A Mesmerizing Performance

I mentioned previously how I had tickets for the live-stream of All the World’s a Stage, a performance by dancer Kadeem Hosein (known as Kadeem En Pointe) and friends that took place last Friday (August 14) at the Shaw Theatre in Kings Cross, London.

It was a great show, and I offer heartfelt thanks to Kadeem and all who worked and performed with him on producing a wonderful gift for the world. Along with Kadeem, others who performed in All the World’s a Stage included dance artists Mercedes Prevatt and Rebecca Chan, singer and musical theatre performer Eve Shanu-Wilson, creatives Mandy Izquierdo, Two Thunder, and Storrveldi, performer Xavier Thomas, and choreographic duo Bloom Collective.

The live-stream of All the World’s a Stage took place at 1:00 p.m. in Minneapolis, as we’re six hours behind London. I invited two chaplain colleagues, Barson and Charity, to watch the first twenty minutes or so with me on a computer in the Spiritual Care office of the hospital at which we work. Like me, they were mesmerized by the beauty and skill of the show’s diverse range of performances.

Kadeem is already planning a second performance for the winter. The best way to stay informed about this event and other projects and performances by Kadeem is by following him on social media. To get started, visit Kadeem’s official website and sign-up to his mailing list. Kadeem is also on He is also on Instagram and Facebook.

The following performance of "The Dying Swan" by Kadeem is from September 2020. In describing this dance when it was first posted of YouTube, Kadeem said the following.

Choreographed by Mikhail Fokin for Anna Pavlova in 1905, the piece I dance here - The Dying Swan - is a staple of classical ballet, performed by ballerinas the world over. Maybe my interpretation is not as great (I am not a professional dancer, I only do it as a hobby), but I had fun shooting it and I hope it inspires some people to go outside of their comfort zone - it wasn’t easy to dance in public, add taking your shirt off, putting on pointe shoes AND a tutu . . . need I say more?

Related Off-site Links:
Kadeem’s Official Website
“Being a Ballet Dancer Is Years of Hard Work, But It’s All Worth It” Says Kadeem En Pointe – Stuart Norval (France 24, February 26, 2026).
Men en Pointe: Ballet Dancers Kick Against Gender Stereotypes – Matilda Martin (The Guardian, March 10, 2021).


See also the following dance-related Wild Reed posts:
• Kadeem
• A Message in Dance That Challenges, Inspires and Liberates
• Kadeem En Pointe: Finding Freedom in Dance
• The Soul of a Dancer
• The Trouble with the Male Dancer – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
• The Premise of All Forms of Dance
• The Art of Dancing as the Supreme Symbol of the Spiritual Life
• The Power of Dance
• “Then I Shall Leap Into Love”
• Love’s the Only Dance
• We All Dance
• Not Whether We Dance, But How
• The Dance of Life
• And As We Dance . . .
• Our Dance
• “I Came Alive With Hope”
• Finding Balance in the Presence of the Beloved
• Our Bodies Are Part of the Cosmos
• Flexibility and Flow
• Move Us, Loving God
• A Prayer for Dancers
• Trusting the Flow
• Aristotle Papanikolaou on How Being Religious Is Like Being a Dancer

“Woke 1.0” as Revisionist History

In my view the 32-minute BreakThrough News segment below is a must-see as it explains a lot about what we’re currently witnessing in U.S. politics and society.

Here’s how this segment is introduced on the independent news outlet’s Facebook page.

[The year] 2020 wasn’t a joke – but is “Woke 1.0” proof of a calculated pivot to the right? Both Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Zohran Mamdani dismissed the George Floyd uprising against police violence as "crazy," but as Rania Khalek and Zoe Alexandra argue this isn’t just careless language: it’s a warning sign of how the Democratic Party disciplines “progressives” to protect the ruling class from socialism’s growing popularity.

Rania and Zoe break down Mamdani’s shift – from explicitly linking NYPD militarization to Israel in 2023, to stating las Wednesday that “defund the police” was a mistake – and argue this isn't an organic evolution, it’s a bet that toeing the party line is the only way to survive in a corporate, genocide-funding party built to crush movements, not represent them.

It’s a growing pattern of capitulation: Mamdani, AOC, and Brad Lander all backing Hakeem Jeffries for House Speaker despite his defense of Israeli apartheid and genocide; Michigan’s William Lawrence disavowing Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) membership within a month of winning his primary on DSA organizing; and Abdul El-Sayed enthusiastically embracing Kamala Harris’s endorsement despite her role enabling the annihilation of Gaza.

“2020 wasn’t some mass psychotic break. It was the largest uprising in modern American history, because tens of millions of people watched a police officer kneel on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes until he died – suffocated to death, on camera, in broad daylight,” says Rania Khalek.

If the movement lets these betrayals go unanswered, what stops Abolish ICE, Medicare for All, and Free Palestine from being next on the chopping block?

