. We are now getting less concrete, but nonetheless we have very real goals and standards that apply. Am I calmer and less anxious? Am I sharper intellectually and more critically aware of the world around me?

The measurements for mental and emotional training tend to feel less concrete and more subjective, but there are still ways to gauge growth, fitness, and health. Here to, there are structural limits to how far we can go. Push your emotions too much (especially in the absence of sleep and other physical requirements for health), and you can “blow” an emotional fuse (i.e. “blow your top”). Push your thinking too intensely for too long and your can “blow” your mind, ending in a kind of neurotic mentalism in which everything is so critical that you end up with a tangled mess of debilitating concerns. If you don’t exercise your emotions and mind enough, you will lack depth and substance of feeling (making for very boring romance as well as life) or become a lazy thinker, vulnerable to the basic cliches and propagandas of the times.

Enter spiritual fitness. Here we take a great leap, because spiritual fitness can enlarge our capacities, our “nth” limits in the physical, emotional, and mental realms, but it can also enlarge itself through our choices, openness, and commitment. The ability to manifest spiritually is limited only by the “soul” (what hermetics call the “higher mind”), which is to say our whole infinite being itself. There are no patent “real” limits to this soul growth, stretching, and strengthening imposed by the brain, emotions, and body. In fact, the spirit can open the heart, head, and body to a higher frequency, energy, and movement.

So if we are interested in delimiting all phases of human existence, including society itself and those aspects that go beyond the individual (because spirit is also connective as well as expansionary), then we must pay attention to spiritual fitness and observe and experiment with how it operates. We must ask for wisdom and a certain “grace” (energy and intelligence from the larger) that does beyond our limited purview of experience, prejudice, and assumption. A simple form of this can be found in the wonder of Nature, and all the learning that can come just by stepping outside your door and into the master creator, fashioner, and connector that is Mother Earth. Just noticing the architecture of a rose and letting that sink into the being can be like taking a drink out of a pure mountain stream– imbuing beyond words, and in many way beyond WORLDS!

The gifts of spirit, though, still require an appreciative, loving, and respectful heart. To be given something from the spirit is not to have worldly desire fulfilled (desire for a car, a sexy body, or even a soulmate), but to have desire itself transformed, to be drawn outward and onward, and to be giddy (if a little nervous) at the prospect of unexpected knowledge and surprising transformation. Spiritual fitness involves the simple but difficult requirement of being open to something beyond ourselves, and inviting it into our being’s home to stay. You see this in whistleblowers and activists of conscience who were called to address suffering in the world, or who went from timidity to courage in challenging some injustice, or who simply have a change of heart and forgive someone who did them wrong.

You see this spiritual fitness in artists, who open themselves to inspiration and devote themselves to a new story, painting, dance, or song. It is high time we arrange our individual and social priorities toward spiritual fitness. In doing so, we shall open up all the other dimensions of our beings and potentiality and bring forward and untold renaissance and wealth for generations.

Vaccinations are NOT a cure-all, nor are they the Devil. Vaccines, like targeted medicines, DONE PROPERLY can be a part of immune therapy, but they have actual risks and dangers, just like medicines do. Proper use is in NOT taking unnecessary medicines or vaccines, and not ignoring their possible benefits.

Example, most people do not not and did not need Oxycotin or other opiates for pain relief. They were overprescribed because of greed and the cash cow these created for doctors and drug companies, and the Sackler family who made billions off the sale of opiates. Massive numbers of people got addicted. It is now estimated that over 500,000 people in the U.S. alone have DIED from this addictive drug overuse/misuse, close to the SAME NUMBER AS ALL DEATHS attributed to Covid-19.

Vaccines are no exception to this rule of “necessary use.” They should only be utilized as Pfizer originally warned as EMERGENCY USE for elderly and infirm (older populations with underlying conditions) and NOT for people with allergies to its ingredients or kids and youth (especially those under 16).

Vaccines are not a cure-all, as they are being sold right now. Here, in a true story is how ridiculous this current faulty logic is. I had a former roommate in Syracuse, NY who tried cocaine, and had so much excess energy that he CLEANED OUR WHOLE HOUSE (and he did it really well and he was NOT a neat-freak).

That was a significant benefit, and I am sure it could be repeated in clinical scientific trials, in which people would be more likely to clean their houses and report more “energy” if they took cocaine. But clearly this is NOT a reason to distribute cocaine to everyone, including kids.

Yet this is how vaccines are sold. News reports are only looking at the IMMEDIATE benefits and apparent absence of imminent short-term danger (i.e. moderate effects of vaccine shots: pain, swelling, short-term sickness). Scientifically studies about the medium to long-term bad effects of vaccines are being IGNORED. REAL DANGERS AND LIABILITIES can and do come with vaccines, especially with repeated use.

