We are all flawed, but why is it so difficult for most Americans to consistently feel compassion for other beings?
I have spent the last couple of months working as a high school teacher in Manhattan. The gig presents too many deal breaking challenges to be sustainable, including a daily commute that provides a steady reminder of the inhumanity of humanity.
A Day in the Life: October, 2024
1. I get up at 5AM, and before breakfast, I shuffle over to my computer to play a podcast or independent news clip. I see that NY1 (a local corporate media outlet that is owned by Time Warner & AT&T ), is still calling Israel’s US backed Genocide in Gaza, the “Israel vs. Hamas Conflict”, which is a direct slap in the face to anyone who cares about truth and justice (Genocide and “conflict” are two different things, and Israel & the United States are committing a Genocide). This type of propaganda is yet another example of the corporate media’s complicity with Israel & US mass murder campaigns (Israel & the United States have now killed an estimated 300,000-400,000 Palestinians over the last 13 months, 70% of whom are women and CHILDREN). Of course the lame-stream media personalities continue to act like they’re credible journalists, instead of what they really are, which is Genocide supporting puppets for the establishment.
As per the latest report from the United Nations (UN):
Introduction – Genocide as Colonial Erasure
“In March 2024, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israel had committed acts of genocide in
Gaza. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur expands the analysis of the post-7 October 2023, violence against Gaza, which has spread to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. She focuses on genocidal intent, contextualising the situation within a decades-long process of territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing aimed at liquidating the Palestinian presence in Palestine. She suggests that genocide should be seen as integral and instrumental to the aim of full Israeli colonization of
Palestinian land while removing as many Palestinians as possible.”
According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese,“The magnitude of destruction in Gaza has prompted allegations of domicide, urbicide, scholasticide, medicide, cultural genocide, and ecocide. Nearly 40 million tons of debris, including unexploded ordnance and human remains, contaminate the ecosystem. More than 140 temporary waste sites and 340,000 tons of waste, untreated wastewater and sewage overflow contribute to the spread of diseases such as hepatitis A, respiratory infections, diarrhoea and skin diseases…As Israeli leaders promised, Gaza has been made unfit for human life…The acts of killing, the mass killing, the infliction of psychological and physical torture, the devastation, the creation of conditions of life that would not allow the people in Gaza to live, from the destruction of hospitals, the mass force displacement and the mass homelessness while people were being bombed daily, and the starvation—how can we read these acts in isolation?”
Click here for the latest UN Report, Genocide as Colonial Erasure.
Click here to learn more about Israel being convicted of Genocide at the People’s Tribunal in Rio De Janeiro. 
Here is a scroll of names from an Al Jazeera Newsfeed of over 41,800 Palestinians who have been confirmed “killed” by Israel’s US backed Genocide in Gaza. Please note how many victims are aged 0 YEARS OLD. The UN also reported a couple of weeks ago that the number of dead could exceed 1 MILLION by year’s end due to the US and Israel’s weaponization of starvation and disease. The US and Israel remain the biggest agents of TERROR in the world as they bring us all closer to nuclear annihilation.
And why are so many American Jews brainwashed and supportive of Israel’s war crimes and GENOCIDE in Gaza? For starters, Zionism is a GENOCIDAL cult. Kudos to Al Jazeera for sharing the excellent documentary, Israelism, for free.
Click here for the film.
2. I walk to the subway station and standing at the top of the entrance is a man smoking a cigarette, completely undeterred about the air that he is polluting, and how everyone descending onto the platform will now have to breathe in his second-hand smoke.
Click here to learn more about the health risks of secondhand smoke.
3. I pay my $2.90 subway fee, and as I admire the rats on the track, I walk around two homeless/unhoused men who have made a wooden bench their home for another evening. It is a cold morning, and when I get off at 59th Street, I see another person huddled on the FLOOR of the subway’s turnstile area with no shoes, no jacket, and blackened bare feet. I walk up the stairs and as I pass two more women staring blankly while huddled with their blankets and worn out luggage on a park bench, I notice a man with ragged clothes, laying in the grass as a Central Park worker asks him if he is okay. Later, after exiting the grounds, I witness a young maintenance type with a hose, yelling at another unhoused person to leave immediately, and to take his cardboard (bed) with him. Again, this was early in the morning with temperatures no higher than 45°F!
I have never seen more unhoused people in NYC than in 2024.