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

THE STATE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
• Ashley Stevens: Quote of the Day – August 18, 2026
• “Our Country Right Now Is At a Crossroads”
• Abdul El-Sayed: The Disruptor Michigan (and the Country) Needs
• Scotty T. Reid on James Clyburn as a “Defender of the Political Establishment and Its Policies of Oppression”
• Jeff Waldorf: Quote of the Day – July 3, 2026
• Mike Figueredo on the “Political Malpractice” of the Democratic Party
• The Time for Illusions Is Over: Henry Giroux on the Democratic Party
• David Norton: “The Democratic Party Serves Capital, Not You”
• Mike Figueredo: “Elected Democrats Have No Real Interest in Doing What the Base Wants”
• Ted Rall: Democrats Are Not “the Left”
• Exposing the Dark Money Network Secretly Funding Establishment Democratic Influencers
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Adam Bates on the Team Blue / Kamala “I Told Ya So” Smugness Tour
• When the “Blue Wave” Is a “Blue Crackdown”
• The Longstanding Fault Lines Within the Democratic Party Have Surfaced Again in Minnesota
• Jeff Cohen on How Obama’s “Corporate Liberalism” Led to the Rise of Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• “We Must Challenge the Entire System”
• Marianne Williamson: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is Not Enough to Win”
• Nick Cruse: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is the Privileged Position”
• Oliver Kornetzke’s Epic Takedown of the Liberal Tactic of Blaming and Shaming Leftists
• Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t


ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• AOC Falls in Line
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders and AOC’s “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Dorothy Lennon: Quote of the Day – June 25, 2025


THE RISE OF FASCISM IN THE U.S.
• George Conway: The Trump Administration Is a “Criminal Organization”
• Mark Greene on How ICE Is a Weapon of the Epstein Class
• Tommy J. Housman on Reactions to the “Defining Image” of Trump’s America
• James Greenberg: “I Am in Mourning for America”
• An Incident That Feels “Ripped from a Dystopian Novel”
• The “Creeping Fascism of Trump’s America”: A View from Australia
• Will Potter on Trump’s War on Dissent: “This Is What Fascists Do”
• Derek Johnson on the “Courage to Call Fascism by Its Name”
• Jason Duchin: Quote of the Day – September 24, 2025
• Staying Strong in Trump’s Fascist America
• James Greenberg on the Identity Politics of MAGA
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like in Practice”
• Garrett Graff: “America Tips Into Fascism”
• Marianne Williamson: “We’re Moving Into Totalitarianism”
• “It’s Here, and We Are Sleepwalking Through It”
• Khalil Gibran Muhammad on Donald Trump’s Militarization of Law Enforcement
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025


THE GREEN PARTY
• Butch Ware on Why Third Parties Are Crucial
• Campaigning With the Green Party
• With the Green Party at Twin Cities Pride
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Something to Think About – December 8, 2024
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• Butch Ware: “I’m Not Here as a Spoiler”
• Jill Stein: “Americans Deserve Choices”
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Third Parties and the Historical Record
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
• Cornel West: “The Next Step Is a Green Step, a Progressive Step”
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)
• Voting Green: Hope Over Fear

Mysticism and Miracles

In continuing with the Wild Reed series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication of A Course in Miracles, I share this evening excerpts from Jon Mundy’s 2018 book, A Course in Mysticism and Miracles.

____________

Since its release in 1976, A Course in Miracles has come to be regarded as a great work of art and a 21st-century spiritual classic. More than three million copies now exist in twenty-seven different languages. What is unique about the Course is its incredibly high level of psychological sophistication. It is truly a document of the 21st-century – one that gives us ever-deeper insight into the working of the mind.

A Course in Miracles presents itself as “a manual for a special curriculum, intended for teachers of a special form of the universal course. There are many thousands of other forms, all with the same outcome.” The Course is but one of many thousands of spiritual paths – indeed, thousands upon thousands. There have always been those, like the 13th-century Persian mystic Jalaluddin Rumi, who have brought us different spiritual truths. In fact, many of the ideas contained in the Course are reflected in the teachings of a host of different thinkers and traditions that both pre-date and are contemporaneous with it. This is especially true for those who engage in what is called non-dualistic thinking – Gnostics, Neoplatonists, Advaita Vedantists, Zen Buddhists, Sufis, Kabbalists, Transcendentalists, and those who expound New Thought philosophies. Interfaith work and/or what is also called Interspirituality is clearly the wave of the future. In the end, no religion wins. God wins, which means everyone wins, as our will must ultimately be the same as that of God. Everything not of God is illusory – what the Course calls “the dreaming of the world.” The Course, like all mystical teachings, calls upon us to awaken from all dreaming.

[. . .] Like all mystical “systems,” the Course is a path, a way, a process, and a passage. It is a story that tells us of the grand destiny and points the way to the path out of hell. Ultimately, the answer to the riddle we call life is simply a matter of a willingness to live in harmony with the Divine. That is the miracle. We are simply called upon to remember – or better, re-cognize – what we already know.