Just as long-term use of cocaine can lead to addiction, so can repeated overuse of vaccines not only lead to diminishment of our innate immune response but ALSO other nasty side effects like “viral escape” which actually increases the rate of viral mutation and deadliness (which has already been shown to be the case with overuse of antibiotics).

And just because you have gotten over a temporary reaction to a vaccine shot, doesn’t mean you are by any means “out of the woods.” We already have scientific peer-reviewed studies, which have shown that increased, repeated flu vaccines DIMINISH kid’s immune efficacy and response to any new flu in any new flu season (Marshfield Clinic study– https://www.statnews.com/2015/11/11/flu-shots-reduce-effectiveness/).
We have further peer-reviewed mainstream research that such repeated vaccination in the elderly actually INCREASED SIGNIFICANTLY THEIR OVERALL DEATH from the flu over time:

“Influenza vaccination in the United States has long been recommended for all persons 65 years or older. Vaccination coverage for this age group increased from between 15% and 20% before 1980 to 65% in 2001. However, 3-year moving averages of unadjusted excess… mortality rates among people 65 years or older… rose substantially during this period. This was surprising because influenza vaccination is thought to be highly effective at reducing influenza-related mortality.” (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/486407)

In both cases there may have been a short-term gain in dealing with this or that IMMEDIATE virus (and even this is not guaranteed with nasal flu vaccines having as low as 0% effectiveness), but medium- to long-term scientific DAMAGE to the health of the immune system. A RESPONSIBLE “best practices” approach is to find the OPTIMAL RELATIONSHIP between vaccine use and overall long-term health, in which immediate benefits and dangers are sanely and soundly balanced with medium- to long-term effects.

Disclosure: I am a “middle vaxxer”. I don’t fall into anti- or pro- camps. I am trying to advocate a sane and balanced approach to disease and health management and development. My basic rule is: Don’t take unnecessary drugs or vaccines, and use science and research (especially into nutrition) to naturally equip your body to develop its own health and immune fitness.

Citizen Zeus SPECIAL INVESTIGATION—An Investigative Series on the Nature, Origins, and Effective Address of Covid-19

I have recently done a series of full-length, fully referenced videos on the Covid-19 phenomena as to what it is (emerging knowledge), how we might best understand this revealing disease in a broader context,  and what we might be able to do about it in terms of personal and collective health.  You can access those videos from my Citizen Zeus YouTube channel (and while there, please subscribe, and donate if you want to sponsor the research!): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzU3uxw47VmbMWZFIzcst_Q .

The purpose of this short essay is to summarize what I have found as to the most compelling and contradictory questions surrounding this Covid-19 enigma that has created a whole array of confused responses. 

The first thing to note is that there is compelling scientific support and circumstantial evidence (or a damning string of highly unlikely coincidences) that SARS-COV-2 (the Covid-19 virus) is, 1) at least partly a product of genetic experimentation, and 2) a product of accidental release from a lab, specifically the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). 

The tale as to how SARS-COV-2 (likely) got produced at WIV and got out appears to be more a matter of scientific ambition, race for prestige, carelessness, egomania and international scientific celebrity, lust for potential profit and patents, and lack of regard for danger and consequence. I could not find evidence of more nefarious motives like bioweaponry, international intrigue, or economic sabotage.  (You can see my take on the origins of SARS-COV-2 in my YouTube video, “Hybridizing Harm” (https://youtu.be/HTDO7Pg5Xs4) . 

The second thing of note is how the virus itself as a kind of Frankenstein creation, seems to stitch together a whole chain of capacities that allow it to 1) TRANSMIT easily through the air, 2) ATTACH to human ACE2 receptors, allowing it to camouflage itself and piggyback on human cells, 3) CLEAVE through cell walls and ENTER human cells using the human cells’ own cleaving mechanisms (furins),  and 4) PROLIFERATE by being able to access other cells, once the virus replicates itself within a cell. 

SARS-COV-2 appears to be a construction designed to take the most virulent parts of various microbes into a kind of Franken-virus.  Its SARS component allows for respiratory virulence.  It’s protein spike that allows it to evade immune detection, attach, and enter human cells seems to mimic many of the actions of an HIV virus, and indeed some protein sequences are shared with HIV, leading many to alarmism and speculation that this was all a planned pandemic.  I don’t believe that Covid-19 is planned, but I am also not naïve as to how ambition can combine with denial of responsibility and an eye for opportunism and profit, when a pandemic is created through accidental release.  It’s called “disaster capitalism,” and fear creates great opportunity for both profit and abuse. 

