the hu(new)man way

Why the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements will not win

2011-12-06T07:21:00.004-05:00

Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party, Ayn Rand, Barack Obama --

The long overdue conversation about the iniquitous inequity within capitalism’s illusory meritocratic class structure finally exploded into the global discourse with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Conversely, the embedded impotence and wastefulness of an enabling and codependent national government thrust into the spotlight with the Tea Party campaign. Neither of these will have any lasting effect, and here’s why.

The System
What is The System? The System is the Internet in real life — the world wide web personified. It is the interconnectedness of institutions, infrastructure, corporations, nonprofit organizations, utilities, governments, foundations, universities and, most importantly, mainstream media.

The System can not, in any real and permanent way, be challenged. Too many people benefit from its current structure and genuine change threatens the status quo. People in positions of power would never give up their seat at the head to allow honest reform. What’s in it for them? Herein lies the double-edged sword of capitalism. It motivates people to be successful, creates jobs and generates wealth, while simultaneously establishing a culture that nurtures questionable practices and exacerbates the class divide.

There’s nothing I’d like more than to systematically dismantle 80% of global corporations in the fields of banking, insurance, finance and investments, health care and hospitals, communications, industrial farming, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas and coal, garbage disposal, wastewater treatment, genetic seed-making, food and drink manufacturing, retail behemoths, entertainment and mass media (did I miss any?). Many of these system-elements began under an idealized vision to create a better society, but human greed created an atmosphere where profits superceded service. This mentality invades all aspects of society, from the small businessperson to the federal government.

Ayn Rand argued that a society which nurtures a human being’s latent selfishness is a society that prospers. Unfortunately for humanity, this is true, but only if we define “prosper” as it relates to material wealth. There certainly are other faces of prosperity — spiritual, mental, physical, social, historical, natural. A country with little material wealth, such as Ethiopia or Bolivia, has more historical and natural wealth than most developed countries combined. And yet, we, as the West, see them as “poor” or “impoverished” or “Third World” or “developing” (as if a country has to be developing to be considered a country. What if a country wants to stay the same as it has for thousands of years?).

I would argue that we are the poor ones — reliant on a system that nurtures selfishness instead of one that creates community.

If the entire system collapsed, everything we rely on would be destroyed. Our toilets wouldn’t flush, our refrigerators wouldn’t get cold. There would be no fuel for our cars or generator. Food would cease to be produced. Chaos would permeate everything we touch. Who would survive this fiasco? People with genuine life skills — farmers, hunters, builders, maybe doctors.

Specifically, indigenous people who have lived the same way for millennia would become rulers of the world. Not that it’s a title they seek, nor would they even know they held that position. They wouldn’t even realize what has taken place on a global scale until Westerners came to them trying to steal their land and livestock in a furious illustration of the classic “I want what you have only because you have it and I don’t” syndrome, the infamous Western plague on the world.

This is why Barack Obama, a president whom I felt would usher in genuine change, failed. I fell victim to rhetoric, as do many of us when it comes to taking politicians at their word — a seriously unfortunate mistake that should not be a mistake at all. Obama tried to pander to all sides because mainstream media told him he had to, that he couldn’t go in there with an iron fist and demand change as he would be seen as an ideologue, and would quickly become a pariah.

So he pandered and stumbled. The wars escalated. Banks got bailed out. Health care is now a crises rather than a concern. Israel still dominates Palestine. The list goes on. That’s not to say he hasn’t done anything good, but his mistakes outshine his accomplishments. Why? Because anyone who truly challenges the system will be taken out of the system, in one way or another. Obama’s fear, if not his ego, kept him from pursuing what’s right, so he fell for what’s expected.

For me, Occupy Wall Street was a breath of fresh air, even if half the people talk as if they’ve never read a book and were only there for the cheap weed and drum circles. I don’t resonate as much with the Tea Party, but I do agree that our federal and state governments need to be smaller, more efficient and accountable.

The problems in government reflect the problems in socialism, and the problems in the private sector reflect the problems in capitalism. A perfect society is an illusion because, as Ayn Rand said, people are innately selfish.

We can learn to love and be genuinely selfless, and there are plenty of good people in the world, even in the United States. It is quite possible that a genuinely good American can compete with the most altruistic people in the world, if only because to be good in America is akin to being a thriving lamb among lions. However, as the saying goes, one bad CEO spoils the pool of good CEOs. And there are plenty of bad executives to solidify that sentiment.

Like people, not all companies are bad. Some treat their employees like family and are an example for the rest of us. But this is an expensive proposition, and the temptation to fill our pockets to secure the future of our immediate blood relatives can be too strong to ignore.

If we are a single human family, we certainly don’t act like one. It amazes me that health care is not a basic human right, and that there are people in the United States who would rather see someone die because they didn't have insurance than actually help that person with their medical expenses. It amazes me that we still kill each other over ideas and land, that we act as if one culture has rights that another doesn’t. Why we force countries into debt under the guise of development while enslaving them to corporate interests.

How can we look at our neighbor in need and offer conditional help? It’s as if a person were drowning and our proposition was to them: We will save you, if only you work for me, buy your bread from me, live in my house and pay me rent with the salary I pay you.

How can we all not be ashamed of ourselves? It’s mind-boggling. How can we all sleep at night, knowing that the entire Iraq and Afghanistan war budgets would be enough to practically feed the entire world’s starving population for a lifetime? How can we stand by and watch pharmaceutical companies invade indigenous nations and enslave the populace to their venom while raping the local land of its resources to produce the venom?

Why do we allow companies such as Monsanto to own life, to patent creation, to give them the powers of a god, and then allow these companies to go into indigenous nations under the guise of establishing food security when in reality it enslaves the people to its profit structures? Why do we let for-profit companies own water rights?

Why do we allow governments to be corrupt to the hilt, to get away literally with murder? How is it possible that our military still uses mercenaries? Why do we allow hospitals to charge us ridiculous fees and let insurance companies rape us of our dignity?

The questions are never ending, and the answers don’t even matter. What we need is renewal by cleansing our minds. Our perceptions need a complete overhaul, that’s what matters. The lenses through which we view the world need to be changed. We should no longer see our neighbors or foreign cultures and people as “others” but as true brothers and sisters, in the most natural definition of the term.

If you are Christian, for the love of Christ, act like one. Be one. Ninety-five percent or more of people who call themselves Christian are merely going through embedded motions. Love your enemy as yourself, remember that one?