[. . .] Spend time reading the Course and you’ll soon say: “Who wrote this?” It is clear that no “body” wrote it. It came through the mind and the hands of Helen Schucman, a professor of medical psychology at Columbia University. Having known Helen, however – as brilliant as she was – these sentences are not her ordinary way of speaking or being. [. . .] One spring Sunday in 1975, Helen sat me down with Bill Thetford and another of her colleagues, Ken Wapnick, in Ken’s tiny studio apartment in New York. There, she told me how the Course had come to be and how it affected the other people in the room. [. . .] Helen became a kind of informal therapist for me, helping me sort through my feelings and deal with my too-frequent romantic upheavals. A few weeks after our meeting, Helen met Judy Whitson, who later became the President of the Foundation for Inner Peace, which published the first edition of the Course. Judy and I had been friends since the 1960s and were both working with the American Society for Psychical Research. Judy arranged for the xeroxing of 300 copies of the Course – called the Criswell Edition – so a small group of us could start reading it and practicing the Workbook lessons prior to its publication in 1976.

[. . .] It is fair to say that many folks today are abandoning traditional religion in favor of a deeper, more contemplative spiritual life. Mysticism is becoming more mainstream, and religious dogma is less likely to be accepted without question. Whatever the spiritual discipline or path – Sufism, A Course in Miracles, Buddhism, Taoism, Gnosticism, yoga, mystical Christianity, the Kabbala, or perhaps your own unique inner path – they all reflect one universal journey that leads to a unitive goal. More and more people are now ready to embark on this journey. They are ready to walk the mystical path.

This can be extremely difficult to do in our often frenetic modern world, however. [. . .] Like Helen Schucman, we must withstand continual tests and trails along the way before we arrive at a place where God is all we know, all we see, and all we love. Acceptance and forgiveness can easily be lost in the tangled web of relationships that hamper our progress on our journey. We may think we are beyond judgment and then, unexpectedly, we make a judgment – perhaps not as quickly as previously, but a judgment nonetheless. We may think we have achieved forgiveness, but the ego often slips in the back door when we aren’t looking and pulls us back into its world of illusion.

Despite these challenges, the mystical path is a gentle path that can lead you out of the ego world and into Oneness. Ultimately, it is an easy journey because it ends where it begins – in Unity. Mysticism is, by its very nature, welcoming and affirming, rewarding and fulfilling. It makes no demands, There are no pledges to sign, no dues to pay. There are no rules or regulations. There are no magical formulas, no mysteries, no secrets, no oaths, no incantations, no rites, no rituals, no dogmas, and no creeds. Relax, take a deep breath. Mysticism is free.

When you walk the mystical path, you need not proselitize. Mysticism is not about converting or being in competion with any thought system. It involves no missionary effort and no saving of lost souls, because no one is lost. There are only those who know, and those who are sleeping and will someday awaken. In some ways, we are all like seeds long dormant; when properly nourished, we spring back to life.

Walking the mystical path is simply a matter of “listening to” and following guidance – of seeing the insanity of the world, and then choosing not to play the world’s game. When revelation replaces the illusion of a separate ego self, you gain everything and lose nothing, making it easy to share – to live for, and with, God and neighbor. Indeed, it is one of your pleasant obligations on the path to help awaken those who sleep – not by shaking them awake, but by giving a gentle nudge in the right direction. When you walk the mystical path, you identity with the whole of humanity, nature, animals, the Earth, music, the mind, the heart. You are not against anything or anyone. You have no agenda, only a sense of purpose. You acknowledge no opposites and no enemies. Since we are all One, there is no need to attack those who see things differently. Mysticism attracts without persuading.

In fact, mystical experience is so simple that it is easily missed, misinterpreted, or misunderstood in today’s hectic world. It lies hidden in most “ordinary” experiences and in every part of the whole. It also lies quietly in the heart and naturally finds creative expression in the most ordinary things – in babies, pets, plants, art, music, work, play – indeed, in all of life. Be spontaneous; be humorous; have fun; laugh frequently. Sing and dance and play your way along your journey. In possession of the moment, know that the moment is everything. Be patient and kind, and value your relationships. But always recognize the value of silence and solitude. Remember, no one can be truly alone when the Spirit is always present.

The mystical path leads you to the realization that all there is, is Life. Life is eternal and you have nothing to fear. At death, only the illusory shell of your body and your ego self is lost, and in that loss, you find freedom. The prison doors are opened and your ego selfs loosens its grasp on Spirit – or Spirit loosens its grip on the ego self. This is the message of resurrection – a joyous affirmation of the instrinsic beauty of life and an unequivocal denial of death. As a dewdrop slips from the leaf into the river and the river slips into the ocean, so mystics slip into the All to become the ocean. [. . .] What an increadible thing – to be a child of God. What an incredible thing it is to be!

– Jon Mundy
Excerpted from A Course in
Mysticism and Miracles
Weiser Books, 2018

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Why A Course in Miracles Is Not “New Age”
• A Course in Miracles: A Gift of Peace
• Gifts of Abundance
• I Am One With the Beloved
• Being One With the Beloved, the Source of All Things
• Your Peace Is With Me, Beloved One
• Dwelling in Peace
• The Peace of God
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Be In My Mind, Beloved One
• Stepping Out of Time and Resting Your Mind
• Resting in the Presence of the Beloved
• In the Stillness and Silence of This Present Moment
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Today I Will Be Still
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• Aligning With the Living Light
• An Expression of Humility

Quote of the Day

Democrats know exactly what their voters want. They have the data. The problem is what their voters want goes directly against what their donors/owners want. So they’re spending millions of dollars on consultants to figure out how to lie to you better.

