In the News (from infowars.com): “After illustrating their enthusiasm for repealing the Bill of Rights, a video shows Americans happily signing a petition to support a ‘Nazi-style Orwellian police state,’ in what easily represents the most shocking footage of its kind to date.

“Citing issues with how the government shutdown has impacted the ability of the police to ‘keep the community safe,’ Dice tells San Diegans that there is a need to ‘increase the Orwellian system.’

“‘Not a problem,’ responds one man as he signs the petition.

“‘We just want to model it after the Nazi Germany system to keep people safe and secure,’ Dice tells another individual. …

“The standard bearer for using satirical petitions to illustrate how misinformed Americans really are stretches all the way back to 1990, when it was repeatedly proven that people would sign petitions to ban water, but only if it was renamed “dihydrogen monoxide.” Penn and Teller reproduced the social experiment in 2003 when they were successful in getting environmentalists to sign a similar petition.

“However, Dice has proven that some element of trickery is no longer necessary to convince Americans to support ludicrously draconian policies.

“He quite clearly spells it out to them on numerous occasions what they are supporting – an Orwellian police state modeled on Nazi Germany.”

My Comment: Personal safety is much more important for our egoistic nature than some imagined freedoms. Naturally, first it is necessary to ensure human safety, food, shelter, family, security, and they provide them personal and social freedoms—this is the pyramid of our needs (according to the principle “No flour, no Torah”). This should be considered during the dissemination of integral education and upbringing.
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Opinion (Ron Paul, American physician, author, and former Member of the U.S. House of Representatives): “Former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul doesn’t see a rosy future ahead for the United States. In fact, he sees a repeat of recent history – though not U.S. history – on the horizon.’’

“‘They’re (Washington collectively) not going to work their way out of it, so it’s just (all) going to collapse,’ he said. …

“The physician-lawmaker also said recent polling showing a distinct lack of trust by the American people in their government was ‘a good thing.’

“‘Because that means that now they’ll quit believing the government,’ he told Jones. ‘I mean, they don’t trust the government, they don’t believe the government, the government always lies to them… whether its foreign policy or domestic policy.’

“‘Just think how quickly the Soviet system disappeared. I think that was the greatest miracle, or event at least, in the twentieth century’ that nobody saw coming.

“‘You know, the day before, the month before, the year before, if someone would have said, “Oh, you know, next year,” the Soviet system would be gone, everybody would have considered that person nuts. But it was fragile, and it fell apart, and quickly, and thank goodness we didn’t have to have a nuclear war in order to get rid of the Soviet system.”

“‘We’re probably in 1987, where the Soviets were in ’87, in two years they were gone,’ he said.”

My Comment: The collapse is not yet clear, but the sharp deterioration of public relations is obvious, and what the USA has initiated in other countries, including Israel, will be echoed in it, as I wrote in this blog …
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In the News (from Project Syndicate): “Every year, we waste or lose 1.3 billion metric tons of food – one-third of the world’s annual food production. The sheer scale of the number makes it almost impossible to grasp, no matter how one approaches it. Try to imagine 143,000 Eiffel Towers stacked one on top of another, or a pile of 10 trillion bananas.

“The figure is all the more unfathomable, given that, alongside this massive wastage and loss, 840 million people experience chronic hunger on a daily basis. Many millions more suffer from ‘silent hunger’ – malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies.

“For the more economically minded, here is another number: food wastage and loss, expressed in producer prices, costs roughly $750 billion per year. If we were to consider retail prices and the wider impacts on the environment, including climate change, the figure would be much higher. …

“Food loss – on farms, during processing, transport, and at markets – undermines food security in most developing countries, where post-harvest losses can reach as high as 40% of production. Investment in infrastructure for transport, storage, and marketing of food is badly needed, as are programs to train farmers in best practices.

“In developed countries, food-retailing practices require a rethink.”

