No President attacked Iran before because they knew regime change wasn’t possible unless we put boots on the ground. The Iranian people will pay for this for years, and so will we.
Negotiations were happening with Iran. It's the governments that are not acting in good faith. The People of the US & Iran, generally, want peace. We need to stop the corrupt control of manipulative "leaders" who are only looking out for themselves!!
We also need to look at the undelying causes which allowed this evil tyrant (Trump) to be elected president.
Sadly our citizenry has largely taken its comfort and its democracy for granted.
People don't vote, especially in local and state elections. People don't engage with one another. Human suffering is overlooked, not only globally, but within local communities. It does not brother us that two working parents can work hard all day long and still not earn enough to provide a sable household for their family.
Hey, stock market us going up. Things must be o.k. Our Attorney General recently said as much. If we believe it's ok for our neighbors, our fellow citizens to "choose," to live in such circumstances, we should not be surprised at the result.
Thank you for focusing on the human toll and suffering of the Iranian people! Also I’m hoping Americans will finally peel back the veneer to reveal all the tech bros, white Christian nationalists, and fascist oligarchs behind Trump’s presidency, who are taking advantage of his disinterested mind. They are the engineers of this mayhem.
I am one of the few Americans fortunate to have spent two weeks in Iran in early 2016,
What lovely people who sought me/us out to tell how much they wanted good relationship with the West in general, the U.S. in particular.
Their ancient civilization is a thing of wonder.
It breaks my heart that those lovely people are being bombed for something they have no more control over than i do the brutal foreign policy of the United States.
From my perch as a contemporary Elder, I see the issue is not intelligence, experience, or even strategy—it’s the absence of wisdom. Wisdom is the capacity to see beyond immediate gain, beyond optics, beyond winning the moment. It integrates consequence, context, and the long arc of impact. Without it, decisions become reactive, driven by ego, fear, or loyalty rather than what stabilizes and serves the whole. You get noise instead of clarity, assertion instead of understanding, movement without direction. A Cabinet without wisdom may act decisively, even confidently—but it will lack grounding. And when leadership lacks grounding, the country feels it—fragmented, accelerated, and increasingly unsteady. We badly need Elders who are the heart of wisdom.
The “absence of wisdom” is an interesting concept but— what about the absence of a MORAL COMPASS? To me, true wisdom must include a strong belief in the DIGNITY of every human being as created by God. And another point, I’ve known young adults with more wisdom as you describe it here than their “contemporary Elders”!
The article on Iranian executions of these young men, and others without faces, for having an opinion makes me ill. To think if the tables were turned this could essentially be us/anyone in opposition our disgusting administration is extremely troubling. And as a mom of a young son whom I hope to have raised to stand up for injustice, I see his face in theirs and it's absolutely heartbreaking. America has blood on its hands. Our obsession with reality TV has officially turned into a nightmare.
I am in complete agreement with your perspective. We have walked backwards and continue to.
My heart goes out to the millions of peaceful people whose lives have been utterly destroyed by this and other egomaniacal power-drunk "leaders." It would seem that, having finally understood a Nobel Peace Prize is a non-starter, the only way to assure a legacy greater than a footnote is to be the absolute worst leader imaginable. I trust he won't live long enough to earn that moniker, but I'm afraid he'll give his utmost effort. Necessary, perhaps to apologize to the people of Cuba in advance.
What an insoluble stain on our collective humanity. This won't wash out, ever.
We have a responsibility to remove our President and dismantle our Pentagon (which channels the most nefarious energies on Earth), before they instigate a World War. And in some ways they have already launched such a war with their continuous, destabilizing bait-and-switch tactics. For theirs is a psychic war which keeps the entire world mesmerized, terrified and stymied or resigned. So we have become victims of all that deviates us from what is most urgent and most important. Moreover, we have lost track of the larger, ever-present, real war that places Humanity itself on the edge of extinction: The war against climate disruption, the war for continued life on this planet.
The corporate-news cycles, however, care nothing about Humanity—our humanity—or mass extinction, and it is these conservative, wealth-based institutions that are controlling the narrative: They strategically work against our highest good: against a world based on justice and inclusion, on love and self-restraint.