– Ashley Stevens
via social media
August 18, 2026

Related Off-site Links:
“This Man Is So Out of Touch”: Hakeem Jeffries Slammed for Opposition to Medicare for All – Jon Queally (Common Dreams, August 17, 2026).
Medicare for All Would Be $40 Trillion Cheaper Than Our Shitty For-Profit System – Corbin Trent (Common Dreams, August 17, 2026).
The Deplorable Extremism of the So-Called “Moderates” – Norman Solomon (Common Dreams, August 17, 2026).
Corporate Democrats Must Realize the Enemy Is Trump and the Fascists – Not Progressives – Miles Mogulescu (Common Dreams, August 12, 2026).
Centrist Democrats Really Do Hate the Left More Than Trump – Branko Marcetic (Jacobin, August 7, 2026).

UPDATES: Independents Rise for Working People Where Democrats Once Upon a Time Stood – Les Leopold (Common Dreams, August 19, 2026).
The Reign of Corporate Democrats Is Coming to an End – Robert Reich (Common Dreams, August 19, 2026).
Another Democratic Socialist Victory – Angie Nixon in Florida – Sends Shock Waves Through Party Establishment – Richard Luscombe (The Guardian, August 19, 2026).
Why Are Progressives Winning Across the United States? It’s Not Complicated – Bernie Sanders (The Guardian, August 19, 2026).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

THE STATE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
• “Our Country Right Now Is At a Crossroads”
• Abdul El-Sayed: The Disruptor Michigan (and the Country) Needs
• Scotty T. Reid on James Clyburn as a “Defender of the Political Establishment and Its Policies of Oppression”
• Jeff Waldorf: Quote of the Day – July 3, 2026
• Mike Figueredo on the “Political Malpractice” of the Democratic Party
• The Time for Illusions Is Over: Henry Giroux on the Democratic Party
• David Norton: “The Democratic Party Serves Capital, Not You”
• Mike Figueredo: “Elected Democrats Have No Real Interest in Doing What the Base Wants”
• Ted Rall: Democrats Are Not “the Left”
• Exposing the Dark Money Network Secretly Funding Establishment Democratic Influencers
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Adam Bates on the Team Blue / Kamala “I Told Ya So” Smugness Tour
• When the “Blue Wave” Is a “Blue Crackdown”
• The Longstanding Fault Lines Within the Democratic Party Have Surfaced Again in Minnesota
• Jeff Cohen on How Obama’s “Corporate Liberalism” Led to the Rise of Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• “We Must Challenge the Entire System”
• Marianne Williamson: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is Not Enough to Win”
• Nick Cruse: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is the Privileged Position”
• Oliver Kornetzke’s Epic Takedown of the Liberal Tactic of Blaming and Shaming Leftists
• Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t


THE RISE OF FASCISM IN THE U.S.
• George Conway: The Trump Administration Is a “Criminal Organization”
• Mark Greene on How ICE Is a Weapon of the Epstein Class
• Tommy J. Housman on Reactions to the “Defining Image” of Trump’s America
• James Greenberg: “I Am in Mourning for America”
• An Incident That Feels “Ripped from a Dystopian Novel”
• The “Creeping Fascism of Trump’s America”: A View from Australia
• Will Potter on Trump’s War on Dissent: “This Is What Fascists Do”
• Derek Johnson on the “Courage to Call Fascism by Its Name”
• Jason Duchin: Quote of the Day – September 24, 2025
• Staying Strong in Trump’s Fascist America
• James Greenberg on the Identity Politics of MAGA
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like in Practice”
• Garrett Graff: “America Tips Into Fascism”
• Marianne Williamson: “We’re Moving Into Totalitarianism”
• “It’s Here, and We Are Sleepwalking Through It”
• Khalil Gibran Muhammad on Donald Trump’s Militarization of Law Enforcement
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025


THE GREEN PARTY
• Butch Ware on Why Third Parties Are Crucial
• Campaigning With the Green Party
• With the Green Party at Twin Cities Pride
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Something to Think About – December 8, 2024
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• Butch Ware: “I’m Not Here as a Spoiler”
• Jill Stein: “Americans Deserve Choices”
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Third Parties and the Historical Record
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
• Cornel West: “The Next Step Is a Green Step, a Progressive Step”
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)
• Voting Green: Hope Over Fear

You Don’t Have to Think

By Steve Taylor

You don’t have to think.
You don’t need to anticipate before you act
and provide a running commentary while you’re acting
then replay your actions afterward
at the same time as watching and critizing
the actions of others.

You don’t have to argue with yourself
about events that dissolved away decades ago
or resurrect ancient humiliations
that can still inflame you with hurt and hatred.
You don’t have to weave imaginary worlds
where you can satistfy your secret desires.