If you are a Muslim, for the love of Allah, act like one. Be one. Submit yourself to the will of Allah, knowing that Allah is a loving God. God does not need you for his wrath, for he has plenty of methods to express his anger (and plenty of reason to also) that don’t require human violence. If you want to kill infidels, kill first your perception of an infidel, and kill your illusions of the infidel, not the physical body of the infidel.

If you are a Buddhist, be one. Just be. If you are Taoist, be one. Let the river take you where it may. If you are Hindu, let Shiva destroy your material being so that you may be reborn as a spiritual soul.

If you are an agnostic, pursue truth and meaning and never let fear or ego prevent you from seeking understanding. If you are an Atheist, wallow in the joy of the pursuit of knowledge, and seek your own unity with your brothers and sisters. We are all dust, a flash in the pan, a brief sprout of grass on the infinite prairie of time.

If you are an Occupy Wall Street person or a Tea Party participant, let go of your anger and frustration and realize that true change begins internally, with a revolution of the mind. The easiest change starts with physical change, by living differently. The system will change if there is nobody to support it.

Don’t pay your taxes and don’t vote. Establish alternative currencies. Grow your own food. Make your own business. Embrace entrepreneurship. Create your own language. Unplug completely. Use the tools that are available without becoming a slave to these tools. Establish your own sovereign nation by seceding from your country. Avoid hypocrisy at all cost.

Maintain integrity, but keep your ego in check. Your decision benefits you, but you are merely a vessel on the greater vein of a greater organism called social change. We cannot fall victim to the endemic hubris that defines every major society throughout human history. We are all important individuals, but we are even more important as humanity. After thousands of years of completely fucking up our role as stewards of the Earth, it’s time we realized our purpose and lived it.

The Occupy and Tea Party movements will not win, but they also will not lose. The polarization of American politics threatens the status quo, but it also threatens real change. The world is not black and white, and until we can see colors, we will always remain stuck in the illusion of the “other.”

Let’s see the colors for their beauty, not judge them for their differences. We don’t have to radically remove ourselves from society as I suggested, but that is a physical way to ignite change within ourselves. We can all revolutionize our minds, but it is no simple task. It takes courage, strength, and fearless determination. It takes acceptance of humility, and active interpersonal and extra-social engagement.

Until we can all look into the eyes of a wheelchair-bound person and not feel pity but instead feel strength, or until we can watch a murderer and not feel revenge but instead feel forgiveness, or until we never again walk past a helpless person and ignore their cries for help, we will always fail as human beings.

Let’s be human, for once in our lives, and freaking love each other.

Temporary hiatus on this blog

2011-01-11T11:37:00.002-05:00

The editors of The Clairvoyant Times have temporarily suspended this blog to direct you to its website.

The hu(new)man way will be back in working order someday before the author ceases to live. Thank you for your support.

Legally retarded man wins governor seat in Arizona

2010-10-30T21:57:00.005-04:00

FROM THE FUTURE: Phoenix, Ariz. Nov. 3, 2010. Madness swept the country on the evening of Nov. 2, as voters turned out in record numbers to cast their ballots in what has become the most derisive election year in recent history.

But not a single pundit predicted the unprecedented victory of Paris Hilton’s fingernail cleaner, Rufus Berkowitz. “The Berk,” as he calls himself, received 79 percent of the vote in his home state of Arizona, and became the first legally retarded individual to be elected to public office in the United States.

“Arizona is [a] good state,” The Berk said in his victory speech at the Hooters near Metroman Mall in Phoenix. “Is really, really, really good that those dumb [expletive] ain’t gonna run the show.”

Arizona voters seemed thrilled to have The Berk as their next governor.

When Javier Perez heard the news he took off running like a madman, belting Spanish phrases of jubilation as police officers chased him around the block screaming for his identification. After a thorough background check, DNA analysis and full-cavity body search, the authorities released the 31-year-old painter from Mesa. But Perez would net let the police ruin this special day.

“This is a great day for everyone,” he said, as he removed a wedgie. “Not only is The Berk gonna clean house, he’s gonna make sure that all Mexican laborers get free sandwiches on Fridays.”

The Berk’s passion for Friday feedings of the entire Arizona populace was one of his main running points. Republican incumbent Jan Brewer was shocked at The Berk’s sweep of the election.

“I’m appalled,” Brewer said at her loser’s press conference. “It’s as if the great people of the state of Arizona would prefer to have a retard running things than Mr. [Terry] Goddard or I.”

Democratic candidate Goddard was equally bemused.

“You can’t have a person run the state who can’t even count to 10,” he said. “It’s just not good governance.”

When The Berk learned of his adversaries’ statements, he was filled with anger.

“I can count to 10,” he said. “One, two, [three], four, five, [six], [seven], eight, nine, 10,” he said, to a mix of thunderous applause and confused stares. “Eat that [expletive] Goddard!”

For Linda Brown, a retired court clerk, there was nothing interesting about Goddard or Brewer, but The Berk’s platform spoke to her core values. “Those two don’t have a clue, but The Berk’s a real man,” Brown said, over tacos and tequila at Don Juan’s Taco Taxi in Phoenix. “I worked for the state for 41 years, and I gotta tell you, there’s nothing but crooks and thieves running the place. It’s time for a change. Go get ‘em Berk!”

The Berk also promised to criminalize farting in public, with suggested penalties ranging from forced readings of Sarah Palin’s book Going Rogue, to changing the 13,000 compact fluorescent light bulbs in Al Gore’s mansion. Although harsh, The Berk claims these consequences will deter people from emanating disagreeable odors, a fact which The Berk said “causes the ozone to get [expletive]-up.”

Perhaps the leading factor in The Berk’s win was his impeccable military record, according to political analyst Darryl McCombs of the Nuremberg Institute for Genocidal Rehabilitation and Organizational Education. “A NIGROE poll taken a week before the election indicated that The Berk was favored because of his 139 confirmed kills in Iraq,” McCombs said in his busy office in Waco, Texas. “People also said that they felt like they could trust him, because Paris Hilton trusted him for several months with her fingernails – which aren't even insured!”

As an independent, The Berk stole votes from both sides of the isle, eliciting a fury in the House and Senate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she almost choked on her organic tofu tuna veggie burrito when she heard the news of The Berk’s victory. “I’m just glad he’s not coming to Washington,” Pelosi said at her sweatshop in Indonesia. “Arizona could use a little shaking up. Isn’t cocaine legal there?”