Here are the latest statistics on homelessness for the US & NYC:
Under the Biden/Harris Administration: According to the US Department of Housing and Development (HUD), “Between federal fiscal years 2021 and 2022, the number of people (in the US) who became newly homeless increased by 25%.” (and this while the US routinely sends BILLIONS of dollar$ in weapons to Israel, and other parts of the world, to target and MURDER, HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of innocent civilians).
As per the Coalition for the Homeless: “Homelessness in New York City has reached the highest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s…In June 2024, 132,293 people slept each night in NYC shelters…119,320 NYC schoolchildren experienced homelessness at some point during the 2022–2023 school year, representing more than 11% of all NYC public school kids.”
And More Jaw Dropping Data:
– Thousands more (there is no reliable number, as the annual HOPE estimate is deeply flawed) slept unsheltered in public spaces, and more than 200,000 people slept temporarily doubled-up in the homes of others. Thus, it can be estimated that more than 350,000 people were without homes in NYC in June 2024.
– In June 2024, 71 percent of those in shelters were members of homeless families, including 45,745 children. That month, 37,808 single adults slept in shelters. Forty-five percent of those in shelters, or 65,731 individuals, were New Arrivals.*
– The primary reason people in NYC become homeless is the lack of affordable housing. Surveys of homeless families have identified the following major immediate, triggering causes of homelessness in NYC: eviction; doubled-up or severely overcrowded housing; domestic violence; job loss; and hazardous housing conditions.
Click here to learn more from HUD.
Click here to learn more from the Coalition for the Homeless.
4. I enter the park at 59th Street (despite its faults, I love Central Park), but I keep my mask on due to the wafting stench of horse poop (more on that later), traffic exhaust, and second-hand smoke. Once the air quality improves, and I begin to enjoy the walk, a group of us are yelled at by a team of young, white, “corporate tool” types on their racing bikes, some of whom are smirking as they whiz by donning the latest fashions in cycling attire. I have lived in NYC for over 20 years, and I can tell you that NYC bicyclists may be the most obnoxious group of people within the 5 boroughs. NYC cyclists (thankfully, there are wonderful exceptions), feel as though they are above the law, and can do whatever they want on their bikes, including disrespecting and intimidating others, riding on sidewalks, running red lights, and riding in between cars, so to avoid traffic jams. And it is not just me. NYC.gov has had quite a few campaigns over the years (see below), trying to convince NYC cyclists to be less hateable.
No small task indeed!
Click here to learn more about the deaths caused by dangerous cycling.
And speaking of the corporate tools who run the United States, or hope to one day:
As I have mentioned in another post, I was saddened to learn that a former childhood friend (who was kind back in the day), is now a big deal at one of the most evil companies on the planet, BlackRock. If you are unfamiliar, BlackRock makes a Killing on Killing.
As per CODEPINK, “BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world. Controlling more than $10 trillion ($11.4), in assets under management (AUM), BlackRock is the world’s largest shadow bank…Corporate accountability must extend to those who hold the shares of these companies. In a public statement, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink announced that he would start holding the companies they invest in accountable for being responsible corporate citizens. Unfortunately, Mr. Fink’s statement for accountability rings hollow while BlackRock continues to profit off of the most morally corrupt companies in the world. To highlight how much money BlackRock has invested in weapons manufacturers, let’s look at their investments in the top 5. They have $6.9 billion invested in Boeing, $4.2 billion in General Dynamics; $9.7 billion in Lockheed Martin; $4.4 billion in Northrop Grumman; and $11.5 billion billion in Raytheon.”
Dr. Peter Phillips has written a new book titled the “Titans of Capital”, where he examines the economic trends following the COVID-19 pandemic and how the wealth concentration in the world took a dramatic turn towards the already ultra-wealthy.