Meanwhile, those who uphold the Status Quo employ fear as well as divide-and conquer techniques. They believe the majority of Americans will remain passive and complacent (unlike the South Koreans who overthrew their dictator-want-a-be president by protesting in the snow for weeks and months without pause).
It is true: Nothing less than utter self-sacrifice will allow us to win this war—and we do have a duty to protect the rest of the world from US foreign policy. N.B. During the World War people gave up their lives or were willing to be imprisoned, understanding what the stakes: mass genocide worldwide and enslavement. Some of us thus will need to give up our lives to have the necessary impact.
But for right now, we can commence in a gentler manner by launching a Satya Graha Movement like Gandhi’s. His civil disobedience brought down the most powerful empire in the world. Truly we can start through civil disobedience. What we need now are strategists, influencers and inspired change-makers to launch a general strike. This needs to happen immediately. It is more potent than a protest because it occurs over months or years and it strikes at the roots of a greed-based economy, with its predation, its violent over-reach. (Such a nationwide effort leads us also in the direction of degrowth and environmental remediation.)
Moreover, this kind of action will involve all Americans, and transform us from a nation of passive, if not addicted, consumers into informed and engaged citizenry.
It behooves us to seize the day and mature into spiritually-minded citizen-activists!
Can this not be launched today? Otherwise it will happen in a different manner as the entire World grows closer to shunning us and launching embargoes against us. Instead we could voluntarily—intentionally—take hold of such a process through a General Strike nationwide, and thus take our own medicine voluntarily and be cured of an economic ethos which will stop at nothing short of extinction and “soul death”.
Maitreya Buddha stresses mutual aid across borders when stating, “Sharing could end both war and terrorism.”
May 1st strike. No work,school or purchases. This sat April 25th no ice/secret prisons peaceful march. Let’s resist together. Loved your reply , thank you.
It's very sad and dangerous that Trump and his sycophants don't seem to realize that it’s hypocrisy to criticize others without recognizing our own imperfections.
i don't understand the preoccupation with iran's nuclear capabilities. israel has nuclear arms and no one cares. and israel uses that capability so that it can do what it did in gaza and now again in lebanon. it reminds me of russia complaining about nato. nato was only a problem to russia if it wanted to return ukraine to colony status. then russia thought nato would interfere with its imperial ambitions.
if we are not willing to be fair about this we will have this horror
Was your point why focus only on Iran having a nuclear bomb when Israeli also does— and look at the horrific death and destruction committed by Israel in Gaza? In other words, do you mean that it’s fair to say neither country should possess a nuclear bomb?
yes, i think that's where i was going, that neither one should. but certainly not just one, because they would use it irresponsibly, criminally, like i think israel has been doing. that is committing the gaza crime bec they could and now continuing in lebanon
Mary, I agree with you. You see, in my view, there are two kinds of wisdom. Conventional wisdom, which is the accumulated knowledge of the culture, what people accept as true because it works, or appears to. It is practical, familiar, and often unexamined. It helps us function, but it also confines us to the limits of the current narrative. Higher wisdom begins where conventional wisdom ends. It questions what is assumed, sees beyond appearances, and is not bound by agreement or tradition. It is not concerned with fitting in, but with seeing clearly. Conventional wisdom keeps life manageable. Higher wisdom transforms it. One preserves the world as it is; the other reveals what else is possible. Morality, humanity, spirituality, and integrity are a subset of higher wisdom.
the fascist regime is creating chaos. We must resist to me is the only way. May 1at no work. no school, no spending day. April 25th is a march for no ICE facilities… communities not cages for http://immigrants.how/ does a deranged individual have this control with no consequences?
Negotiations were happening with Iran. It's the governments that are not acting in good faith. The People of the US & Iran, generally, want peace. We need to stop the corrupt control of manipulative "leaders" who are only looking out for themselves!!
We also need to look at the undelying causes which allowed this evil tyrant (Trump) to be elected president.
Sadly our citizenry has largely taken its comfort and its democracy for granted.