The Berk raised an impressive $342 million for the campaign, receiving money from donors such as Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Hugh Hefner, Lady Gaga, that creepy midget guy whose in all those movies, and Rush Limbaugh. In a statement, Limbaugh said that The Berk is “the right man for Arizona.”

“Listen, all this talk about intelligence is moot,” Limbaugh said. “If intelligence was a prerequisite for public office, how in the hell did George W. make it? Wait a second, are we on record?”

Not to be outdone by stupid statements, Sean “P-Ditty Daddy Corn Puffs” Combs said that he couldn’t believe that a “cream-colored man who hates tacos can be elected in Arizona... But I like the dude. He smells like Purell. I like Purell.”

After Combs’ statement, Purell donated $50,000 to Combs’ charity, Get Out and Vote Even if You’re Uninformed. The Berk was also endorsed by Purell, as well as Walmart, Nike, McDonalds, Starbucks, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the countries of North Korea, Iran and Israel. “Thank God for Citizens United!” The Berk said, in a rare moment of lucidity.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that he was thrilled to finally have something in common with Israel.

“Arizona, although part of the Zionist conspiracy, represents cool stuff,” Ahmadinejad said at a press conference for men. “If The Berk can take Arizona, maybe there is hope for United States and their scantily clad, cleavage-laden, voluptuous, curvy, nipples...” Ahmadinejad then quickly ran off the podium, holding his groin and muttering incoherently.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mostly agreed with Ahmadinejad. “I sometimes have spontaneous emissions as well,” he said. “But only since we’ve been resettling in the Gaza Strip. It feels sooo good to be bad!”

When asked about The Berk, Netanyahu said that he respects the man’s straightforwardness and honesty. “He tells it like it is,” Netanyahu said, over pork sandwiches and oysters overlooking the destruction of squalid Palestinian houses. “Arizona needs a straight shooter, someone who can kick out all the immigrants. That’s the kind of man I would want in my government.”

At the top of The Berk’s list is to establish a public-private partnership with K-Y Brand to develop a sexual lubricant using DNA from pop superstar Madonna. “I used to bang Madonna,” claimed The Berk. “I used to bang all sorts of chicks. I had a threesome with Pelosi and Palin. I don’t discriminate.”

The Berk said that his goal is to save women the “trouble of getting turned on.” Sales of the lubricant will fund sex education in public schools, and could help to reduce tax rates. “It was Palin’s idea,” The Berk humbly admitted. “She’s truly brilliant.”

Palin could not be reached for comment, but her assistant’s personal assistant’s spokesperson said that “Mrs. Palin has never slept with Mr. Berkowitz. She only sleeps with her relatives, and she clearly has no polak in her blood.”

The Berk begins his four-year term in January. He is divorced three times and has nine children by seven mothers, and three children through sperm donations to gay couples.

Free market orgasms at thought of liquor store privatization

2010-10-17T23:13:00.003-04:00

After nearly 80 years of state-controlled liquor sales, Virginians are on the verge of tasting booze not tainted by the hands of Uncle Sam. And thank goodness. The idea of having low alcohol-related death rates means nothing when there are millions to be made by the sale of the commonwealth’s liquor stores. God bless capitalism.

In a Sept. 13, 2010 press release, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli stated that “Virginians who are concerned that alcohol-related problems, such as under-aged drinking and drunk driving fatalities, will increase under privatization, they can be assured that the research has shown there is no greater incidence of alcohol-related problems in states with private ownership of liquor stores than in states with government ownership.”

Cuccinelli’s “research” reference is a report drafted by the Virginia Institute for Public Policy – a conservative think tank. In the report, objectively referred to as “Impaired Judgement: The Failure of Control States to Reduce Alcohol-Related Problems,” authors and economists Donald J. Boudreaux, PhD, and Julia Williams concluded that “the alleged health benefits of government-spirits monopolies are illusory,” and that “detailed regression analysis using data from all 50 states and D.C. finds no statistically significant relationship between the rates of drunk-driving fatalities in control states and such fatalities in license states.”

Gov. Bob McDonnell is certainly taking this information and running with it. At at time when state revenues are falling and unemployment is rising, the governor’s proposal to generate $500 million from the sale of the state’s liquor stores to fund transportation projects in the commonwealth seems a win-win. Jobs will be created as retail locations expand their staff to handle the new inventory, and liquor stores currently operated by g-men will turn over to Joe the (drunk) plumber.

Our fledgling Virginia Department of Transportation will get a much needed injection of capital so that we won’t have to weave around potholes on I-64 anymore. After all, $500 million represents a hefty 15 percent addition to VDOT’s FY 2011 budget of $3.3 billion. Annual liquor sales from ABC stores in 2009 only generated $111.7 million, and last time I counted to the millions, I remember arriving to 111 million waaaaay before I got to 500 million. So we’re making out like bandits, right?

But wait. I forgot. The $500 million is a one time deal. But surely the revision of Virginia’s Alcoholic Beverage Control regulations will ensure an adequate tax on spirits, as it currently taxes wine and beer which generate roughly $150 million in annual tax revenue for the state. Privatizing and taxing liquor sales would generate revenue, so the revenue question could be moot.

But what about the rock-solid data provided by the objective and agenga-free Virginia Institute for Public Policy? Who cares that the VIPP board of directors is strewn with die-hard conservatives with affiliation to all sorts of partisan organizations, like the Cato Institute, Radio America and Oliver North? It doesn’t matter, not when you’re talking about privatization. Privatization is always the way to go, look how well it’s worked in the health insurance industry. Every American has inexpensive health care and nobody experiences double-digit percentage increases in their annual health insurance costs. Give the lion the jungle and she will find her feast. Duh!

Boudreaux and Williams assert that there is no difference in alcohol-related health risks between the 18 states that currently control liquor sales verses the rest of the country that simply tax it. Their report is a testament to their strenuous and educated effort to illuminate this controversial issue with unbiased representation. It doesn’t matter that states which only tax liquor sales experience 79 more alcohol related deaths out of 10,000 auto fatalities than states which control sales. It’s only 79 more people dead. It’s not statistically significant.

Of course when you reduce the equation, the numbers do seem insignificant as Boudreaux and Williams are quick to point out:

What about drunk-driving fatalities? Here, too, there is no statistically significant relationship between control states and license states. The average annual number of drunk-driving fatalities for control states was 31.06 per 100 driving fatalities (or 31.06 percent of motor vehicle fatalities were alcohol related in control states) in 2008; the average annual number of drunk-driving fatalities for license states in 2008 was 31.85. The national average was 31.57 per 100 driving fatalities.