My Comment: There is a religious principle in Judaism “Baal Tashchit“: Do not destroy the useful, anything that can be useful to others. It is forbidden to throw out leftovers, suitable for human and animal food, any industrial waste that could be still consumed, etc. because everything is given by the Creator for the correction of the world; thus we must use it, precisely to correct the world. It is possible to use it correctly only to the extent of the correction of the human being, when he naturally, instinctively thinks of the common good.
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In the News (from Project Syndicate): “At the 68^th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which began on September 17, world leaders are laying the foundations of a development agenda to succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which expire in 2015. The upcoming Sustainable Development Goals will be based on the understanding that economic development is key to improving human well-being and securing the most vulnerable people’s rights. But, in order to make genuine progress, policymakers must address the factors that constrain development, particularly violence and conflict. …

“In formulating the post-2015 development agenda, world leaders must recognize the tremendous impetus that less violent, more harmonious societies would provide for economic development. By stimulating a virtuous cycle of peace and prosperity, policymakers can contribute to the well-being of people worldwide. Now that is a goal worth pursuing.”

My Comment: The UN cannot do anything, but to play out what it is imposed on it. There is no solution to problems at the level of our world! The problem is that our egoism, from the force that develops humanity (the seven years of satiation of slavery in Egypt), began to devour its children, like a cancerous tumor that starts to consume its own body, resulting in the death of the body and thus its own death (the seven lean years of slavery in Egypt).

At the end of this development by suffering (Beito) in terrible suffering (the ten plagues of Egypt), there should be the awareness of a dead end and the desire to exit the egoistic nature at any cost. Starting from today, we can complete the entire path in a gradual correction by seeking unity (Ahishena). In this way a remedy against egoism is manifested (the cancer is treated by radiation – the Upper Light).
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In the News (from the University of Massachusetts Amherst): “In a new review of how psychology research has illuminated the causes of war and violence, three political psychologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst say this understanding can and should be used to promote peace and overturn the belief that violent conflict is inevitable.

“Writing in the current special ‘peace psychology’ issue of American Psychologist, lead author Bernhard Leidner, Linda Tropp and Brian Lickel of UMass Amherst’s Psychology of Peace and Violence program say that if social psychology research focuses only on how to soften the negative consequences of war and violence, ‘it would fall far short of its potential and value for society.’…

“’In summarizing psychological perspectives on the conditions and motivations that underlie violent conflict,’ says Tropp, ‘we find that psychology’s contributions can extend beyond understanding the origins and nature of violence to promote nonviolence and peace.’ She adds, ‘We oppose the view that war is inevitable and argue that understanding the psychological roots of conflict can increase the likelihood of avoiding violence as a way to resolve conflicts with others.’

“The authors acknowledge that conflict and violence between groups persist because they often give people ways to address psychological needs, for identity, safety, security and power. Nonviolence has received far less media and research attention, they point out, but this should change. The UMass Amherst team urges social psychologists to consider factors that increase empathy and understanding of others, along with factors that increase the capacity for critical evaluation of the “ingroup.”

They conclude, ‘Research that investigates how to mitigate negative consequences of war and violence is valuable,’ and the studies they summarize, grounded in ‘realistic insights,’ support the view that psychology can be applied to promote peace. ‘It is our contention that psychology can and should be applied to promote peace, not war.’”

My Comment: This psychology of peace is the method of Integral Education. Maybe it’s time to turn to scientists. Previously, they were not interested in this …
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In the News: “On Friday, Oct. 18, the 2013 Stanford Roundtable, “Are You Happy Now?” convened five experts to discuss what happiness is and why many Americans are unhappy. The panelists also discussed simple, synergistic strategies that people can employ to promote long-lasting, meaningful happiness. …

“In a recent study that ranked 50 countries by overall happiness, the United States slotted in at 23rd. This finding might seem incongruous with the American dream: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“But that rhetoric – the constant pursuit of happiness – might be what’s holding the United States back.

“Katie Couric, journalist and host of the daytime talk show Katie, moderated the discussion.” Source: Stanford News

Around 4600 people participated in the roundtable physically and around 700 virtually via the Internet.

The discussion showed that, in fact, no one knows what happiness is. People are not clear how to achieve it. Depression is increasing on a global scale and with the onset at younger ages, but no one knows what to do with it.

