David Ford, in his own language:
I’m not fond of ""blunt language"" AND I reckon WE the Royal WE have got to collectively stand up & demand a total course correction to the Human race. If we really want to ""save OURSELVES""; I reckon all we have to collectively do is to STOP PARTICIPATING ~ STOP CON~ SUMING ~ and start RE~CREATING & playing (without consuming! ) more.
WE collectively have PILLAGED our MOTHER PLANET ~ therefore WE can COLLECTIVELY HEAL HER. It's pretty SIMPLE.
David Ford describes himself as a simple South Island, NZ farm boy (& ex Red neck National party man) who went on a 3 year OE that has morphed into 42 years as a proud GLOBAL CITIZEN AMBASSADOR for New Zealand's core values of kindness, peace seeking, generosity & can do co-operation.
He says he suffers from diaspora grief & the Cassandra curse; of being an outsider looking in at the country of his birth & love; New Zealand. David has invested 42 years as a councelling acupuncturist with a fierce focus on mediation & non violent communication.
I find myself becoming increasingly alarmed at the direction that our current Government, with it's blind seduction by the FAILED USA Neo CON dogma; & the resulting undoing of our core historical social obligations & contracts regards the deeper spiritual principles of KIWI care for the genuinely vulnerable in any endeavour in our nation.
That the neo liberal Neocon philosophy of monetarism has taken over our whole planet with a giant global mass media brain washing via television to convince us that quality of life should be judged around making of money, instead of family and community values and environmental integrity that extends to a respect for life within the biosphere and that of the natural world.
The Northern Hemisphere capitalist model of 'business as usual & every man for themselves' is a broken lie & NOT fixable. I believe that this is the SOUTHERN hemisphere century. Our job is to lead the World into a new vision around the co-operative social principles first enshrined in our great little nation by NZ Prime Minister - Michael Joseph Savage.
‘The idea of the 'survival of the fittest' has been throughly disproven & replaced by a new idea ‘the survival of the fit in’ in other words social systems thrive through co-operation, not competition.’
‘I take great care & pride in my diplomatic skills, and believe also in the wise use of ‘blunt truth to power’ when the elected public servants of ‘we the people’ begin to abuse the faith we placed in them as our elected collective representatives. Lao Tsu the great Chinese sage said ""It is the responsibility of a man who can SEE to tell a BLIND horseman on a BLIND horse that he is heading toward an ABYSS!’
It was with these words in mind that I recently marched in the anti TPPA rally in Auckland with a banner statement reading
KEY = CORPORATE WHORE ~ NOT a KIWI PATRIOT'
“Not my usual diplomacy! What surprised me the most was the very high numbers of ‘thumbs ups’ I received from National party supporters.""
A true leaders job is to present such an INSPIRING VISION for the direction of their nation where in everyone across all political spectrums rally around that vision as well as inspire other nations to that call as well. “John Key in my opinion has squandered his entire leadership on a failed Northern hemisphere philosophy that is plunging the planet into a deeper & deeper GLOBAL crisis & future nightmare""
""Time to wake up; rise up; oppose the TPPA and remember the values that have historically made us in Nuclear free NZ the worlds ""little shining light"".
TIME for ALL nations to unite in a GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL D~Day & restore this Ancient Eden Spaceship EARTH so as to rebalance all natural systems, and sustainably live within our planets majestic, tightly coupled, ecological web of life.
Tim Lynch’s Version:
42 years living outside NZ, reveals to recently returned David Ford, an Eastern medicinal practitioner - the huge changes in the demographics and the dynamics of Aotearoa New Zealand.
NZ was once a country that used to be called 'Gods-own' the land of 'milk and honey' where there was not a great divergence between the haves and the have nots, the rich and the poor and with the possibility of a more egalitarian and more cooperative, caring community - that actually shared more and embraced a duty of care. We had both major political parties supporting each other around the importance of education and health and the common wheel. Yet today, with the advent of neoliberal economics we have now morphed into a nation that monetarises almost everything be it produce or services that we are in danger of financialising NZ's very soul and selling out our sovereignty be it on a personal as well as a national level.
Where once NZ stood on the world stage as a moral compass for good, being a fair minded reformist for civil society, how can we today as a nation bring back the spirit of goodwill into our daily affairs - across the whole of our nation?
This is a call to all 4.5 million NZers to realise the great gift of living in this peaceful and fecund country, to understand kaitiakitanga - guardianship and to protect this sacred land. But more so, to pull the strings of community closer together so that we can live as a localised example of global family.
Listen to a voice that harkens to the old values and virtues that were expressed in the 1950's, 60s and 70's that have now been virtually forgotten, yet which need to not only be remembered, but embraced - especially for the sake of our children and grandchildren.