Here is an excerpt from an interview he had with Robert Scheer from the Scheer Intelligence podcast:
PP: “Well, the broad picture is that the global 1% or actually the one half of 1% is controlling increasingly amounts of capital. And they farm that capital out to these capital management investment companies, like BlackRock, which have doubled in size in the past five years. And the top 10 today control 50 trillion dollars. That’s 50,000 billions worth of money. And they’re invested everywhere in the world…And that’s what we’re seeing, is that this wealth is continuing to be concentrated, doubling in size in the past five years, so that the richest one half of 1% of the people got incredibly richer in the last five years. And the rest of us have been in decline…So they (the ten companies that run our “democracy”), have grabbed two-thirds of the net worth of $42 trillion worth of money since 2020. They grabbed two-thirds of that, just concentrated, and the rest of it got spread around in the top 20 percent or so, but most people in the world are in decline. So when we talk about the political parties in this country and people having a harder time, they do. Half the country, at some point, the families can’t afford food for everybody. It’s quite diabolical in a sense that this concentrated wealth manages everything. It controls everything, and that we have very little say, and whoever we elect as president, it’s not going to make any difference because they’re managed by capital. They’re there to protect global capital. That’s what the American political system is about. That’s what the political systems in the West are about. They see capital as a vital interest of the West. That’s why we have military bases all over the world to protect capital and to ensure that debts get repaid and that this capital continues to grow and expand…”
A list of the 10 companies that run our “democracy”:
1. BlackRock
2. Vanguard Group
3. UBS Group
4. Fidelity Investments
5 State Street
6. Morgan Stanley
7. JPMorgan Chase
8. Amundi
9. Allianz/PIMCO
10. Capital Group.
As per Ben Norton from Geopolitical Economy, “The billionaire CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has said it “really doesn’t matter” who wins the US presidential election, because both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will be good for Wall Street. “I’m tired of hearing this is the biggest election in your lifetime. The reality is over time it doesn’t matter”, said BlackRock chief Larry Fink at an October 21 conference hosted by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, according to the Financial Times. “It really doesn’t matter”, Fink reiterated. He revealed that, at BlackRock, “we work with both administrations and are having conversations with both candidates”. BlackRock has $11.5 trillion assets under management, making it the biggest investment company on Earth.
“Education is a system of imposed ignorance…Nobody is going to pour truth into your brain. It’s something you have to find out for yourself.” – Noam Chomsky
5. I finally arrive at the school, where, for the most part, the staff can accurately be described as caring, smart, and lovely. It only takes a few hours however, to realize that the school is anti-vegan, and apparently clueless when it comes to the importance of plant-based nutrition, and what the students should be eating in order to promote wellness. One of the administrators makes it clear that she doesn’t want me to cover food for the rest of the school year, even though one of the units is called, “Food for All”. If someone were to wish sickness on a child, probably the most effective, and easiest thing that they could do would be to feed that child the Standard American Diet (SAD), which is exactly what this school, and most schools across the United States are doing. The NYC DOE likes to promote the idea of teaching students “how to think”, and “not what to think”, so long as educators remain “neutral” or supportive of Israel’s US backed GENOCIDE in Gaza (and other illegal US military actions), and avoid most topics pertaining to Truth & Justice. Examples of forbidden topics: (1) the poisonous food that is served at most US public schools, (2) our broken food system and how it impacts human health, animal welfare, the climate crisis, and ongoing, unlawful, US led wars/Genocides, (3) 3rd party presidential candidates, (4) US hegemony (I recently learned that our 10th grade science teacher (Zionist?, Jewish supremacist?), is telling his students that Israel’s US backed Genocide in Gaza is “not a Genocide”, while a few of the advanced 9th grade students are under the delusion that China is a military threat to the United States and could invade at anytime, etc.). In other words, lessons on Truth, Justice, and Compassion are for the most part, prohibited, as American Exceptionalism continues to be the default narrative for most teachers, and administrators, in our public schools.
Click here to learn more from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).
Click here to learn more from the Coalition for Healthy School Food.
Click here to learn more about the power of plant-based nutrition.
Click here to learn more about why China is not our enemy from CODEPINK.
Click here to learn more about American Exceptionalism from Howard Zinn.
Click here to learn more from Jewish Voice for Peace on why Israel’s US backed Genocide in Gaza is textbook Genocide.
Click here to learn more about independent/critical thinking from Noam Chomsky.
Images of a recent school lunch:
6. Once the final school bell rings, I start my long and sometimes enjoyable walk home. As I re-enter the park, I can hear the clip clopping of the horse-drawn carriages, which unfortunately, is still a thing in NYC’s Central Park. Most people don’t realize that when an animal performs an act of any kind that does not come naturally, it always requires the physical and mental abuse of the animal. The abuse can take many forms, including whippings and beatings, and the deprivation of food and water. The bottom line is that the animals always suffer, and often die from the mistreatment, violence and exploitation, which unfortunately, is the case for the horses in Central Park.