You don’t have to watch helplessly from the side
while your mind whirls away
creating unnecessary discord
and wasting precious energy.

You don’t have to think
except when thought is necessary
when you need to bring your conscious mind to bear
to deliberate, analyze, or organize
or to let your imagination drift
allowing ideas and insights to emerge
from the undercurrents of your consciousness.

Thought should be a tool
we can pick up when needed, then lay down again,
leaving us undisturbed.

Otherwise there is no need for thought
to disturb the natural stillness of your mind
to dilute the purity of experience
to distort reality through interpretation
to confuse the present with the past
and interfere with the impulses that gently flow
from the silent part of you, which knows
better than you think you do.

– Steve Taylor
From The Calm Center: Reflections and
Meditations for Spiritual Awakening
New World Library, 2015
p. 44

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Become the Sky
• The Smile
• “Window, Mind, Thought, Air and Love”
• Stepping Out of Time and Resting Your Mind/a>
• In the Stillness and Silence of This Present Moment
• Returning the Mind to God
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Cultivating Stillness
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• The Source Is Within You
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• Be In My Mind, Beloved One
• Your Peace Is With Me, Beloved One
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Until the Light Returns
• What the Wind Says
• Secret Language of the Heart
• Kahlil Gibran on Self-Knowledge

Image: At Pelican Lake, Glenwood, MN – Saturday, August 15, 2026. (Photo by Mackenzie Timmerman)

Rejecting “Cartoonish Conclusions” About Marxism and Dealing with the “Actual Architecture of Our Current Reality”

I don’t know who Gary Zajc is but I sure do appreciate his recent response on Facebook to Josh Bitterman’s take on The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 9depicted at right by an unknown artist).

Writes Bitterman: “[Although The Communist Manifesto] makes valid points about class disparity, [it] effectively uses grievance and idealistic vision to stoke the flames of envy and class warfare. . . . If equipped with wisdom and even a basic understanding of history, one will find that it is incredibly flawed, immature, arrogant, and utopian. It completely fails to account for human nature, the existence of evil, and what we, as modern-day readers of this text, now know about how it ALWAYS plays out in reality: constrained supply, increased demand and suffering, concentration of power, authoritarianism, tyranny, and mass murder. One conclusion is that it provides a dangerous roadmap for misguided, power-hungry, and charismatic leaders to manipulate the masses.”

Following is Zajc’s response.

This is just another shallow, entry-level political analysis that passes for profundity among people who have never actually had to reckon with the machinery of poverty.

Spare us your lazy deflections just because you believe reading the text reveals it to be “flawed, immature, arrogant, and utopian” because it fails to account for “human nature” and the “existence of evil.”

By reducing economic critique to a metaphysical debate about abstract “evil” and inherent “human nature,” the you run from having to deal with the actual architecture of our current reality.

It’s ignorant to blame “human nature” or “society” for economic suffering. Why are you letting the actual architects of our economy off the hook? We do not need to look at historical authoritarian regimes to find constrained supply, immense suffering, or the radical concentration of power. We are living it.

We are currently operating under an economic system meticulously designed to keep working-class people in poverty to protect the profit margins of a ruling class. The concentration of power is happening right now, out in the open, where corporate monopolies choke supply chains to artificially inflate prices, hedge funds buy up residential neighborhoods, and massive corporations use tipping as a structural payroll subsidy so they do not have to pay their own workers a living wage. That is not the tragic inevitable result of “human nature” – it is a deliberate, engineered system.

It’s even lazier to write off valid critiques of class disparity by claiming the text uses “grievance” and “idealistic vision to stoke the flames of envy.” This is the ultimate defense mechanism of the comfortable. You turn any demand for basic human dignity into a character flaw. It is not “envy” to point out that a billionaire class is extracting wealth from the very communities that do the actual physical labor to keep this country running. It is basic math, and recognizing that math is the first step toward actual accountability.

Dismissing structural critiques of capitalism as simply a “dangerous roadmap for misguided leaders” allows your comfortable ass to sit back and pretend that the economic strangulation of the working class is just a sad, unavoidable tragedy of the human condition.

It takes zero intellectual courage to declare that challenging a rigged system is dangerous. Real courage requires looking at the system currently crushing working families, recognizing it is operating exactly as it was built to, and demanding it be dismantled.

Get off your intellectually lazy ass, grow a pair, and invest the time and effort to understand a complex system before drawing cartoonish conclusions.

