For the best news in the world, I turn lately to Global Good News, which is assembled by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Foundation. The reason that it’s such a noble collection of news is that all its members focus on the heart and soul, literally, through meditation. By doing so, they see the flashes of love and good will that light up the world. It’s what they think about, write about, and act on. Through inner work they seem to no longer resonate with or become embroiled in the fear, hate, greed, and intolerance that are so prevalent in the world today and grab the attention of us more “grounded,” hormone-driven folks.

(To be fair, Global Good News does snapshot bad news (“Flops”) with several current articles about injustice and environmental decay going on in the world at any given time, but apparently they don’t “foul the nest” with a bad-news archive….).

For all of that savage stuff I can turn to the Republican party here in the States, who (guided by conservative think tanks and über-rich revolutionists and their media hucksters) have mastered the art of capturing the public’s attention with hate and fear. When our hormone-rich, ego-driven carnal mind runs the show, the world becomes a savage place for us and for those around us… which is precisely what’s been happening in right-wing politics. Worse still, the Republicans seem to have mastered the art of stealing elections… which would cross the line from unethical to illegal… from what’s sleazy to what might very well be treason.

So this article first takes a snapshot of some of the noblest activity going on this year and zooms in on one situation in particular that is playing a big role in unifying the world behind the scenes. Then we’ll take a close look at what I see as the most savage situation in the world today… a turbulent current in American politics that could drag the world into chaos and conflict more quickly than Hitler’s Nazis did in the years leading up to the Second World War.

The Best News of Recent Months

Our noblest efforts are like elaborate sandcastles… rising and falling over the course of history. While they’re in our world they bring peace, happiness, and understanding. (Adapted from Wikipedia commons, a photo by Australian Jorge Lascar.)

THERE’S SO MUCH LIGHT in all the many good things going on around the world that it’s hard to round it up and prioritize it all. (For that, please visit Global Good News.) These are some of my favorite news stories from the last half of 2016, and if I had to pick the most important one, it would probably be the last one on the list below, in bold type:

Lifting the less fortunate from their suffering

• Morocco lights the way for Africa on renewable energy
• Solar power brings northern Mali much needed light
• How a Canadian app is helping refugees find food, clean water and medical care
• Netherlands: Falling crime rates and prison closures

Understanding our ancient heritage

• Mexican pyramid has two more inside, scientists discover
• Chinese team says it found evidence of mythical great flood

Healing the planet

• Compostable and edible packaging: the companies eliminating plastic
• US: Major California river adding key ingredient — water
• US: Closing in on a solar power breakthrough
• Paris climate accord to take effect; Obama hails ‘historic day’
• America’s best idea may now be China’s, too, as it expands national park system
• Ecuador, Colombia, and Costa Rica create giant reserves for ocean life
• Bringing nature back to cities is good for plants, animals and humans
• Minnesota sets broadest U.S. limits on chemicals blamed for bee declines

Breaking down international, intercultural barriers

• First flight in half century leaves Miami bound for Havana
• With the creation of an all-Africa passport, a push toward African unity
• Google teaches machines to become more fluent translators

To me, the most important trends toward future peace are those that make us more compatible, since compatibility tends to wash away much of the suspicion, fear, intolerance, and conflict that keep us apart. And through the centuries nothing has kept us humans more apart than our 7,000 languages.

Led by Google (with its maps, Earth and translation software), modern technologies are quickly moving us to a time when anyone, anywhere, can communicate with anyone else, anywhere else, as we share thoughts, ideas and feelings.

But one disturbing trend could wash away many of the hopeful patterns that have been uplifting the world.

In November, Google updated its worldwide translation service so that it can now translate entire sentences into what will (usually) sound natural and correct to native speakers, rather than just cobbling together words and phrases into clunky, odd-sounding sentences. A big step for intercultural understanding.

This might seem like just another tiny tweak to one of the countless technologies that are transforming humanity, but to me (a wordsmith, admittedly) it represents a major trend toward the breakdown of intercultural barriers.

And now the bad news.

Sliding Toward a Dark Age Behind Big Oil’s Trump Card

THERE’S SO MUCH DARKNESS in the throes of Republican politics here in the States in recent years that it’s hard to figure out how it all fits together… how deeply it’s spread into American culture… or even where to start investigating.

The toxic marriage of politics and big oil.

It’s easy to see how it came to a head this past November, though, with the election of Donald Trump as president.

If Trump won a fair and square election, no problem… but there’s serious evidence to suggest otherwise: that the election was rigged, not just with gerrymandering, smoke-screening, character assassination, and other savage shenanigans we’ve all come to know and roll our eyes at… but with the outright stealing of votes on election night through the manipulation of electronic voting machines.

Well, if that’s the case, if the Presidency was stolen by Republicans by computerized election fraud, then just maybe they’ve crossed the line from bad choices to treason… by destroying the democracy upon which this country was founded.

That’s what we’ll try to figure out in the next article: Did it really happen? Was the election stolen by the electronic manipulation of votes? If so, is it an act of treason?

The dark culture seems to revolve around the inner workings of conservative think tanks and conservative billionaires… especially big oil… and their “fixers.”

See Part 2….