Now, I’m no mathematician, but I know a little about decimals. I also know that people are not decimal points. In 2008, drunk drivers accounted for 31.85 percent of auto fatalities in states that did not regulate liquor sales. But in the interest of human decency, let’s say that 3,185 deaths out of 10,000 auto fatalities were alcohol related in “free market” states. It doesn’t really matter that Boudreaux and Williams forgot to mention that these numbers are for alcohol-related fatalities, and not alcohol-impaired fatalities which are actually a greater percentage of driving fatalities. But that information wouldn’t support the privatization argument, so bury that data!

Now let’s look at the control states, and let’s see if we can use the same data Boudreaux and Williams used to put real numbers in a real context. In 2008, there were 84.5 million people living in the 18 states that control liquor sales. According to the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, there were 9,754 auto fatalities in 2008 in those eighteen states, and of those fatalities, 3,029 were alcohol-related. But if alcohol was not state controlled, those numbers could have increased to 3,107 people, meaning an additional 78 people could have died in those 18 states.

But 78 people is statistically insignificant according to Boudreaux and Williams, especially when there’s bucks to be made.

The VPPI report indicated that the United States averages 3,157 alcohol-related deaths per 10,000 auto fatalities. So states that regulate the sale of liquor are lower than both the national average and the average of states that license the sale of liquor to private industry. Strange how the same data can be looked at through two completely different lenses. I just prefer to assume that human beings are better suited as whole numbers rather than fractions, but that could just be my narrow communistic perspective.

The convoluted term “statistically insignificant” refers to the deviation in the actual statistic, which in this case was plus/minus 5 percent, meaning that actual data does not reflect extenuating circumstances and other mitigating factors than can skew the data. So the numbers could be much higher or much lower. But in reality, we know that limiting access limits consumption. Improving access improves consumption. It’s not a scientific survey, it’s common sense. With more hospitals, prices go down and more people are served, right? The more grocery stores we have, the more food that’s available to be purchased, prices go down, and fewer people will go hungry, right? Isn’t that a basic tenant of economics?

But for some reason, the conservative businesspeople on capitol slope think that improving access to alcohol will only benefit the commonwealth because of the much needed jobs that will be generated. Who care that dozens more people could die per year? At least the family and friends of the deceased won’t have to drive so far to purchase their mourning-specific beverage of choice to help them dull the pain of their loss.

Give them games, declares Ceasar. Give them spirits to dull their minds. Entertain them. Keep them fat and happy and you can get away with murder. Fill the Gulf of Mexico with oil and then forget it all with the World Cup.

If the Commonwealth of Virginia is going to privatize its state-run liquor stores, then it’s high time it legalizes medicinal marijuana.

When alcohol prohibition was appealed in 1933, the state established the Liquor Control Committee to “examine and propose a plan for liquor control in the Commonwealth,” and so began our commie takeover of the booze business. Nearly 80 years later we’ve gotten to the point where we want to give the reigns to Joe the (drunk) plumber. Why can’t we start the same process with marijuana, so that 80 years from now we can hand control over to Joe the (high) plumber? Government has no business regulating the sale of drugs anyway.

Oh, wait a minute. What about the Food and Drug Administration? Let’s just get rid of the FDA, too. Pharmaceutical companies always have our best interests at heart. They never sell a drug with a laundry list of side effects that includes death (and if you experience death please be sure to contact your doctor right away).

But let’s be realistic. At least marijuana has documented medical effects. The drug Sativex was recently introduced in Europe and Canada, and its active ingredient is natural THC – the active chemical in marijuana – extracted directly from the cannibis sativa plant and used to treat pain and spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. There are more than a dozen medications that use cannabinoid compounds which interact with the same neural receptors as THC. Fourteen states including Washington, D.C. have passed medical marijuana laws, and the FDA does not have a single death claim attributed directly to medicinal use of marijuana, whereas tens of thousands of people have died from other “legal” drugs.

But we’d much rather legalize something synthetic because it’s easier to control and it’s better for business. Criminalizing a natural plant that was here before we walked the earth is an exercise in self-deification, an unforgivable act of hubris that sums up everything that’s wrong with society. Why don’t we make avocados illegal, because they have so much fat? Fat kills people way faster than marijuana, there’s no disputing that fact. Of course, marijuana might make a person more susceptible to consuming fat after a bout with the munchies, but that’s an issue of self-control, not a legal consideration.

Legalize marijuana, tax it and reap the benefits. Especially now that ABC stores are going private. What better time to take advantage of the loosening of the Man’s grip on free enterprise than to introduce a medicinal plant to the marketplace? I’m sure that Phizer and Roche and Bayer and all the big dogs will come out with their heady brand of ganja-liciousness: Weedex. Herbitol. Reefergra.

Philip Morris will have it’s brand, it’s smooth smoking Greenports that will start off as medicinal and 50 years from now there will be a lawsuit against them because they added chemicals to the ganja to ensure maximum addiction. Then they’ll be forced to fund a campaign that tells everyone how bad marijuana is and they’ll begin integrating with other markets and business ventures to clean up their act in the public eye.

Sell them ABC buildings. What are they doing in the government’s hands anyway? Being controlled and regulated? PFF! Whatever. Let the Joes and Joans of the world handle it. The world is already overpopulated, and the more people who die will be good for the mortician business. Long live free market eugenics!

A Christian Defense of Socialism

2010-10-09T13:15:00.004-04:00

Socialism. What a dirty word. It conjures up pink and red images that strike our inner Joseph McCarthy with paranoid precision. Not everyone, of course. But enough of us to communicate to the rest of the world that backward thinking is the status quo in America.

I don’t believe that any one type of government is right or wrong. We are so far away from perfection that it is silly to assume we will get there in the next 100 years. The travesty is the “good vs. evil” mentality that plagues American government and its politics like a ravenous cancer – unmitigated and relentless as it eats the raw talent and creativity of our increasingly disillusioned populace. Draped in good intentions, our leaders’ blind ambition leaves a trail of unintended consequences in its boastful wake, leaving people wondering why. Why are one-fifth of homeowners foreclosing on their homes? Why have banks gotten away with murder, and somehow proven that their victims are responsible for their own deaths? How is that even possible?