Our job is to resist the fear, ignorance, and opportunism spawned by unthinking or blind reaction to this virus, and simply study it, bring together information, and develop best practices. 

In general, we can defeat the virus if we interrupt any of the virus’s “steps”.  1) Slowing transmission through selective use of masks, nose breathing, social distancing, etc. 2) Preventing attachment to the ACE2 receptors by potentially using “cholinergic” substances that outcompete the virus (my videos talk about how cannabinoids, nicotine, cytisine, and others MIGHT do this)., 3) taking the virus on directly and preventing the disruption of the immune system (i.e. potentially through the use of Vitamins C and D, among other pathways). 

The central theme in this is that courage, clarity, knowledge, and care for self and others is the way forward.  The central practice MUST be excellent, comprehensive health maintenance and development– committing TO plant-based, whole food diets, exercise, sleep, deep nose breathing, hydration, etc. and committing AWAY FROM electronic pollutions, toxins, junk foods, chronic stress, etc., all of which are discussed in my videos. We know that SARS-COV-2 loves ACE2 receptors, and there is more ACE2 produced in UNHEALTHY people in order to “help” handle injured cells as well as warn of potential invaders. So by eliminating the NEED for ACE2 through good health we largely eliminate our body’s foothold for SARS-COV-2 to attach, break into, and replicate within our cells.

What are the contradictory issues and questions surrounding Covid-19?  How might we take these on in the effort to develop our own fitness and reasonably reduce risks?  Let’s take them on!  (NOTE: NONE OF THIS IS TO BE CONSTRUED A MEDICAL ADVICE.  It is for informational purposes only.  Please do your own research, consult with other qualified people, and make your own decisions over your own health.) 

1. Is Covid-19 a respiratory or a blood/immune disease?  It is both.  It is transmitted through the air, hence respiratory, but it presents itself in highly stressed and inflamed organs (including not only the lungs, but kidneys, heart, liver, and so on).  Its FOUNDATIONAL harm lies in its ability to create a dysfunctional immune response and abnormal clotting, which stops oxygen from being taken up by the body. 
2. Are ventilators helpful in saving people, or do breathing exercises work better? From what I can tell, ventilators have NOT been altogether successful at saving people, because often the problem is NOT with oxygen supply but oxygen uptake as lungs cannot pass oxygen into the blood due to abnormal clotting in its capillaries and inflammation in its tiny air sacs.  Nasal deep breathing, in particular appears to produce nitric oxide which limits inflammation and helps to induce greater oxygen uptake. 
3. Are deaths from Covid-19 being underreported or overreported? Again the answer is both.  Early on, in particular, deaths may have spiked but there was no way to test for Covid-19.  Later, Covid-19 became identified as the trigger for death, even when there were other factors leading to death (“co-morbidity”). 
4. Do vitamin D and C help?  Preliminary observations, epidemiological studies, and initial clinical results appear to suggest that they do.  Vitamin D in particular seems critical to the balancing of an “out-of-whack” immune system thrown into disarray from Covid-19.  In fact the single greatest identified factor for death from Covid-19 is Vitamin D deficiency with some doctors and researchers estimating that HALF of deaths could be eliminated with proper amounts of Vitamin D. High-dose intravenous Vitamin C in China and South Korea has had some beneficial clinical results.  (For extensive discussion: https://youtu.be/v5Yd35jAqk4)
5. How is it that smokers are LESS likely to die from Covid-19?  Strange, huh?  Smokers are not only LESS likely to die from Covid-19, but in some studies, FAR LESS likely.  It appears that it is not smoking itself (which can damage the lungs and add to respiratory distress), but NICOTINE, and nicotine-receptor friendly compounds (like the naturally-derived cytisine and cannabinoids) that 1) outcompete SARS-COV-2 for attachment to certain receptor sites, but that also 2) reduce inflammation, helping the body retreat from destroying itself trying to fight off Covid-19.  (See: https://youtu.be/IDnOYKp0zuM)
6. Will vaccines help or harm when it comes to Covid-19?  I show that peer-reviewed research confirms that with coronavirus vaccines (i.e. Covid-19, flu, etc.), in particular, can INCREASE the chances of future death from disease by creating what is called an “antibody-dependent enhancement” of the disease.  This is not well understood, but one of the culprits appears to be that vaccine companies do not distinguish between an inflammatory, “binding” (damaging, overactive) immune response (like those seen in auto-immune diseases), and an anti-inflammatory “neutralizing” immune response that eliminates the pathogen, without destroying the body in the process.  In this I am a “middle vaxxer”: I am FOR safe immune therapy, and AGAINST profit-driven unsafe vaccines (https://youtu.be/y5e-kvzVL8M)
7. Why isn’t Covid-19 largely affecting kids?  Interesting question.  I suspect it has to do with resiliency and the lack of complicating and inflammatory factors in children, though this is being challenged by a “multi-organ inflammatory syndrome” in a small percentage of children associated with Covid-19.  I go through a review of inflammatory factors and what you might do about them in my video at: https://youtu.be/0izVD-gsMN0)
8. Is Covid-19 even real?  Is it really caused by 5G?  Yes, Covid-19 is real, and it is NOT CAUSED by 5G or other forms of electronic pollution, but it IS made far worse by electronic pollution, which not only proves to be inflammatory, increases oxidative stress, but is associated with Vitamin D deficiency.
9. Are masks effective, or do they make things worse?  In general, masks seem to be helpful in diminishing spread of Covid-19.  At the same time there is abundant evidence that deep breathing and nasal breathing is also critical for oxygenation.  I use masks when in crowded spaces (for now), but I also make sure I get out in the sun, in nature, with deep nasal breathing to maintain and invigorate health. 
10. How long does the Covid-19 virus remain on surfaces?  More recent research suggests that the Covid-19 virus does not last as long on surfaces as previously thought.  Still, best practices seem indicated about washing hands, not touching face (eyes, mouth, nose), being careful with vulnerable populations.
11. Is reinfection possible?  We don’t really know.  Some attributes of this microbe seem to indicate that it may be able to mutate (as many do), but we really can’t be too concerned about this.  By being smart, prudent, and not poisoning our bodies with fear, we will achieve the best outcomes, regardless of re-infection or non-re-infection.
12. Should I stay home until this is over?  No.  Get out, especially in the sun and in nature.  It is not feasible, nor reasonable, to stay home indefinitely.  One can be prudent (i.e. have one person go to the store to get things), and one MUST recognize the health threats to staying at home for an extended period of time (especially staying inside, lowering your Vitamin D).  Nature and social connection are important indicators not just of a good life, but a healthy and long life.   