– Gary Zajc
via Facebook
August 14, 2026

Related Off-site Links:
Was Marx Right? It’s Not Too Late to Ask – Terry Eagleton (Commonweal, March 28, 2011).
For Karl Marx, Human Flourishing Is Inherently Social – Jan Kandiyali (Jacobin, October 12, 2025).
Karl Marx and Why Societies Stop Growing – Peter D’Autry (Medium, July 29, 2026).
How Karl Marx Went From Student to Revolutionary – Encyclopædia Britannica. Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism Wins the 2018 Deutscher Prize – Climate and Capitalism (November 25, 2018).
Reading Marx in the Corpse of Neoliberalism – Jason Koslowski (Left Voice, July 25, 2025).
Marx and Internationalism – John Bellamy Foster (Monthly Review, July-August 2000).
Love in the Time of Capital: A Review of Mary Gabriel’s Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution – Timothy Shenk (Dissent, Summer 2012).
To Struggle!: A Review of Marcello Musto’s The Last Years of Karl Marx – Mauricio Betancourt (Monthly Review, February 2024).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Marx and Class Struggle – Then and Now
• Terry Eagleton: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2011
• The Biblical Roots of “From Each According to Ability; To Each According to Need”
• A Socialist Response to the 2008 Financial Crisis
• Heather Cox Richardson on the Origin of the American Obsession with “Socialism”
• Capitalism on Trial

Photo of the Day

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Photo of the Day – August 9, 2025
• Eternal Summer
• Photo of the Day – August 17, 2023
• Summer Vignettes (2022)
• Summer Blooms (2021)
• Summer Garden (2021)
• Photo of the Day – August 23, 2020
• Summer Blooms (2015)
• Summer Blooms (2014)
• In Summer Light
• Photo of the Day – August 11, 2014
• Summer Blooms (2009)

Image: Michael J. Bayly.

MPR’s Major (But Unsurprising) Failure

Following Tuesday’s primary election results in the North Star State, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) News declared that:

Minnesota made history on primary night. For the first time, all of the candidates for the top political offices in Minnesota are women. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth will face each other for governor this fall, and Michele Tafoya and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan are vying for U.S. Senate.

This is simply not a fact-backed statement of truth.

For contrary to what MPR News declared, not all the candidates for Minnesota’s top offices are female. The Green Party’s candidate for Governor, Steve Young, is male. Young’s running mate, however, is female – Lieutenant Governor candidate Jane Kirby. (You can read about their campaign here.)

MPR’s erroneous reporting confirms the recent observations of Kristina Gronquist, a former Green Party-endorsed candidate for Minneapolis City Council. In a letter-to-the-editor of the Star Tribue, Gronquist notes the following.

Truth be told, there exists numerous feisty, principled candidates who are anti-fascist, unapologetically working class and who do not have monsters in their backgrounds. But you won’t find us in either of the two [corporate-backed “major”] parties. We are in third political parties, like the Green Party. Our platforms promote universal health care, peace through diplomacy, the environment, women’s rights and economic democracy. All our positions challenge the oligarchy and unfettered capitalism. Problem is, our voices are drowned out by the back-and-forth scandals of the two parties and a media that only reports on Democrats and Republicans, as if nothing else and no one else matters.

“[A] media that only reports on Democrats and Republicans, as if nothing else and no one else matters.” There it is, folks. And MPR’s recent failure is clear evidence of this pitiful state of affairs. It’s a failure that makes a mockery of the network’s own ethics guidelines which insist that “We are here to inform the public by considering multiple perspectives, but ultimately presenting fact-based truths.”

If you’re as concerned and disappointed by this failure on the part of MPR News as I am, then I invite you to join me in letting the network know this by clicking here and sharing your thoughts.

Above: Steve Young and Jane Kirby, Green Party candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor – June 2026. (Photo: Michael J. Bayly)

See also the related Wild Reed posts:
• Campaigning With the Green Party
• With the Green Party at Twin Cities Pride
• Butch Ware on Why Third Parties Are Crucial
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Something to Think About – December 8, 2024
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Third Parties and the Historical Record
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
• Cornel West: “The Next Step Is a Green Step, a Progressive Step”
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)

Kadeem En Pointe: Finding Freedom in Dance

I’m looking forward to this Friday and All the World’s a Stage, a performance by dancer Kadeem Hosein (known as Kadeem En Pointe) that’s taking place at the Shaw Theatre in Kings Cross, London.

Thankfully, I don’t need to travel to London to experience this performance as it’s being live streamed. (For information about the show’s live stream and watch-on-demand tickets, click here.)

Following is “A Note from Kadeem” as published in the show’s programme booklet.

___________________

All the World’s A Stage is, at heart, a celebration of the many people a performer becomes in the pursuit of their craft.

Performing artists invest years of their lives learning how to transform into characters, stories, emotions and ideas. We train our bodies to communicate things that words cannot always express, often presenting the finished result as though it came effortlessly. Behind every moment onstage, however, is an enormous amount of work, vulnerability, repetition and courage.

Although this show contains more than dance, dance is its central pillar, so I want to take a moment to discuss something that has shaped both my relationship with the art form and the work I create.

Because dance is something that is watched, a dancer’s body can quickly become something that other people feel entitled to assess. Our bodies are discussed, compared, corrected and judged. We are told what shape we should be, how we should move and what we should wear. Over time, the body can begin to feel less like the home of the artist within us and more like the property of the audience (in the theatre or even more difficult to handle – online), the institution or the tradition.

I believe this has turned many people away from dance, particularly ballet, before they have never had the opportunity to discover what it might mean to them. When you spend so much time looking into a mirror, it can become difficult not to view yourself through the imagined eyes of everyone else.