The Bnei Baruch San Francisco group participated in the roundtable.
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In the News (from The National Interest): “The status of Jews in Europe remains a delicate one. At least that is what a new survey by the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights suggests. The survey, to be released in full in November, found that nearly one quarter of European Jews avoid doing things or wearing symbols that could allow others to identify them as Jewish. And the numbers are worse in some places: Forty-nine percent of the Swedish utopia’s Jews avoid recognizably Jewish clothing and symbols in public.

“Eighty-eight percent of French Jews said antisemitism has become worse in the last five years. Thirty percent of Hungarian Jews have experienced an antisemitic incident in the past twelve months. And around Europe, two-thirds said reporting assaults and other antisemitic incidents to the police wasn’t worth it, or wouldn’t make a difference. …

“Who is to blame? The media would have you believe it’s the far right—Greece swarming with Golden Dawn blackshirts and cryptofascists flexing their muscles almost everywhere east of the Elbe. And the Kantor Center documents plenty of far-right violence. But participants in the EU survey, many drawn from Western Europe, saw it differently—just 19 percent pinned it on the extreme right. Twenty-two percent faulted the extreme left. But Europe’s Muslims are cited by 27 percent.”

My Comment: The nations of the world are not so much to blame for the growth of anti-Semitism in our time, as are the Jews themselves because they have long been required to carry “the Light to the nations of the world” in the form of the method of correction of egoism, of all the evil in the world, through the teaching of Kabbalah or through its lighter version, the method of Integral Education and Upbringing. But in any case, in the places where anti-Semitism erupts, there is a void, the absence of the Light, and there, more than in other places, the nations and the countries will suffer.
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Opinion (Parag Khanna, senior research fellow at the New America Foundation and author of The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the 21^st Century and How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance): “Every five years, the United States National Intelligence Council, which advises the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, publishes a report forecasting the long-term implications of global trends. Earlier this year it released its latest report, “Alternative Worlds,” which included scenarios for how the world would look a generation from now.

“One scenario, ‘Nonstate World,’ imagined a planet in which urbanization, technology and capital accumulation have brought about a landscape where governments give up on real reforms and subcontract many responsibilities to outside parties, which then set up enclaves operating under their own laws.

“The imagined date for the report’s scenarios is 2030, but at least for ‘Nonstate World,’ it might as well be 2010: though most of us might not realize it, ‘Nonstate world’ describes much of how global society already operates. This isn’t to say that states have disappeared, or will. But they are becoming just one form of governance among many.

“A quick scan across the world reveals that where growth and innovation have been most successful, a hybrid public-private, domestic-foreign nexus lies beneath the miracle. These aren’t states; they’re ‘para-states’ — or, in one common parlance, ‘special economic zones.’…

“The broader consequence of these phenomena is that we should think beyond clearly defined nations and ‘nation building’ toward integrating a rapidly urbanizing world population directly into regional and international markets. That, rather than going through the mediating level of central governments, is the surest path to improving access to basic goods and services, reducing poverty, stimulating growth and raising the overall quality of life. …

“Our maps show a world of about 200 countries, but the number of effective authorities is hundreds more. … This is why weaker states must band together into regional groupings, or risk succumbing to the equally ancient principle of divide-and-conquer. … The Arab world will not be resurrected to its old glory until its map is redrawn to resemble a collection of autonomous national oases linked by Silk Roads of commerce.”

My Comment: But this is a short-term step to eliminate states and borders, and further there will be greater unification with equalization, by the path of suffering or awareness.
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In the News (from TechHive): “As the Internet evolved into a ubiquitous part of #ModernLife, we’ve witnessed a rise in the number of distinct mental disorders directly tied to our use of digital technology. These afflictions, which range from benign to destructive, weren’t recognized by the medical community until very recently, and didn’t even exist before the Clinton administration.

“Phantom Ringing Syndrome: When your brain punks you into thinking your phone is buzzing in your pocket.