In the absence of effective champions from “above,”  we as citizens and communities will have to take the lead here from the bottom-up, grassroots level, by supporting our health awareness, our small businesses, and our necessary, collective reinvention of our lives brought on by Covid-19.  But we can do this and come out stronger.  We can use this crisis to bridge divides rather than create them with courage, knowledge, and care, and we can find ourselves in a more real, more possible, more creative, and far healthier place as a result.

All blessings, Citizen Zeus  

Few things are as much storied as American individualism and independence.  If you are to judge U.S. citizens by our advertisements, our defining image is one of walking our way on a tightrope wire  to either riches or ruin. 

If you listen to the hype, you may even begin to believe that the right mix of cruelty, desperation, and ingenuity will solve all of our problems and compel us into the next golden century.  Another financial or technological “innovation” is sure to save the day.  We are crazy, but brilliant, you know.  Watch and learn. 

Oh, we’ll watch and learn, all right.  How might this play out?  We’ll watch and learn about America’s morally bankrupt medical system, our absent social safety net, our generous and special rules for the most corrupt, our nearly complete adulation of money for the sake of money.  “Too big to fail, too big to jail” has become our default operating philosophy, in which Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Finance, in short, “Big Everything” is meant to be bailed out and be served into perpetuity by “the little man.”

The American Dream has morphed into manipulated aspiration, a series of unconscious acts, of consuming to the nth degree, of skirting the rules (or buying them off to become even more ridiculously wealthy), of becoming the next inventor of a multi-million-dollar app, which you then sell out to a multi-billion-dollar corporation. 

It is almost as if the term “working class” is a quaint anachronism, rather than the very body of American production and public life.  We saw this in the intensely orchestrated efforts to defeat Bernie Sanders by neo-liberals.  There is something so “gauche” and unseemly in the face of Dream Hype to suggest that maybe some people are getting screwed, and that maybe, just maybe, we ought to give a damn and care about them.

Black people being brutalized?  Not my problem.  It doesn’t fit the movie frame of purely symbolic meritocracy, democracy, and justice. School shootings every other day?  “What can you do?”  “Our thoughts and prayers” (and no policy or action… rinse and repeat).  It is interesting that March 2020, during the Covid-19 shutdown, was the first March without a school shooting in nearly two decades not to mention 30% reduced pollution levels and a host of other neglected benefits of stopping or slowing consumption and “growth”! 

On a whole host of issues, 80-90+% of Americans (and the entire world, for that matter) agree on basic issues—environmental protection, sensible background checks for gun ownership, working class protections, help for the middle and working class, greater taxes for the rentier and leisure classes, (and on and on) without a single policy change in sight. 