Those experiences reach beyond body shape. Ballet has long carried strict ideas about gender: boys perform the large jumps, girls dance en pointe; boys lift, girls are lifted; tutus belong to one kind of body. Race, class and access create further barriers. For many people who are not white, wealthy or able to follow a traditional path through professional training, ballet can appear to be a world in which they were never meant to belong.

As a gay Black man from Trinidad and Tobago, dancing in pointe shoes and tutus in public places, I found freedom in going against what people expected ballet – and a ballet dancer – to look like. My work began as a way of creating space for myself within an art form I have loved for most of my life.

Over time, that personal act of freedom became something larger. It became a way of showing that ballet can be more than what we have been taught to expect.

I have never followed the traditional professional route. I dance because I love it. That does not make the joy, discipline or passion I find in ballet any less real.

Although ballet sits at the center of my journey, this programme aims to show much more than that. Every performer you see tonight has brought something of themselves to this work: their experiences, their imagination and their relationship with the stage. [NOTE: Along with Kadeem, others in All the World’s a Stage include dance artists Mercedes Prevatt and Rebecca Chan, singer and musical theatre performer Eve Shanu-Wilson, creatives Mandy Izquierdo, Two Thunder, and Storrveldi, performer Xavier Thomas, and choreographic duo Bloom Collective.]

I hope you will see more than technique or physical appearance. I hope you will see people following what makes them feel alive.

Whether you are here in the theatre or watching from somewhere across the world, perhaps something tonight will encourage you to begin (or return to) something you love.

Finally, a million thank yous to every one of you for supporting my work. By being here, whether in person or online, you are helping me to continue growing my mission of bringing ballet to more people.

Thank you for sharing this evening with us.

– Kadeem En Pointe
August 14, 2026

Related Off-site Links:
Kadeem’s Official Website
“Being a Ballet Dancer Is Years of Hard Work, But It’s All Worth It” Says Kadeem En Pointe – Stuart Norval (France 24, February 26, 2026).
Men en Pointe: Ballet Dancers Kick Against Gender Stereotypes – Matilda Martin (The Guardian, March 10, 2021).

See also the following dance-related Wild Reed posts:
• Kadeem
• A Message in Dance That Challenges, Inspires and Liberates
• The Soul of a Dancer
• The Trouble with the Male Dancer – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
• The Premise of All Forms of Dance
• The Art of Dancing as the Supreme Symbol of the Spiritual Life
• The Power of Dance
• “Then I Shall Leap Into Love”
• Love’s the Only Dance
• We All Dance
• Not Whether We Dance, But How
• The Dance of Life
• And As We Dance . . .
• Our Dance
• “I Came Alive With Hope”
• Finding Balance in the Presence of the Beloved
• Our Bodies Are Part of the Cosmos
• Flexibility and Flow
• Move Us, Loving God
• A Prayer for Dancers
• Trusting the Flow
• Aristotle Papanikolaou on How Being Religious Is Like Being a Dancer

Quote of the Day

The genocide in Gaza is the moral issue of our generation. One reason that candidates are campaigning on it and succeeding is because of the moral clarity it generates. If you listen to these candidates, they are hardly one-issue nominees. They are concerned with capitalist overreach, want to hold Trump accountable for his crimes and misdeeds, advocate for health care for everyone, and want the world to be safer for everyone: immigrants, queer people, and other vulnerable populations. Such a world is much more possible, though, if the U.S. does not continue to commit billions of dollars to fighting wars and advancing genocide. The truth is as clear as spotting a seahawk characteristically singing its unmistakable call.

– Jonny Rashid
Excerpted “Why Gaza Is the
Moral Issue of Our Generation”
Contents and Containers
August 10, 2026

Related Off-site Links:
Genocide Deniers Call Gaza Starvation a “Hoax” by Citing UNICEF – Which Reported Famine – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, August 7, 2026).
What Kind of Ceasefire Is This? UNICEF Says 300 Children Killed in Gaza Over 300 Days – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, August 6, 2026).
Gaza Holds Mass Funeral for 112 Palestinians Slaughtered by Israel in 2023 – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, August 4, 2026).
Two More Israeli Soldiers Kill Themselves Amid Crisis Driven by Horrors of Genocide – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, July 29, 2026).
Fatalities From Israel’s Vast Gaza Genocide Deliberately Undercounted – Ralph Nader (Common Dreams, June 20, 2026).
Israeli Attacks on Gaza Have Killed Over 1,000 Palestinians Since October “Ceasefire” – Democracy Now! (June 18, 2026).
Nakba Day: Muhammad Shehada on Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza and Ongoing Palestinian Resilience – Democracy Now! (May 15, 2026).
Gaza Faces Public Health Collapse Amid Rat Infestation and Disease as Israel Blocks Reconstruction – Democracy Now! (May 7, 2026).
“Scorched-Earth Campaign”: Israel Uses “Gaza Playbook” to Turn Southern Lebanon into Rubble – Democracy Now! (April 15, 2026).
“A Campaign of Genocide”: Noura Erakat Speaks to Ta-Nehisi Coates About Israel’s War on Gaza – Democracy Now! (November 11, 2024).


