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9.03.2004
Friday, September 3, 2004
Last evening President Bush declared that we are safer. He also talked about how the liberation of eastern Europe and the transformation to democracy there made the world a safer place. Finally, he makes the case that by spreading democracy in the future - by transforming middle eastern fundamentalist states into democracies where people have the same freedoms that we do, the world will become even safer. The implication is that the spread of democracy is part of the natural evolution of the world toward a deeper, more lasting peace, that we are on our way, and that if we stay the course we will get there. This is a compelling proposition.
I agree that democracy is a more evolved and enilghtened system than totalitarianism. Who wouldn't? But I believe that the President's vision, and John Kerry's too, falls at least one level short of the proper context. By that I mean it is not a way of governement that will make the world safer. It is a way of life. And no one at the level of Presidential politics is adressing that context.
Now here is an ubelievable statistic. From 1976 to 2000, according to the Bureau of Justic Statistics, 512,550 Americans - over half a million Americans - were murdered by other Americans. There were no Shiite Muslims involved. Al Qaueda had no hand in it. Or North Korea. Or Iran.
Husbands kill their wives. Neighbors kill their neighbors. Russians kill Russians. Human beings kill one another, and it has nothing to do with whether or not they live in a free society.
It is not a political context that will save us from ourselves. It is a spiritual one. We must ask ourselves why we hate one another. We must ask ourselves why we do not love one another. Why we have created a culture based on competition with one another at every level, leaving everyone, including the wealthiest among us, afraid that if they don't keep up they will be over-taken and left behind. Love is a function of communication and hatred is a function of fear. We live in a fear-based culture. Fear motivates nearly everything that we do and every new system that we create. If neighbors fear one another, why on earth will democracies not fear one another? Are we so naiive to think that in a world full of democracies one democracy will not threaten to annihilate another over water rights? Are we so naiive to think that democracy is the antidote to human agression and hatred?
This is not the kind of talk that goes over well at conventions. Love talk is weak. It gets ridiculed. It makes for great jokes. But love is the realm in which we will find the real answers to lasting peace. The President and Senator Kerry are attempting to solve the problem in the worng arena. It is the arena of human consciousness which we must now explore. Jefferson and Madison brought us democracy. It was radical. It was new. It was what the times called for. It is time for us to use that democracy to bring the world something as radical today as democracy was then. If we do not begin to talk in terms of love - if we are not courageous enough to enter the arena of human consciousness, then the joke will be on us.
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Thursday, September 2, 2004
Here's a provocative one from one of the best spiritual books I have ever read:
"An unconscious messianic complex frequently snags people into the trap of overwork by fostering the illusion that 'everything depends on me.' Psychotherapist Carmen Berry describes the 'messiah trap,' as a 'two-sided lie that, taken at face value, appears to be noble and godly and gracious.' Side on is 'If I don't do it, it won't get done. and side two is 'Everyone else's needs take priority over mine.' This two-sided lie reflects the grandiosity that characterizes compulsive overworkers, who have an exaggerated sense of both their own abilities and the importance of their projects."
Urgings of the Heart, by Wilkie Au and Noreen Cannon
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9.01.2004
Wednesday, September 1, 2004
After seven nights of Democratic and Republican convention speeches still we have heard no compelling vision for America. In those seven days, 57,533 people have died of AIDS - more than the capcity crowd we see on television. Yet not once has their cause been addressed.
Surely this is not the example of a great nation. How can a nation that spends seven nights talking about how it will protect itself even as billions of the poor on the planet go unprotected earn the sympathy or respect of humanity?
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8.31.2004
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
A system will use evidence of its own failure as reason for its expansion. For example, one would think that if a nuclear weapon were used against the United States the nation would finally wake up to the utter failure of a system of violence to secure peace. Instead, what will happen is the system will use the incident as evidence that we need even more weapons. The more gun deaths we have in the United States, the more we want guns to protect us from other guns.
Systems exist only for their continued survival. Remember Hal? Systems are that cunning and sinister, and we are under their influence in a million different ways. The only answer to a system is consciusness. A system survives because people do not even know it exists. Once we become conscious of them, they lose their power and die. This is why consciousness is the great hope of humanity.
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8.29.2004
Monday, August 30, 2004
What great initiatives have we in this age except saving ourselves from terrorism? Upon what new world do we set our sights? What impossible obstacles do we as a nation seek to conquer? What limits of the imagination do we seek to annihilate?
The sad answer is none. The nation's imagination is blocked. Its enthusiasm has been replaced by protectionsim. The prevention of terrorism is the sorry pretext for progress which obscures all else. All other possibilities are forgotten. Our undivided attention is given to our fear. Nothing else exists.
And the saddest thing of all is that if we were truly using our national imagination, we probably wouldn't have to be fighting terrorism at all.
It is not might or resolve that the nation needs now. It is imagination, God dammit. It is the power of new ideas that will fuel our future. If the nation loses its imagination, what then in God's name will there be to protect? We will be protecting our right to live in fear, and nothing more.
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Sunday, August 29, 2004
In 2 and a half months I have driven my Toyota Prius 2,301 miles and spent a total of $134.32 on gasoline - and that's using premium. I am averaging about 42.08 miles per gallon. This is close to three times what I was getting with the SUV I had before. In 2001 American motor vehicles consumed approximately 163 billion gallons of gasoline. I am using less than half the gas I used to. But even if we could only reduce our need for gasoline by 10%, that would be 16.3 billion gallons of gas saved. At a price of $2 per gallon, this amounts to $32.6 billion. This is more than enough money to stop the global AIDS death toll and save the lives of 3 million people every year.
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