You see the utter arrogance and contempt of this new plutocratic two-tiered system. Comic Vic DiBitetto, did one of his famed profanity-laced “pissed off” rants about how banks will give a “holiday” on mortgages for three months, but expect to be paid the full amount, plus interest, on the fourth month.  Of course no one can do that if they aren’t being paid!  Just stick those three months on to the back end of the loan, Vic sanely suggests. 

But, oh, different rules apply for corporations.  Virginia, a state now controlled by supposedly “liberal” (read “neo-liberal corporatist”) Democrats, has the worst worker rights record in the United States.  It’s neo-liberal governor, Ralph Northam, is proposing to delay by four months even modest increase in wages and tepid boosts to collective bargaining, already passed into law and scheduled for January 2021. 

In an Orwellian statement, Northam’s office claimed, “This will ensure workers get the support they need while allowing greater economic certainty in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.”  What!?  The very people most in need of aid and a raise, the most affected, are once again the last in line, just as with the recent 2.2 trillion dollar bailout. This a particular form of disaster capitalism, what I call “extortion capitalism,” aided and abetted by both major parties. 

As the education and labor coalition opposed to Northam and his cronies noted, there is a larger agenda here to divert transformational change, rather than openly oppose it:  “Choosing May of 2021 as an effective date also leaves open the possibility that the governor will go back to the General Assembly next session and ask for yet another delay. It is easier to postpone a freedom than it is to take one away.”

So what can we do about all this when our politics, regulation, taxpayer policies are all captured by those who are determined to exploit us and extract ever higher rents from our labor, our talents, and our assets?  In short, we go directly to the source of value, which is demand.  The organic food movement and the Covid-19 virus is showing us how.   

When organic foods spread from a fringe, hippy-obsessed subculture in the early 1970’s to a conscious and viable desire for suburban soccer moms in the 2000’s, big corporations had to respond or lose out.  They spooned us cheap, high-fructose-corn-syrup garbage for decades that decimated our health and clouded our minds. 

We rebelled successfully, by moving to organic foods and conscious eating. They had to follow.  We did not necessarily need any regulation or government mandate to change behavior.  They tried to buy off regulation by making pesticide- and sugar-laden food “natural”, but we did not buy it, and citizen-activist groups successfully kept the label “organic” from being watered-down. Now, these corporation are trying to buy up family-owned organic businesses. 

Currently Covid-19 is showing us how we can really call the shots with Big Oil and, perhaps, make them invest in alternative energy.  Oil futures recently plunged into the “negative” range for the first time in history (costing more to store than sell).  If we take the lesson, and insist on working from home (and businesses find that productivity actually improves, as research shows), and demand stays depressed, Big Oil will have to adjust, just as Big Ag had to adjust with organic foods. 

The present centralized capital economies (focused in cities) were constructed to do one thing:  concentrate as much money and power in as few hands as possible. The opposite movement is needed, radical decentralization, regionalization, and localization of economy (as Charles Smith written on extensively in his books and blogs).  Here are a summary starter list of ways to take on the big corporations (Big Everything) directly and accelerate the move toward decentralization:

Taking on Big Ag:  By ramping up urban gardening, especially in inner city “food deserts,” patronizing farmers’ markets, and supporting organic farm-to-table, citizen consumers and take a big chunk out of the consolidation and monopolization created by corporate farms. 

Taking on Big Oil: By radically reducing consumption, curtailing driving, downsizing houses, increasing energy efficiency, going solar (even though that has an environmental cost as well), and getting rid of plastics (8-10% of total oil output is used just for plastics), will put a significant ding in the demand for oil, and the power of oil producers.  How much money would be saved and oil would be refused if we simply used electric bikes to get around to do our local shopping?

Taking on Big Pharma: Almost all of Big Pharma’s profits (in collaboration with Big Ag’s junk food agenda) come from pains, depressions, and chronic breakdowns of health created by entirely preventable lifestyle choices.  By radically reducing consumption, unnecessary work, eating well, and using the extra time to get off the corporate hamster wheel and actually go for regular walks with our families, the physical, mental, and emotional health increase will put a serious dent into Big Pharma profits.

Taking on Big Rent and Housing: Housing prices have become completely extortionist.  Lower-wage earners are paying upwards of 60-70% of income for rent and even “middle class” Millennials are paying 45%. Why not form cooperative communities, co-housing, or moving in with families as an act of liberation and rebellion?  Again, demand, demand, demand.  The rentier class cannot support extravagant rates, if few people are wanting what they are selling.

Taking on Big Finance and Big Credit: Why do we need to get ripped off, getting absolutely zero interest rates on our savings, when we can peer-lend to each other and set up systems where both lender and borrower prosper from productive, healthy pursuits while cutting out the middleman?  New Rule:  You must add real value to an exchange to be valuable.  To this end local currency becomes indispensable, a voluntary, community- based system of exchange that cuts out credit card fees and other premiums ginned up by predatory finance. 

