Paradigm Shift. David Lipschitz letter to the Cape Times published Mon 18 Jul 2016

In case you're wondering what is going on in Turkey and Britain, watch Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" on Youtube at https://youtu.be/EAscWLlvUKY

People are rising up against their corrupt "leaders" who have forgotten how to listen to the (their?) people. The last time this happened, the world experienced The French Revolution.

I personally believe that bloodshed is not required anymore. Talking is needed. Trust is needed.

Equanimity must be used to replace ignorance, and aversion with compassion and unconditional love on an abundant planet which a few people have corrupted by creating artificial scarcity.

People must be allowed to say what they truly think (about each other), and they must have trusted guides, without agendas, who can facilitate this discussion in a tranquil manner in a beautiful setting like the City of Cape Town. My personal suggestion is that these discussions are held inside St George's Cathedral, which was a bastion and barricade against apartheid and other past dangers.

Talking and action, with self and community regeneration, is already happening in grass-roots communities in (South) Africa, and in "awakened companies" (see book by Catherine Bell) throughout the world.

Government is not needed anymore, at least not the way it is currently structured. Something else is needed. And ubuntu and its foundation of "seeing each other for who we truly are, inside" will show us a way.

Its not the best quality photo. On the right of the left hand page is my letter as published above.
On the right hand page is Bill Gates letter.
We are finally next to each other.

Let people of SA be central in decision over fracking. David Lipschitz letter to the Cape Times published Fri 11 Mar 2016

According to your newspaper (March 10), the government will release their fracking findings today. Should fracking go ahead? Should we be concerned about the environment? Can there be compromise between environmentalists and frackers?

The problem in South Africa is much bigger than mining. We all know about the "resource curse."

Mining countries are worse off than countries without mines, even in Africa. The mining and mineral rich countries are growing slowly. The others are growing fast.

Why? Because countries without mines rely on their ingenuity, whereas countries with mines rely on their mines, and forget their minds.

Colonialists came here, initially for the bounty from our soil, and then for our mineral wealth.

They took huge amounts of money and built their empires and their houses. Think castles, chateaux, mansions, manor houses and stately homes with their hundreds of rooms, many servants, and huge grounds. And not only their rich got rich, but many of their people got rich, too.

Nkandla fades into insignificance when compared with the grandeur of these massive houses and estates.

And through all this, the masses of South Africans remain destitute, dependent on the state. If the state decides to frack the Karoo and the coastal waters around Cape Town, then the state must give the profits to the people so that the people become as rich as the state. We know that this is never going to happen!

We cannot blame the colonialists. It is a fact of the past, applicable in "white" countries and in "black" countries; applicable to white-on-white colonialism and black-on-black colonialism, applicable to religious colonialism and any type of colonisation where one people wanted something that another people had, or has.

We are in the 21st Century, a century with more possibilities for the people than ever before if we choose to grab hold of the opportunities and the future, rather than corrupting our minds by staying in the past.

So we can either spend the billions of dollars that would have been invested in fracking our gas resources to pollute our world and our minds for another 30 years - before we run out and then deal with a worse environmental disaster than the one we already have, probably with even bigger unemployment, more crime and more destitute people - or rather take the decision to immediately clean up our act and install the alternative, clean energies, that we have now.

Our costs will be a lot less. Our health costs will be a lot less. And government will be doing its job of governance, looking after the land and its borders and the environment, thus making it as clean as possible so that its people can have healthy minds, healthy bodies, and so that we can all be employed.