“Have you ever reached for the vibrating phone in your pocket only to realize that it was silent the whole time—or weirder still, it wasn’t even in your pocket to begin with? While you may be slightly delusional, you aren’t alone. …

“Nomophobia: The anxiety that arises from not having access to one’s mobile device. The term ‘Nomophobia’ is an abbreviation of ‘no-mobile phobia.’…

“Cybersickness: The disorientation and dizziness some people feel when interacting with certain digital environments. …

“Facebook Depression: Depression caused by social interactions, or lack thereof, on Facebook…. One possible reason is that people tend to post only good news about themselves on Facebook: Vacations, promotions, party pics, etc. So, it’s very easy to fall under the false belief that everyone else is leading far happier and successful lives than you (when this may not be the case at all). …

“Internet Addiction Disorder: A constant and unhealthy urge to access the Internet. … Internet Addiction Disorder (sometimes referred to as Problematic Internet Use) is excessive Internet use that interferes with daily life.

“Online Gaming Addiction: An unhealthy need to access online multiplayer games. …

“Cyberchondria: The tendency to believe you have diseases you read about online. That’s the kind of thinking that goes on in the head of Cyberchondriacs—a downward spiral of medical factoids strung together to reach the worst possible conclusions. And it’s far from uncommon. A 2008 Microsoft study found that search-engine-aided self-diagnosis typically led the afflicted searcher to conclude the worst possible outcome. …

“The Google Effect: The tendency of the human mind to retain less information because it knows that all answers are only a few clicks away. Thanks to the Internet, a single individual can easily access nearly all the information civilization has amassed since the beginning of time. And as it turns out, this ability may be altering the very way our brains function.”

My Comment: Our egoism is constantly evolving and looking for new sources of contentment, corresponding to its development. Therefore, all these temporary Internet attractions will pass; they will be replaced by new aspirations: to reveal the secret of our existence.
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In the News (from Vox): ”Although worries about cannabis are usually based on prevalence rates of cannabis use in the population, age of the first use of cannabis is important as well. Early onset age of cannabis may have serious short-term and long-term negative effects on individuals. Previous studies find that early cannabis use increases the intensity of use and the probability of subsequent drug use (Yamaguchi and Kandel 1984). Van Ours and Williams (2007) find using Australian data that individuals who start using cannabis early in life are less likely to quit at later ages. Van Ours (2007) finds for cannabis users in Amsterdam that quitting rates increase with the age of onset. Van Ours et al. (2013) find using data from New Zealand that early onset of cannabis use may lead to mental-health problems i.e. to suicidal thoughts.

“Cannabis policies across the world differ – cannabis use can be: Legal, Illegal but decriminalised, Illegal but unenforced, or Illegal.

“The slight difference between decriminalisation and non-enforcement is that under decriminalisation there is no legal punishment, whereas under non-enforcement there is a punishment, but this is rarely enforced. Only four states in the world have legal or quasi-legal cannabis use: the Netherlands, the states of Washington and Colorado in the US, and North Korea. Several European and South American countries and states in North America have decriminalised cannabis use. However, countries which forbid cannabis use still outnumber the others …

“Our recent paper investigates if cannabis shops in the Netherlands have had negative spillover effects on youngsters by analysing to what extent living near a coffeeshop affects the age of onset of cannabis use (Palali and Van Ours 2013). If there was a negative spillover effect, then we would expect those who are living close to coffeeshops to have a lower age of onset of cannabis use. …

“…Furthermore, we would expect the closure of all cannabis shops to lead some potential users to go on the black market in search of cannabis, where they will be more likely to come across dealers of hard drugs. All in all, although existence of coffeeshops seems to have an adverse effect on the uptake of cannabis among youngsters, this is insufficient reason to advocate closure of coffeeshops. …”

My Comment: The task of the elite is to put all the extra people in the world on soft drugs to calm them. There is nothing to occupy them, and their number needs to be cut by wars or natural population decline.

The method of integral education (Kabbalah) says that everyone in the world carries his spiritual information, which he is required to realize, and the sooner the better for him and for the world. Therefore, it is necessary to explain what the meaning of human existence is and civilization and how we can reach the goal, set by nature, (the Creator), in the best way.
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