It is the failure of capitalism and the disastrous effects of an unrestrained free market and an incompetent government with ridiculous policies and economic demands. Make no mistake, whether the democrats or republicans are in power, neither will create a policy that hurts business, and why should they? Capital is the driving force of the modern economy. It’s not commodities or services, there is no scarcity anymore. It’s a manufactured scarcity, an elite propaganda that represents the fall of humankind and the strength of Babylon.

I’m sure I sound crazy to many people. That’s fine, I don’t mind that perception. What’s crazy to me is that we have all bought into this system, a system of valueless currency and manufactured scarcity. A system of vertical integration and underhanded monopolies. We accept our ridiculous fate because our own demands on our own lives are too much to reconsider, and to actually create substantial change would put our lifestyles at risk. It’s a style of life that we have manufactured, and that’s why we accept slaps on the wrist as consequences for murder. If we seek blood, we may have to do our part of the cleaning up, and that’s asking too much of us. We have our own blood to clean up.

This is the mentality that will be our destruction. This illusion that our individuality is more important than our infinite and primal connection to each other. It is here where I should quote Karl Marx, but in his stead I choose to paraphrase C.S. Lewis. We are all ships in a fleet heading towards the same destination. If one ship goes down, the entire fleet is hurt.

This is why we have law, isn’t it? To protect individuals from hurting themselves or from hurting society, right? Let’s say there is a man who consistently hurts himself – a perpetual perpetrator of “victimless” crimes such as drug use. Sure, he’s not directly hurting anyone other than himself, but what about the ramifications? Who is he hurting indirectly? Family? Friends? Coworkers? Strangers?

An odd element of life that I find fascinating is the ripple effect of our actions and how necessarily ignorant we are of the infinite consequences associated with even the most mundane tasks. Anyone who uses drugs to escape the pain of their existence has admitted to the world that the world is not worth dealing with and creating an alternate reality is their best option. Just being in the same room as this person, even if you never even make eye contact with him, takes away from your own ability to cope with reality. If he’s off in his own world and you’re here in the real world, doesn’t that make the real world that much more difficult? As if the daily rigors of life aren’t enough, now we have people who have decided their own rigor is not worth worrying about. It’s like trying to lose weight and being surrounded my overeaters. Life is difficult enough without others making it more difficult by the residual effects of their individual choices.

Think about it. Say you’re the only sober person in a room full of stoners, or acid trippers or smack heads, whatever. Is your experience going to be easier than their’s? The same? Harder? Of course there are numerous approaches to this situation, depending of course on your personal disposition. You could have the best time in the world. You could make your own fun at their expense. You could pity them and try to show them the way. You could run away in anger and disgust. Suffice to say people are already quirky enough in reality, and to deal with them during their moments of escape adds unnecessary stress and strain to the fledgling human condition.

This applies to “legal” pharmaceuticals also. Anything that effects our body chemistry in an unnatural way subjects our minds to alternate perceptions. Sometimes this is good, but it’s an easy answer to a long-term problem that only meditation and prayer and human interaction can truly cure. You can suckle on a tree all you want, but only a mother’s milk can make a baby grow naturally.

So where is the Christianity in all this? Everywhere. Yehoshua, also known as Jesus, spoke plainly about the importance of being your brother’s keeper. According to Yehoshua, the greatest commandment is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. To love your neighbor as yourself means that we should not separate ourselves from our neighbors, that we are united in one body.

The apostle Paul wrote scores of letters addressing this very issue. In his letter to the church of Ephesus, Paul asks the people to “Bear with one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience. Do all you can to persevere the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together... If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to its function. So the body grows until it has built itself up in love.”

The only difference between Christian philosophy and socialism is the apex of each ethos. Christianity has Christ, socialism has the state. The workers unite to work for the common good of the state just as Christians are called to unite to spread the light of Christ. Karl Marx asks for people to put aide their personal ambition and strive for societal equilibrium. Yehoshua asks for people to be reborn in the spirit, put aside their childish ways and love your enemies. Although Marx is credited with establishing the atheist state, in reality all he did was attempt to replace God with the state and replace worshiping God with worshiping your fellow human beings.

Communism failed in its idealism. It fails to see the effect of power on an institution’s ability to rule. It failed to grasp the power of power, whereas capitalism embraces our weaknesses. Capitalism exploits human desire and takes advantage of our innate selfishness. Neither path is correct for people. We can’t force people to be equal when our egos tell us otherwise, and we can’t expect equality when people will do whatever it takes to push themselves ahead of the others.

But socialism, without the political effluent of communism, is more meaningful and just for a society that calls itself Christian than a capitalist system. Again, socialism is not the answer, but it is part of a solution if carried out in a democratic fashion utilizing certain workable elements of capitalism. One could argue that the impotence of our social security system is evidence that socialism is wrong. I would argue that a bad policy doesn't destroy a good concept. Just because some Christians are lunatics and scream for war with Islam doesn't mean Christianity is a religion of hate. Bad apples.

To fear socialism is to fear ourselves, it’s to fear the very call to be united for the survival of each other.

I’d like to propose a scenario. Imagine if 50 years ago, the United States invested more money in its education system than in the military. What if we made it mandatory to learn three languages in elementary school? What if it were mandatory for high school students to spend one year in a developing country before graduation? What if we taught the essence of religion and philosophy through exploration and active community engagement? What if we taught math and science with practical applications using engineering and modern medicine as teaching platforms? What if the public educational experience became the one and only thing that was talked about during a political campaign? Imagine if those children grew up and took the reigns and led our country forward and were our leaders today. Would we still have had this mortgage collapse? Would we be hovering at 10 percent unemployment? Would we be at war in Afghanistan and in Iraq? Would Vietnam have happened? Would Watergate and McCarthyism have happened?

Obviously these hypothetical questions are pointless to ponder, but the possibilities are fascinating. Taking care of each other and each other’s children is vital for the survival of the human species and our planet. We want more people to become doctors, right? More doctors means lower health care costs, right? We want more people to become teachers and social workers and engineers and technology experts, right? Doesn’t that improve a society by having more skilled professionals? Or is it better to let people figure it out themselves, and thus perpetuate our Darwinist class system and deepen the divide between individuals and society?

Without each other what are we? A collection of atoms randomly floating in a mass until we are recycled back into the universe. That’s depressing. I prefer to be considered as part of a whole, a functional arm on the body of society. Not only are we responsible for each other, but for every living creature and inorganic molecule that has been entrusted to us. We are stewards of the earth and of each other, not self-absorbed tourists infatuated with consumption at all cost.