If a horse carriage is passing by while I am walking through the park, I usually tell the passengers in a loud voice that the “horses are abused”, and to “please consider a bike carriage instead.” One time, a 30 something year old American, smugly replied that he didn’t care if the horses were abused, and that he liked it. Other times I have had carriage operators tell me to “shut the F*ck up!”. There was even one instance where an operator/abuser stepped off the carriage, and yelled in an angry tone that he would become violent, if I ever spoke to his customers again. I am not a tough guy, and I know that many of these people are just trying to make a living, but there is still no excuse, and abuse is abuse, and killing is killing.
Click here for a heart breaking video on the truth behind the horse carriage industry.
Click here to learn more from NYCLASS (New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets).
Click here to learn more about the cruelty of horse drawn carriages.
Click here to learn more from the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
7. After having to deal with more arrogant cyclists, and the repulsive stink from animal and human-health harming junk food vendors, I exit the park at 59th & 5th to more of the same, only this time the junk food dealers have multiplied, and now include ice cream hucksters too. Business is good, and the peddlers of death are everywhere (including a queue of horse carriages 7 wagons deep), as their human-health, animal, and planet harming “food”, and services, remain extremely popular with the masses.
Lucky for the merchants, most people don’t want to know where their “food” comes from, who it tortures, and how it impacts our planet and society. And so, death, disease, and suffering continue at record levels, and the shallowness of our species has never been more apparent. The willful ignorance, and continued silence of so many, carries the day in most respects, and I am once again left feeling defeated (at least for the moment), and mindful of the words of James Baldwin, “The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it”. Fewer people seem kind, as most are “busy making plans”, following their favorite teams/celebrities, and taking selfies (and God knows what else), which only deepens their disconnect with others, and their complicity with the injustices of our society. Mercifully, the blindness of the crowd, the smells of death, the abuse of the horses and animals, the heterocyclic amines, and the lingering stink of poop and second-hand smoke, all conspire to chase me off the street, and back onto the subway as quickly as possible.
Click here to learn why Dairy is Scary.
Click here to learn how a hot dogs takes away 36 minutes of healthy life.
Click here to learn how junk food kills.
Click here to learn more about the health risks of consuming animal products.
Click here to learn more about animal suffering.
And there you have it, a day in the life in 2024. Unhinged indeed.
And speaking of unhinged, here a few quick thoughts on the 2024, US Presidential Election:
*Trump is of course awful, but so is Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris has been complicit in Israel’s US backed GENOCIDE in Gaza for the last 13 months. Again, the number of Palestinians killed by the US and Israel during that time is now estimated to be between 300,000 to 400,000 (70% of whom are women and CHILDREN!), and the UN reported a couple of weeks ago that the number of dead could exceed 1 MILLION by year’s end due to the US and Israel’s weaponization of starvation and disease. Kamala Harris is a war criminal, and she is now celebrating the endorsement from another WAR CRIMINAL, Dick Cheney. A vote for Harris is a vote for GENOCIDE. We are all a work in progress, but if you care about Truth and Justice, please consider 3rd party candidates, Jill Stein, Dr. Cornell West, or Claudia De la Cruz. Again, Trump is a lifetime criminal, and a vote for Harris rewards GENOCIDE.
Click here to learn more about Jill Stein.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Cornel West.
Click here to learn more about Claudia De la Cruz.
Israel = Nazis = US “Leadership” (DNC & GOP) = Evil = US Corporate Media = GENOCIDE
Until next time…
*Additional excerpt from the UN Report, Genocide as Colonial Erasure:
Totality of the conduct: Genocidal Intent Rationalized as Self-Defence
In the face of such wholesale destruction, the stated goals of Israel, accepted by some States, remain “to eradicate Hamas” and “bring the hostages home”. Neither of these goals, or motives, preclude a finding of genocidal intent as the only reasonable inference to be drawn. Instead, both motives, together and disjunctively, substantiate the genocidal intent.
History reveals that: (a) As recognized in the jurisprudence, genocide may occur in the context of armed conflict.
As Judge Trindade elaborated: “perpetrators of genocide will almost always allege that their actions were taken ‘pursuant to an ongoing military conflict’, yet, ‘genocide may be a means for achieving military objectives just as readily as military conflict may be a means for instigating a genocidal plan’. (b) Different underlying motives do not displace genocidal intent. As observed by Judge Bhandari, “genocidal intent may exist simultaneously with other, ulterior motives”. In international criminal jurisprudence, intent (the aim to achieve a criminal result: destruction of the group) is distinguished from motive (the reasons behind an action – hatred, revenge/collective punishment)…”