People don't vote, especially in local and state elections. People don't engage with one another. Human suffering is overlooked, not only globally, but within local communities. It does not brother us that two working parents can work hard all day long and still not earn enough to provide a sable household for their family.
Hey, stock market us going up. Things must be o.k. Our Attorney General recently said as much. If we believe it's ok for our neighbors, our fellow citizens to "choose," to live in such circumstances, we should not be surprised at the result.
My fear - the seeds of WWIIi are sewn.
Thank you for focusing on the human toll and suffering of the Iranian people! Also I’m hoping Americans will finally peel back the veneer to reveal all the tech bros, white Christian nationalists, and fascist oligarchs behind Trump’s presidency, who are taking advantage of his disinterested mind. They are the engineers of this mayhem.
Amen
I pray that our goodness and our principles are held in trust for us, here and around the world.
It’s up to us, the people.
I am one of the few Americans fortunate to have spent two weeks in Iran in early 2016,
What lovely people who sought me/us out to tell how much they wanted good relationship with the West in general, the U.S. in particular.
Their ancient civilization is a thing of wonder.
It breaks my heart that those lovely people are being bombed for something they have no more control over than i do the brutal foreign policy of the United States.
I was there as a child and I remember how beautiful it was
From my perch as a contemporary Elder, I see the issue is not intelligence, experience, or even strategy—it’s the absence of wisdom. Wisdom is the capacity to see beyond immediate gain, beyond optics, beyond winning the moment. It integrates consequence, context, and the long arc of impact. Without it, decisions become reactive, driven by ego, fear, or loyalty rather than what stabilizes and serves the whole. You get noise instead of clarity, assertion instead of understanding, movement without direction. A Cabinet without wisdom may act decisively, even confidently—but it will lack grounding. And when leadership lacks grounding, the country feels it—fragmented, accelerated, and increasingly unsteady. We badly need Elders who are the heart of wisdom.
The “absence of wisdom” is an interesting concept but— what about the absence of a MORAL COMPASS? To me, true wisdom must include a strong belief in the DIGNITY of every human being as created by God. And another point, I’ve known young adults with more wisdom as you describe it here than their “contemporary Elders”!
The article on Iranian executions of these young men, and others without faces, for having an opinion makes me ill. To think if the tables were turned this could essentially be us/anyone in opposition our disgusting administration is extremely troubling. And as a mom of a young son whom I hope to have raised to stand up for injustice, I see his face in theirs and it's absolutely heartbreaking. America has blood on its hands. Our obsession with reality TV has officially turned into a nightmare.
Me too. I keep thinking about their moms, their families. It is so heartbreaking
I am in complete agreement with your perspective. We have walked backwards and continue to.
My heart goes out to the millions of peaceful people whose lives have been utterly destroyed by this and other egomaniacal power-drunk "leaders." It would seem that, having finally understood a Nobel Peace Prize is a non-starter, the only way to assure a legacy greater than a footnote is to be the absolute worst leader imaginable. I trust he won't live long enough to earn that moniker, but I'm afraid he'll give his utmost effort. Necessary, perhaps to apologize to the people of Cuba in advance.
What an insoluble stain on our collective humanity. This won't wash out, ever.
We have a responsibility to remove our President and dismantle our Pentagon (which channels the most nefarious energies on Earth), before they instigate a World War. And in some ways they have already launched such a war with their continuous, destabilizing bait-and-switch tactics. For theirs is a psychic war which keeps the entire world mesmerized, terrified and stymied or resigned. So we have become victims of all that deviates us from what is most urgent and most important. Moreover, we have lost track of the larger, ever-present, real war that places Humanity itself on the edge of extinction: The war against climate disruption, the war for continued life on this planet.
The corporate-news cycles, however, care nothing about Humanity—our humanity—or mass extinction, and it is these conservative, wealth-based institutions that are controlling the narrative: They strategically work against our highest good: against a world based on justice and inclusion, on love and self-restraint.
Meanwhile, those who uphold the Status Quo employ fear as well as divide-and conquer techniques. They believe the majority of Americans will remain passive and complacent (unlike the South Koreans who overthrew their dictator-want-a-be president by protesting in the snow for weeks and months without pause).