René Descartes’ concept that thought creates existence is incorrect. It is positive interaction with life that creates existence. Existence without meaning is not existence, it is immaterial being. No man or woman is an island, and until we can learn that we are each a functional ship in a fleet trying to make our destination before sunset, we will continue to hurt ourselves – either consciously or otherwise – in our attempts to improve our individual situations.

The only true path to enlightenment is to lift someone else up. Until the day comes when all hands are held together and falling will be a distant memory.

Democracy in America?

2010-09-24T11:32:00.007-04:00

You know a culture has gone full circle when 100 square-foot houses become news simply because they’re small.

Imagine walking into a small town in a remote village in South America and trying to explain to the villagers the resurgence of tiny homes in the U.S. I’m sure you’d draw some hefty laughs and quite a bit of confused stares. As they invite you into their 50 square-foot shanty you tell them that their house design is in high demand in the liberalized cities of the northeast and western U.S. We’ve got billions of house designers in developing countries just waiting to be discovered. Pay attention Bravo network, this could be your next big deal!

The micro-home phenomenon is another instance of Americans doing what they are supposed to do and reveling in it. Sorry, but a vast majority of the world live in tiny homes and have been since the dawn of humanity. At one time, so did most Americans. Micro-homes are not news, they’re olds.

It’s wonderful that this happening, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not an invention. It’s a resurgence. Necessity was the mother of invention until the industrial revolution orphaned the notion and invention was adopted by laziness. Is there really, truly a need for a remote control for a car stereo? Or automatic windows on cars? Or the Segway? Let’s look at industry, do we really need barber shops and hair salons and spas and gyms? Can’t we cut our own hair, give each other massages and exercise on our own? Do we need fast food? Can’t we cook ourselves? Do we really need grocery stores that sell food from countries that are 10,000 miles away? Is cable television our only connection to the world and is the Internet our lifeline to social interaction? Do we really need cheese puffs and pork rinds and dippin dots? Why do we have napkins and paper towels, don't we need one or the other? Are all these inventions necessities?

Naturally, there are arguments to be made on behalf of all these things. Safety. Fear of being hurt. Convenience. Help people. Pleasure. These days, the number one argument for inventions is that people don’t have the time to do it themselves. And lack of time creates the "necessity." Ironically people don’t have the time because they’re spending most of their time doing things that feed the system. I can’t cook because I have to go to work, doing something that is a service. Eighty percent of the jobs in the United States are service-oriented, meaning that they provide a service for people who don’t have the time or ability or inclination to do it themselves.

For some odd reason, do-it-yourself is also some kind of newsworthy phenomenon. It’s as if we never could do anything ourselves and now that we can’t afford services anymore we have to figure out how to fix that leaky pipe on our own. People wonder why the economy is still shit but the stock market is bull-strong? I suggest two reasons. First, companies are exploiting volunteer labor and internships given the market is flooded with extremely valuable talent – and these people are willing to do anything to get their foot in the door. Second, people are saving more money, doing more things themselves and hurting the small businesses that provide most of these services. Walmart is doing wonderful, and why not? Where else can you buy items for odd-numbered prices like $2.41 or $1.27 that are designed to fuck with our minds?

That’s what happens to a foundation built of sand, eventually it falls into the sea. A consumption-based economy cannot and will never sustain itself.

So laziness and greed are now the adopted parents of invention. It’s amazing how we create a “need” for material things that are useless. iPhones. Don’t even get me started on the iPhones. Useful, absolutely, but so is a toilet. That doesn’t mean I want to carry a crapper with me everywhere I go. Or the iPad. The Kindle. The Nook. WTF? The only good thing is that it’s saving paper. That’s it. Other than that it is killing the essence of literary culture. In some extreme cases, I can see the need for it. But for everyone? I sure as hell hope not.

Sooner or later if we keep on the path we’re on, we’ll all find it necessary to have nuclear reactors in our homes. Why? Because the Joneses have one, of course! Plus Walmart is having this awesome sale, if you buy 100 pounds of enriched uranium they’ll throw in a 5-year-old Indonesian servant girl free of charge. You can’t lose! (My love for Walmart runs deep)

To paraphrase Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef, we need to readjust our definition of growth and development. Growth is quantitative and has limits. Development is qualitative and has no limits. The U.S., as Max-Neef opines, is underdeveloping, meaning that the quality of life is diminishing as growth has surpassed the threshold of sustainability.

So much propaganda exists in the information ether, so much misinformation and disinformation it’s impossible to know what’s really going on. For some reason I cannot fathom, we still do not have universal health care in this country. It’s as if we don’t give a shit about the 20,000 people who die every year from lack of access to health care. Sure they can get treated, and live their life with a six-figure debt over their heads, maybe lose their house because they can’t pay their medical bills, but hey, it’s better to be alive and homeless than dead, right? What kind of choice is that to offer citizens of a “free nation?” Even under Obama-care, health care experts estimate that thousands will still die because of lack of access.

I’m just frustrated with our culture, or lack of culture. I see so much ignorance around me, and it’s the people who consider themselves knowledgeable who are the scariest and most in the dark. I admit, I don’t know a damn thing. All I know is that what we got ain’t working, and it’s a shame our president did not take the fire from his campaign and use it to create real change. He tried to appease the right, he tried to pander to them, to find a middle ground, and admirably so. But in the end he just made himself look incompetent. The right will block him to their graves, as that is “good politics.”

Our country needs a drastic and deep upheaval. This two-party democratic republic is a farce. It’s not a democracy, it is a oligarchy dressed up in blue collar clothes. We are a nation of hypocrites. Homosexuals can die for their country as long as nobody knows they’re gay. We want our military might but we don’t want to pay for it. We want a strong economy but we’re not willing to eradicate the disease. We want our neighbors to have access to health care but we’re not willing to help them get it. We want immigrants to leave but we don’t want to wash dishes or cut grass or hang drywall for cheap. We want China to slow down but we can’t stop buying shit from Walmart. We want our children to get a good education but we’re not willing to understand what a good education is. We want our own cars, our own houses, our own pets, our own hobbies, our own lives but we don’t want to deal with our own share of the problems. We want the world to listen but we don’t know what to say. We want our independence and our freedom but we also long for connections and security.