Taking on Big Government, Big Taxes, and Big War: Why is it that the most profitable companies in the world, like Amazon, are not only paying 0% in income taxes, but getting tax rebates and subsidies to the tune of billions of dollars?  Why is it that a successful, self-owned small business has the effective tax rate of 50% in California?  Enough!  By bartering or gifting (which is completely legal up to 15,000 dollars per person in 2020), we can all lower our overheads and send less to the military industrial complex that dominates government spending.  By pooling our resources informally for necessities, like food, shelter, and clothing, we can live a lot better on a lot less, lowering our formal incomes and paying less to bureaucratic, technocratic, and militaristic state mechanisms.  

Taking on Big Business:  Support local businesses, even if they are a little more expensive.  Even on Amazon (though Amazon does get a percentage), there are family-run businesses, who do great work and who don’t cost much more than foreign-made junk products.  I ordered an organic bamboo, expandable silverware tray from, Royal Craft Wood, a family run, American enterprise, owned by a single father and military vet. I now realize they ship free from their own site, and I will go directly there from now on.  Perhaps we can develop a nationwide directory, much like the Green Directory for small to medium, family-run businesses.  To intensify the effect, why not divest from corporate stocks of all stripes, except those that run their companies in a conscious and community friendly way?  Why not lobby your pension funds to do likewise? 

Taking on Big Med and Big Insurance: It’s no secret that there is no profit in health and well-being for Big MedInsur.  “Sickcare” is the name of the game. Scare the wits out of people, and bankrupt them with expensive procedures (gastric bypass) and drugs (for Diabetes 2, etc.) that could have been avoided entirely with exercise, good food, and decent preventive support in community health cooperatives.  Not only would a single-payer Medicare for All save about 500 billion dollars a year (and about 65,000 lives), but easily a trillion dollars a year could be saved with a healthy populace (not to mention being far more microbe-resistant, and lower-risk when it comes to communicable diseases).

I could take on many more in the “Big Everything” category (i.e. Big Sports and Entertainment vs. local sports and artistic participation), and the boondoggle called Big Education (largely expensive and useless/unapplied factory-style and “higher” education vs. community learning and engagement) but let’s leave it at the main offenders for the time being.  These are ways to collectively rebel.  There are also individual ways, which I will talk about, in my next essay, “Wake Up and Smell the 3 C’s—Community, Cash, and Coin (not Coffee)!.”   

You see the world a whole lot differently when you only have 10 to 20 years remaining in this life. A good life at the end of life according to current conventional Western standards is one in which health is reasonably maintained and the wallet is sufficiently fat to fund the “good things in life” usually understood as comfort, travel, and leisure sprinkled with enough exercise, part-time work, volunteerism, and social life to keep the heart pumping and the mind oiled, before leaving a well-preserved corpse.

If you have 60 to 80 years to live. You see the world in an entirely different light. Practical definitions of “good life”, “virtue,” “reasonableness,” and even “sanity” find a wholly different context and reality within which to situate themselves. They are being left with the consequences of the profligate actions of older generations– environmental degradation, national and international debt, and contracting or flat wage while prices for necessities like food, housing, health care, and education skyrocket, just to name a few. This generation posits that if they are to experience the consequences, then they ought to have a real say in collective policy and how it is to be conducted. By now it is an axiom that the younger generation desires “revolution,” and that the older generation prefers incremental change, also called “reform.”

This perceptual and existential split is borne out by the 70% of people under 50 who support Bernie Sanders’ candidacy for President and the 70% of people over 50 who support Joe Biden for the same position. Perhaps nothing underscores this split and its respective assumptions about the good life than debate between revolution and incrementalism in the debate last night between Sanders and Biden. It is a timeless debate, exemplified by, but not confined to, one night. Biden stridently argued against alleged chaos and disruption that would be caused by revolution, appealing to audience fears about an overload on society and personal anxiety as the world grips with the danger of an unpredictable virus and disease called COVID-19. Sanders countered that the present “order” is itself a disaster of even greater proportion than COVID-19, because it reinforces such massive and unjust separation of wealth and power (and restricted access to health care, living wage, environmental sustainability), that, it was a far greater foundational emergency requiring decisive broad-broad scale action to address the roots and not just the symptoms of a turbulent world.

This raises a question: How much of this world is created by humans, and how much of it is simply the product of unpredictable events? We are learning through the science of climate change that our human patterns and choices are major contributors to the health of the planet and the viability of future generations.

