Spiritual Forum

To begin – For the first time in seventeen years, the US government partially shut down this week over “a republican drive to defund Obamacare”. (1)

The ongoing bickering between Democrats and Republicans over this issue has caused a federal budget not to be created, and as a result numerous national parks and some governmental institutions, left without funding, are forced to shut down.

I’ll post a snippet from RT, which reported on the US government shutdown.

“The US federal government is partially shutting down after the Congress failed to fund its work amid a Republican drive to defund the Obamacare healthcare program. (…)”

“The Congress left the government without funding as competing spending measures bounced back and forth between the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-led Senate late into Monday night.

The partial shutdown will leave some essential government functions, including national security and public safety, intact. It’s not clear how long the situation will continue, with lawmakers expected to take a further vote in a matter of hours [Note: This story was written about for this Newsletter on Tuesday the 1^st].

If the shutdown persists, it will affect an estimated 800,000 of public workers, who will be forced into unpaid leave as the government would be unable to fund their employment. National parks and most federal offices are closed, as is almost all of NASA, except for Mission Control in Houston.

(…) The website of the US Department of Agriculture went blank on Tuesday, leaving only a warning that it’s not available due to the lapse in federal government funding.

The crisis would initially cost the US economy at least $300 million a day in lost economic output, says Bloomberg citing IHS Inc., a Massachusetts-based economic forecast company.” (1)

The referenced article from RT mentions that the US government has shut down roughly 17 times since 1977, but in this day and age of transformation a US government shutdown is certainly going to get the attention of the entire world. Perhaps in doing so, this shutdown is performing a service for humanity.

In case you may not know, the shutdown has basically been allowed to come about because the Democrats and Republicans couldn’t reach an agreement regarding Obamacare and the federal budget. I haven’t researched Obamacare properly to give my view of it, but the two dualistic beliefs for and against it seem to be that it provides universal Medicare and that it forces us Americans to buy health insurance.

Regardless of the subject at hand, the issue that needs our attention is, in my opinion, the pettiness of our supposed leaders. Elected officials whose very job is to be able to handle things like this can’t keep their own government funded because of petty political disagreements and personal agendas on all ends.

I have and will continue to reiterate that the biggest problem is that the general public isn’t as involved in the decisions being made as our “leaders”.

I know that issues like this are complex; I don’t intend to be naïve and claim a solution can easily be found. However, if the Dems and Repubs are having so much trouble making a decision, why not bring the general public in, in a way that allows our voices to be heard and listened to?

Instead of just taking to the street and asking us how we feel about certain issues, especially issues our elected officials can’t agree over, why not invite the public in and give us the chance to have a say? Chances are there are a plethora of people here in the United States alone who could offer comprehensive solutions to every issue that’s presented.

If we the people truly want to take the reins and be at the forefront of the decision-making, we’ll have to understand that running a country and a world is complex. However, if disagreements among political parties can cause a federal budget to go un-created, jobs to be lost and the economy to suffer, than something’s clearly wrong.

And let’s not forget the ever-pervasive reality that the politics we’re seeing play out is a simple stage show designed to distract us from what’s really going on behind the scenes. The question we could then ask is if there’s any geopolitical significance to this current US government shutdown.

I couldn’t yet tell you, and as I write this first news story on Tuesday the 1^st, I’m sure more developments will follow. We’ll see in the end if this shutdown bears any significance to everything we’ve been hearing about, or if it’s simply an interesting and potentially economy-thrashing happening that’s ultimately unrelated to our new paradigm.

Either way, this shutdown is likely to put international attention even more on the divisive and unproductive manner in which politics play out here in the United States.

In other news – It’s been reported that Brazil lifted 3.5 million citizens out of poverty in 2012 in an effort to bring equality to the country. (2)

Brazil’s Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) released a report this week detailing the number of citizens who’ve been lifted out of poverty as a result of government programs and increased wages.

Just as the referenced article outlined, more Brazilians are able to own modern commodities like televisions or washing machines, as well as essential needs like running water. Brazil recently raised the stipend of “2.5 million people living below the poverty line” and along with the aforementioned programs, it seems that Brazil is genuinely beginning to work in their people’s interest.

I’ll post a snippet from the referenced news source that discusses the report released and the shrinking Brazilian poverty numbers.

“In a further boost to efforts of closing the economic divide between its rich and poor, Brazil has lifted 3.5 million people out of poverty and more than a million out of extreme poverty in 2012.

The data was made available by a new report released Tuesday by Brazil’s Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA). The report says the number of poor living on $1 or $2 per day, decreased from 19.1 million to 15.7 million, while the number of Brazilians living in extreme poverty went down from 7.6 million to 6.5 million.

The report also shows income gap narrowed in 2012, and the per capita income for households in the poorest 10 per cent of the population increased by 14 per cent.” (2)

The referenced source then discusses the attribution of the reduction of poverty to income growth and government assistance.

“IPEA President Marcelo Neri attributed the poverty reduction to accelerated income growth among people at the base of the social pyramid.”

“President Dilma Rousseff had in February this year raised the monthly stipend of 2.5 million people living below the poverty line.

‘We are turning the page on our long history of social exclusion that had perverse roots in slavery,’ President Rousseff had said after signing the decree.

The main indicator of income growth is access to durable goods like televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines as well as essential public services such as electricity, garbage collection and running water.

The report notes that the improvement in quality of life among the poor is a direct result of wage increases and social programs.” (2)

Let’s salute Brazil for taking these first steps to start reducing poverty in their country. We need to see these reduction numbers everywhere!

It’s been said that the few have kept themselves ahead of the many with orchestrated poverty, and it seems that Brazil is at least trying to reduce the number of people in their country who tragically go without the basic necessities and commodities every person deserves to have.

Every person is meant to experience the wealth the few in power are able to enjoy, and along with supporting Brazil and encouraging every country to work as actively as possible to reduce their poverty numbers, we can take to our developing spiritual perceptions to help bring about widespread peace and prosperity for all.

This development is, in my opinion, yet another sign of change on our evolving planet. If poverty numbers can be reduced by the millions in a single year, imagine what the focused and motivated citizens of every country could do in a few years.

We can Create every bit of change we’ve been waiting to see, and we can perhaps see the efforts being made to bring equality to the planet in this moment as results of the spiritual work being done by so many to see just that happen.

I get the feeling that widespread prosperity and abundance will soon meet every person on this planet, but until this happens we can only remain active in recognizing the inequality prevalent not just in Brazil or in the United States, but everywhere.

We can recognize everything about this planet that clearly doesn’t resonate with the new paradigm of widespread and equally shared abundance we intend to build, and we can support countries that take steps to ensure as many of their citizens are able to enjoy equality as possible.

No longer will the many tower over the few because of an unequal system of currency, and no longer will most of the planet have to live in suffrage and poverty. Brazil has shown signs of entering the future, and let’s send our positive energy to this country in hopes that their poverty level shrinks much more.

This week’s news links:

(1)- “Lights Out in Washington: US Shutdown Begins After Political Stalemate” (Originally posted to RT) at:

http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/10/lights-out-in-washington-us-shutdown-begins-after-political-stalemate/

(2)- “Brazil Lifts 3.5 Million Out of Poverty in 2012- Report” (Originally posted to BRICSpost) at:

http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/10/brazil-lifts-3-5-million-out-of-poverty-in-2012-report/

This concludes our weekly news.

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