In his book Democracy in America, Alexis de Toequeville states this dualistic phenomenon most succinctly: “Man alone, of all created beings, displays a natural contempt for existence, and yet a boundless desire to exist, he scorns life, but he dreads annihilation.”

Do you ever get the feeling that our leaders are making it up as they go along? I saw a Craigslist post for a government writing position, and it was the longest, most asinine and convoluted post I’d ever seen. After taking 15 minutes of my life and losing five of my 10 brain cells I finished reading the post. I had to pause and gather myself. There were so many unnecessary words in the ad I couldn’t begin to imagine what the hell they were actually looking for. I decided to risk a second read. After recharging my eyes with several doses of hand rubbing I reengaged the advertisement. After reading two sentences my brain registered something. As if my subconscious figured it out while my conscious mind scrambled in vain to determine the meaning. I realized something, and it blew my mind. It was one of those eureka moments that I will always remember, and it perfectly summarizes my feelings regarding American culture.

The federal government agency was looking for someone to write roughly 15 reports to tell them what the hell was going on in the agency. They had no idea what they were doing, and they needed someone to come in, observe what they were doing, and then write a report telling them what they were doing. Operational procedures I think it was called.

All they wanted to know was what the heck was going on. It was truly amazing. I swear to you, I can’t make this up. And I know why they had to make the ad so convoluted, they had to appear somewhat professional and word the ad in a way that would entice academics and make them feel less incompetent. It’s like writing a 1,000-page treatise on the physiology of the back left leg of a carpenter bee.

So I applied for the job. They asked me if I had any experience with operational procedures and I told them I had no idea what that was. Needless to say they hired me on the spot. I wrote them one sentence in my report. “I don’t have a fucking clue what the fuck is going on. Ask Sarah Palin.” (Okay, I guess it was two sentences)

I was immediately promoted to senior executive account assistant managing editor. Gotta love fed gigs.

What's right is right, right?

2010-09-18T12:37:00.003-04:00

Doing what’s right is good, right? As opposed to doing something morally questionable, like stealing. But what about the person who steals but is honest about his theft, does he get any kudos for honesty? He doesn’t lie to himself and pretend that he’s a modern day Robin Hood. He knows he’s scum, he knows he’s low. He doesn’t bullshit. Is that respectable?

And what about the person who does what’s right? It’s easy to admire a person who, on the outside, seems righteous. Let’s say there’s a woman who runs a nonprofit that feeds homeless people. That’s definitely a good thing, right? (If you don’t think so, my entire essay might not work for you) She’s respected in the community, everybody knows her as a “good” person. But let’s say she lies to herself about what she’s doing. What if she holds herself above other people, like lets say, the aforementioned thief. Or even better, let’s say that she considers all bank executives to be below her, morally speaking. She lifts herself up in her good deeds, and lowers others whom she considers are parasites in society. Is she lying to herself about how great she is? Is it better to do good and inflate your self-importance through telling yourself lies, or to do bad and at least be honest about it?

Obviously both paths are incorrect. That’s where the third way comes in. But for me, I struggle every day with humility. I struggle with it bad. Throughout my life, I have continuously experienced events that knock me down, cut me to a stump, position me in a place that seems lower than I was years earlier. Humbling events are difficult to accept. You feel weak, insecure. You feel worthless, like all your talent is wasting, like nobody appreciates you. You feel lost in a bubble of inward affectations, disillusioned by pain and confronted with the reality that the world is a cruel and bitter place. And in a dog-eat-dog society such as ours, we will not last.

I remember getting fired from a job, then going back to another job I had also been fired from and begging for work. I was hired on, but not in the same capacity as before. Before I had been the equivalent of a sous chef at an upscale restaurant. But now I was a dishwasher. The lowest rung on the food and beverage totem, the place where only immigrants find pride because to them, work is work, money is money.

But for me, work has never been work. For some reason, after World War II, the understanding of work changed dramatically. For eons, work was what you did to support the people you loved, your family and close friends. You didn’t work a job you were passionate about, you worked a job that paid the bills, that enabled you to send your children to college, that provided for your retirement. Now it seems we are all scrambling to find our voice, our calling, our niche in the ever globalizing dynamism of the marketplace. It is now more important to do something important than it is to just do something. Say that ten times fast.

Of course we can say that the blood and sweat of our forefathers has enabled us to pursue more meaningful careers. We could also say that people were angrier back then because they did not derive a sense of personal satisfaction from their vocation, and that we’re better off having the freedom to choose rather than the obligation to just work.

But we could also say that something was lost in the process. During the lightning evolution of labor, the definition of responsibility has changed dramatically. It used to mean that we were responsible for more than just ourselves, that we have a family to look after, elderly parents to care for, brothers and sisters and neighbors in need of a helping hand. But now we consider responsibility limited to ourselves and our household. If my bills don’t affect you, we have nothing to do with each other.

We’re not all like that, but I would argue that this is the general sentiment of our society, and that it will only get worse as the introversion of our social interactions exacerbates through the expansion of technological relationships, or technoships. But I digress.

I remember returning from Ethiopia and going back to work for my stepfather doing construction. I had helped to create an NGO in Ethiopia, I traveled to Italy with my future wife for an international photography exhibition that included my poetry. I had dined with ambassadors and presidents of countries and multi-millionaires, the elite of the elite. I had found my voice. But now I was living in Goochland, Virginia with my parents, working at a job that I never felt comfortable doing.

But of course I had to. I was getting married and I needed to give something to my future wife and family. We needed a foundation, and although I had the time of my life in Ethiopia, it was not an environment conducive to starting a family–traveling here and there, living on couches and barely scraping by. Even with the blessings of the upper class I was still a mere pet to them. A western boy with bright eyes and big dreams, a bit naive and 100 percent lost. Focused, yes. Passionate? Absolutely. But so caught up in how awesome I was I forgot who I really was.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Because people are so caught up in how good they are they forget that they are just like everyone else. Even the nicest most generous people in the world are subject to being proud of their kindness. Like the story of the monks who argued over who was the most humble. Talk about an oxymoron.

But my time, our time in Goochland dragged. It really strained my new marriage, especially when I had no work for a month, no car, no means to even drive to the city for a job interview. Stuck in rural Virginia, waiting to be saved by something, waiting in vain. Eventually I got a job at a restaurant. Here I was, 29 years old, a life of adventure behind me, and I was back working in the food and beverage industry, making less money per hour than I did when I was 21 and in college. My college degree sat collecting dust in the closet–a $27,000 piece of paper in a cheep Walmart frame. I think that was the last time I ever stepped foot in a Walmart.