So let us revisit the world views of the two generations, the above-50 crowd and the below-50. To put it into, somewhat oversimplified terms: To older generations, the good life generally means to consume and enjoy. “Urgent” equals coronavirus and 401(k), fears of physical life being taken and financial security being robbed as the stock market tanks. To younger generations (who coincidentally are almost unaffected by the COVID-19 virus in terms of fatality), the good life generally means to produce and preserve. “Urgent” here equals a livable planet, a meaningfully creative life, and not staggering under the weight of crushing student debt and inadequate income.

If you are Boomer in at least semi-retirement, you still have a reasonable stake in the “system” (no matter how unsustainable it may be). Hey, you contribute into it, and you want to get your investment out of it, plus interest. If you are a Millennial (Gen Y) or a Zoomer (Gen Z), you know you won’t be able to get out jack squat from a system that is simply using you as fodder for an unsustainable pyramid scheme. (Gen Xers like me, straddle generations, and that is a whole other story.) Two different views of the good (and viable) life, formed by two entirely different, and largely incompatible, experiences.

To the younger generations, concentrating on “me” and “my retirement” dooms us collectively to a fatal myopia both in terms of space (“me”, “my family”) and in terms of time (no practical regard for future sustainability or consequences). Perhaps, that is why the younger generations are attracted to the motto of Sanders’ campaign “Not me. Us.” When your “future” has only 10-20 years, your “now” is going to take on a different kind of fierce urgency, then those that have a 60-80 year future frame.

“Yeah,” says Biden (paraphrased), “we will reach fully renewable energy by 2050 (so we don’t really have to deal with it while I am living).” Sanders says, in effect, “The scientists say we might have already run out of time, and fully renewable energy by 2030 is not only necessary but critical.” It is the age-old conflict, putting off an uncomfortable future that requires personal and social sacrifices, versus becoming proactive, sacrificing for, and creating a sustainable, vital future.

It is curious that both older and younger generations would claim they are “living for the now,” but that “now” is very different depending upon how many years you have to live and how tight your circle of concern is around your own being. If “now” means “to make the best of what’s still around before it’s gone,” then selfish hoarding is a virtue. “Somebody’s going to take it; it might as well be me.” Look no further than the panic-buying of toilet paper amid coronavirus scares to demonstrate this mentality. If “now” means we are presently making the planet unlivable, and social (costly housing), political (campaign financing corruption), and economic life (low wages) unsustainable, then whole-scale, wide-level changes take on a fierce urgency.

These two word views emanate out of two, almost entirely separate social, historical, and cultural realities. Individualism and meritocracy vs. collectivism and efficacy. Plentiful resources and good-paying jobs vs. scarce resources and crappy-paying jobs. Increased material standard vs. living to decreased standard of living. “I am the world” vs. “we are the world.”

The tension of this separation of experience is exemplified in post March 15, 2020 comments made by John Iadorola of The Young Turks’ regarding the “urgency” around COVID-19. The gist of his comment was that we can scramble and mobilize everything for this one virus, but if we don’t have a system like Medicare for All to provide a foundation of support and distribution of information and practice, we will have to do it all over again if there is a COVID-20 or COVID-21. His colleague Cenk Uygur, questioned the logic of covering those without health insurance for COVID-19, but not any other ailment.

This notion that one can “gain” by relative advantage over another person, seems no different than the same mentality that tries to buy up all the hand sanitizer and sell it at extortion rates. No one of any generation thinks that is okay. Everyone realizes that is unjust. Yet, somehow, we have an entire society run on exactly that principle, where the top few rich people own more wealth than the bottom half of the country, and continue to extract ever more wealth. Health insurers and drug companies charge usurious rates on insurance premiums, co-pays, and medicine because they have a monopoly. Why isn’t there the same outrage there? Why aren’t generation unified on this? I think it has something to do with feeling one “earned” one’s position in the world and not wanting to have it “taken away.” AND YET, this very mentality is in massive, concrete terms “taking away” a future life for future generations. Something has to give, literally “give” instead of take.

And that is the key. How can we develop a cross-generational notion that giving of oneself and creating a better world (whatever it may be, sanding and painting that old fence, recycling, time sharing, etc.) as a social enterprise that is personally enhancing, rather than self-sacrificing? How might this filter beyond individual choices and into national and global policies? What kind of awareness and craft of collective awareness and action are we going to have to develop? Please tell me your thoughts in the comments.

My practical political question always has been: Do we REALLY give a crap about each other, and are we willing to cede our own money, privilege, and power to create a just world? So far, the answer is no, and the less protected (the disenfranchised, the poor, and the planet) are suffering for it. I support Bernie Sanders because he is honest and authentic, and he not only believes in justice but acts according to it. He has attacked no one, even while he has been personally and politically attacked. One can say whatever one wants about his alleged “supporters,” Bernie Sanders is a fundamentally decent man who has fought cleanly and fairly for what he believes in. Not so with his adversaries. In the aftermath of a second “mini” Super Tuesday, last night, March 10, it looks like we are on our way to selecting Joe Biden (Ronald Reagan Number Two) as president, and as servant of corporations and the 1%, rather than the people. There is no credible way to argue otherwise.