It is true: Nothing less than utter self-sacrifice will allow us to win this war—and we do have a duty to protect the rest of the world from US foreign policy. N.B. During the World War people gave up their lives or were willing to be imprisoned, understanding what the stakes: mass genocide worldwide and enslavement. Some of us thus will need to give up our lives to have the necessary impact.
But for right now, we can commence in a gentler manner by launching a Satya Graha Movement like Gandhi’s. His civil disobedience brought down the most powerful empire in the world. Truly we can start through civil disobedience. What we need now are strategists, influencers and inspired change-makers to launch a general strike. This needs to happen immediately. It is more potent than a protest because it occurs over months or years and it strikes at the roots of a greed-based economy, with its predation, its violent over-reach. (Such a nationwide effort leads us also in the direction of degrowth and environmental remediation.)
Moreover, this kind of action will involve all Americans, and transform us from a nation of passive, if not addicted, consumers into informed and engaged citizenry.
It behooves us to seize the day and mature into spiritually-minded citizen-activists!
Can this not be launched today? Otherwise it will happen in a different manner as the entire World grows closer to shunning us and launching embargoes against us. Instead we could voluntarily—intentionally—take hold of such a process through a General Strike nationwide, and thus take our own medicine voluntarily and be cured of an economic ethos which will stop at nothing short of extinction and “soul death”.
Maitreya Buddha stresses mutual aid across borders when stating, “Sharing could end both war and terrorism.”
May 1st strike. No work,school or purchases. This sat April 25th no ice/secret prisons peaceful march. Let’s resist together. Loved your reply , thank you.
My name is Edie
I’m from Canada and have been following you for a while
I appreciate you’re saying it like it is and often worry for possible repercussions on you
My prayers are with you and how you keep us in touch with US issues etc
It's very sad and dangerous that Trump and his sycophants don't seem to realize that it’s hypocrisy to criticize others without recognizing our own imperfections.
Thank you for being the voice of conscience, dear Marianne… so much that needs to be lamented… and set right.
i don't understand the preoccupation with iran's nuclear capabilities. israel has nuclear arms and no one cares. and israel uses that capability so that it can do what it did in gaza and now again in lebanon. it reminds me of russia complaining about nato. nato was only a problem to russia if it wanted to return ukraine to colony status. then russia thought nato would interfere with its imperial ambitions.
if we are not willing to be fair about this we will have this horror
It is reasonable to not want Iran to have a nuclear bomb.
Was your point why focus only on Iran having a nuclear bomb when Israeli also does— and look at the horrific death and destruction committed by Israel in Gaza? In other words, do you mean that it’s fair to say neither country should possess a nuclear bomb?
yes, i think that's where i was going, that neither one should. but certainly not just one, because they would use it irresponsibly, criminally, like i think israel has been doing. that is committing the gaza crime bec they could and now continuing in lebanon
i should have started with saying that i agree with everything in Marianne's essay.
Mary, I agree with you. You see, in my view, there are two kinds of wisdom. Conventional wisdom, which is the accumulated knowledge of the culture, what people accept as true because it works, or appears to. It is practical, familiar, and often unexamined. It helps us function, but it also confines us to the limits of the current narrative. Higher wisdom begins where conventional wisdom ends. It questions what is assumed, sees beyond appearances, and is not bound by agreement or tradition. It is not concerned with fitting in, but with seeing clearly. Conventional wisdom keeps life manageable. Higher wisdom transforms it. One preserves the world as it is; the other reveals what else is possible. Morality, humanity, spirituality, and integrity are a subset of higher wisdom.
As with anything Trump attempts to do - The Shift Has hit the Fan - Again!
https://substack.com/profile/45116113-debbi-rosales
https://substack.com/profile/45116113-debbi-rosales/note/c-246267722
the fascist regime is creating chaos. We must resist to me is the only way. May 1at no work. no school, no spending day. April 25th is a march for no ICE facilities… communities not cages for http://immigrants.how/ does a deranged individual have this control with no consequences?
💔