See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
• October 7, 2023: “Nothing About Today Is ‘Unprovoked’”
• Phyllis Bennis: “If We Are Serious About Ending This Spiraling Violence, We Need to Look at Root Causes”
• In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
• Eric Levitz: Quote of the Day – October 11, 2023
• Something to Think About – October 12, 2023
• Prayer of the Week – October 16, 2023
• Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
• More Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
• Ta-Nehisi Coates: Quote of the Day – November 2, 2023
• Jehad Abusalim: Quote of the Day – December 8, 2023
• Christmas 2023 – Reflections, Activism, Art, and Celebrations
• Sabrina Salvati: Quote of the Day – January 2, 2024
• Michael Fakhri: Quote of the Day – February 27, 2024
• Phyllis Bennis: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
• Josh Paul: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
• “A Genocide Has Been Normalized”
• “This Is a Genocidal Project”
• Outrage and Despair
• Naomi Klein’s Powerful Words on Israel’s and the West’s Ongoing Gaza Genocide
• Judith Butler on the Ongoing Student Protests Against the Gaza Genocide
• Kyle Kulinski: Quote of the Day – May 23, 2024
• Something to Think About – June 28, 2024
• Nina Turner: Quote of the Day – July 24, 2024
• Phyllis Bennis: “We Can Never Give Up Hope”
• John Cusack: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2024
• Progressive Perspectives on the Presidential Nomination of Kamala Harris
• Breaking Down Kamala Harris’s DNC Speech on Gaza
• Yousef Munayyer: Quote of the Day – August 30, 2024
• “It’s a Systematic Slaughter That We’re Funding”
• Protesting Weapons Manufacturer and Genocide Enabler General Dynamics
• Something to Think About – September 26, 2024
• “A Year of War Against Children”
• Anti-Genocide Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Reflects on the First Anniversary of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
• Liam Cosgrove Confronts U.S. State Department Spin Doctor Matthew Miller: “People Are Sick of the Bullshit”
• “This Is a Tragic, Heartbreaking Moment in the History of Humanity”
• Progressive Perspectives on Kamala Harris’ Faltering Presidential Campaign
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Presidential Election
• Hope and Courage – Christmas 2024
• Chris Hedges: “Israel Has No Intention of Halting Its Merry-Go-Round of Death”
• The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
• Caitlin Johnstone: Quote of the Day – January 22, 2025
• Butch Ware: Quote of the Day – January 30, 2025
• The Only Difference
• Progressive Perspectives on Cory Booker’s Marathon Speech
• Silence on Gaza Genocide Is “More Than a Mere Moral Abdication; It Is Lethal”
• The Theft of One’s Soul: Omar El Akkad on the “Lesser of Two Evils” Argument
• How Genocide Becomes Ordinary
• Thomas Friedman: Quote of the Day – May 27, 2025
• “A Holocaust, Live-streamed”
• Why What’s Happening in Palestine – and Our Response to It – Is So Important
• “Life Comes First”: An Interview with Thiago Ávila
• Truth-telling in the Face of Systemic Power That Is Silent on Genocide
• Caitlin Johnstone: Quote of the Day – July 23, 2025
• U.S. Labor Leader Chris Smalls Joins the Crew of the Handala
• Israel’s Actions in Gaza: “A Clear and Present Moral Collapse”
• Protesting Israel’s “Starvation Campaign” in Gaza
• Chris Smalls: Quote of the Day – August 5, 2025
• Anas al-Sharif, 1996-2025
• A Call to Divest from Israel
• Idrees Ahmad: Quote of the Day – August 25, 2025
• Michael Sala: Quote of the Day – August 29, 2025
• A Poem That Remains Painfully Relevant
• Memes of the Times
• An “Illusion of Action”
• Two Years of “Indescribable Horror”
• No Justice, No Peace
• Progressive Perspectives on Hillary Clinton’s Comments on Pro-Palestine “Propaganda” and TikTok
• Phil Rockstroh: Quote of the Day – December 14, 2025
• Qasim Rashid: Quote of the Day – December 29, 2025
• “It Is Up to Us”
• The Architecture of Settler Colonialism
• Kym Staton: Quote of the Day – March 3, 2026
• Omid Safi: Quote of the Day – March 7, 2026
• Do Nation States Have the “Right” to Exist?
• Chris Hedges: “The Genocide in Gaza Is the Beginning. Welcome to the New World Order”


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “The Mistreatment and Discrimination Against Palestinians Is Not Unprecedented. It’s Baked Into the Foundation of the Political System in Israel”
• “Essential Viewing for All Who Care to Understand the Plight of the People of Palestine”
• Progressive Perspectives on the Ongoing Israeli-Palestinian “Nightmare” (2021)
• Something to Think About – July 29, 2018
• Noura Erakat: Quote of the Day – May 15, 2018
• For Some Jews, Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians is Yet Another Jewish Tragedy
• Remembering the Six-Day War and Its Ongoing Aftermath
• David Norris: Quote of the Day – August 12, 2014