Just as Sanders fought for the people his whole life, Biden has fought for corporations his whole life, and that’s not going to change. Joe Biden is the convenient and pliable front-man, not the puppet master. International corporations, with loyalty to nothing but raw profit and power, are the pullers of the strings. It took two days for the mainstream news onslaught generated from a Biden South Carolina primary victory to destroy Bernie Sanders (along with an assist from Barack Obama, encouraging Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttagieg to drop out). Biden earned barely a single vote. He had no real money or presence in the Super Tuesday states– one padlocked headquarters in California, four in Texas, and one each in Virginia, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. Biden had no significant visits, rallies or grassroots support of people on the ground. It did not matter. Grassroots organizing went up in flames to a mindless mania that had no will except the will of the 1% to defeat Sanders and the desire of the 99% not to have Trump. (Can you find a single person who is actually passionate about Biden? I have not met a single one, and I have actually been looking.)

What will move America and the world forward? One thing is for sure: More plutocratic policies WON’T. Is Joe Biden better than Donald Trump? Yes. Will his policies make minor (and insufficient) economic and environmental improvements? Yes. Will this cause greater overall global stress in the medium term? Yes. I will be curious to see what we do. The professional and managerial classes won’t be worrying. They have enough money and health care to make it through leaner times. Justice won’t be on their minds, except as a gilded ideal subservient to their own advantage and desire to be viewed as good. Blindly celebrating Trump’s ouster and seeing themselves as victors will predominate, while the conditions for the planet and the least fortunate deteriorate.

We will not be kept from our reckoning by rearranging plutocrats like deck chairs on the Titanic. We might have averted an iceberg, but our Titanic is docking in a port that will find its city flooded by global climate change. Big Oil remains in the easy chair, rather than the Green New Deal in the seat of law. I hope we break out of our own self-flattering ideologies and stories in time to leave the next generations a chance for a livable life and a livable planet. Let us just admit what we failed to do so in this historical moment, and let us be candid that our failure to deal with moral and practical realities beyond our own preoccupations will have growing consequences. The world that gives us our lives deserves our best virtue, something far truer than our conceits and fantasies. I hope we re-discover our highest civic virtues, and find the personal courage in ourselves, and compassion for others, to act upon them.

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez works in my interest as a 50-something white male, even though she is a Hispanic, female, 30 year old. I am not only inspired but impressed by her energy, acumen, ability to ask questions, hold people accountable, and even work with Ted Cruz to target corruption in Washington. She is great at her job, and I believe she will be the first woman U.S. President.

I am tired of identity politics. (“I want someone who looks like me to be in office”). I don’t want someone who looks like me. I want someone who is a good and courageous person, and good at doing what she is doing. “Looks like me” is not a job description, any more than “I could have a beer with him” was a legitimate reason to vote for Bush, Jr.

I want someone who advocates for my highest self and the highest self of society, who inspires, thinks critically, actively moves change, and empathizes and IS EFFECTIVE at getting things done. AOC is that person. AOC came out of the Justice Democrats, a movement given rise to by the grassroots revolution that Bernie Sanders represents, but which is driven by the progressive-minded citizens of this country like AOC.

Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are two other ethnically-diverse, courageous legislators who come out of this same “fight for what is right, and speak truth to power” place. They represent NOT MY LOOKS BUT WHAT I LOOK FOR IN MY OWN CHARACTER. They inspire and activate me by their real leadership and courage, while the compromisers and excuse-makers, simply turn me off.

Am I more inspired by AOC than Bernie Sanders? Hell, yes! I wish she were old enough to run for president now, but my compromise IS Bernie Sanders, because, even as an old, white guy, he is working in the best interests of the people and of the wider world, and he has commitedly help set the foundation for a feminist uprising in our governance. No Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi, or Hillary Clinton has helped to do that. In fact Pelosi and Clinton have actively sought to undermine that uprising.

LOOK WHERE SOMEONE FIGHTS FROM AND WHAT THEY FIGHT FOR. THAT is who they are. Those will be the effective change makers. By electing Bernie, you can be assured from the force and demonstration of this revolution, that you will have more women like Cortez, Omar, and Talib elected and rising up the ranks to take this country where it needs to go. Toss your hat in with identity politics (“I want someone who looks like me”) and you will get tokenism, because you have voted for tokenism.