Eventually I was hired as a stringer for a newspaper, writing little tidbits of mundane community minutia. The people I wrote about certainly were not mundane, but what I wrote certainly was. Finally I was hired on as a full-time staff writer. Even then I thought is was below where I was in Ethiopia. After eight months I learned that I had won two writing awards, but in the same breath I was laid-off. It was surreal.

I took it in stride, saw it as an opportunity to work on other stuff, get refocused on my own ambitions. So here I am, seven months after being laid-off and still nothing. The humbling experience gets increasingly more painful and longer in duration the older I get. Only now I have a wife, giving the sword another edge and another stabbing point.

I even lost my faith for a while. Athiets and agnostics might find statements like that pitiful, or laughable, or justifiable even. I find it sad. I wish I had the lassaiz-faire spiritual mentality of an agnostic or atheist. I wish I could imagine a chaotic world that ends when it ends, a world in which the Golden Rule were the only thing to worry about, a world in which humanism was the epitome of my moral code. I truly do. But shit in one hand and wish in the other, as they say, and no doubt the dookie will win that battle.

But sometimes we have to lose our faith in order to find it. Sometimes we have to set the bird free and hope that it returns. Older? Naturally. Wiser? Maybe. I guess the key is to never lose faith in yourself, even if you lose faith in the divine. Because God is always calling to us, no matter how much we deny God’s existence or how much we ignore the voice of Mother Nature, God is always singing in our ears. But we are not always singing in our own ears. We are our own worst enemy, each of us is our worst critic. If we forget God, God doesn’t forget us. But if we forget ourselves, we are truly forgotten.

So as I sit, feeling sorry for myself, searching for job after job, writing countless cover letters that inflate my persona, trying desperately to attract the attention of a stranger who in all likelihood I will never meet, as I bounce around ideas for making money in my head, people I can go to for help, places I can go for networking, places I can go to just get the fuck away from everyone, as my brain takes it all in and focuses all its energy on doing something, anything that utilizes my passion and my strengths as a human being, I forget what it means to be humbled. As soon as I grab a job, humility is out the door. I am thrust into the world of Darwinist capitalism, and if I don’t swim, I will sink to the bottom and be forgotten to the sea. If I don’t exude professional confidence and surety I will not last. And if I allow my personal ego to supersede my faith, my soul will not last. So where does that leave me?

I have no idea. I want to give, I want to teach and learn, I want to write, I want to play music and travel, I want to help people. If these are selfish ambitions, so be it. As long as I’m honest with myself, as long as I truly stay humble and reverent and thankful, I have nothing to worry about. If I can be at peace in my heart, if I can know that everything I build with my hands and everything I create can be taken away or destroyed in the blink of an eye, if I know that the only true peace is dedication to a life of humble servitude, if I can truly love and cherish my wife and pray for my enemies and help people when it’s inconvenient to me and be kind with no acknowledgment, I will find my way.

I only hope and pray that the bird will stay happy in its cage. Not pacified, not incarcerated, but locked into the Way, chained in pure freedom.

Swimming in Babylon

2010-09-09T19:05:00.006-04:00

We all know what happened nine years ago around this time. We all remember where we were. There’s no need to reiterate the pain of an atrocity as a cheep means to invoke sentimentality.

But where are we nine years later? It would seem that we are even further away from compassion and understanding. Dangerously so. Although we do tend to get wrapped up in the glass being half-empty, don’t we? We forget about the stuff in the glass that gives us strength because we’re inundated with propaganda from across the political spectrum. Not everybody is an ignorant, Koran-burning xenophobe with a penchant for media manipulation and cheep publicity tricks. Not every American hates the idea of a “Ground Zero Mosque,” as if reaching out to the Muslim world in a gesture of solidarity would spit in the face of those who died in the World Trade Center attacks. I thought Jesus said, turn the other cheek, and love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you. I guess we’re only Christians when it’s convenient.

How many churches were built in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the U.S. detonated atomic weapons in the cities, murdering and maiming hundreds of thousands of innocent people? Is that okay, or is it an atrocity? How quickly we forget and how fast we point our fingers.

As I grow older, I experience an increasing cynicism that seems to wrap itself around me in a gradually thickening cloud of misanthropy. When I was in college, I knew that people were good. All people were good. And I still feel that way. But as the despondency of realism claws at my spirit like an undead zombie seeking to turn me into one of its own, I feel more and more inclined to just say fuck it. It is what it is. People are good in their core, but being good is not a priority. Being feared is what many people aspire to, as if Machiavelli’s question was rhetorical.

One could argue that fear trumps love because love has been thrown into the fire of illusion stoked by the imagination of Hollywood and its media contemporaries. Perhaps love began to die when Aristotle wrote his Poetics, an academic attempt to understand the inimitable qualities that make great art great. Perhaps when we started to try and understand love and all its intricate complexities was when we started to actually fear love. Because we can’t understand love, we fear it, so fear comes before love and is therefore more important.

There’s an interesting quote from Proverbs that always threw me for a loop. It says, “The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge.” I always took that to mean that we can’t have knowledge until we fear God. But fear is such a loaded word, isn’t it? Especially when talking about a Creator. Like George Carlin observed, I don’t want to worship a God who wants us to fear It. God should be an element of love and kindness and compassion.

But the English language–in all its bastardized glory–doesn’t due justice to the Hebrew word for fear. Like the online new age guru Richard Shelquist illustrates on his Web site:

“The word most often translated in the Old Testament as fear is the Hebrew word... yirah which can possibly mean fear, but also means awe, reverence, respect and devotion. A closely related Hebrew word is... yare which can mean fearful, but also means to stand in awe, reverence or honor.”

But I didn’t really understand the depth of the “fear of God” saying until I read a little bit of Van Til’s Apologetic. Van Til–in all his obtuse and esoteric glory–notes that the quote, like passages in all great works of literature, has several meanings and the meanings are constantly evolving. Til writes that reverence and respect towards our Creator is essential as all knowledge comes to us through our Creator. Specifically, when we learn something, we must not wallow in the pride of our indomitable intelligence, but rather, accept that the knowledge was actually a gift, a gift that can be taken away if not understood or appreciated.

Maybe we should look at love under the same light. Maybe we should hold love in reverence and respect, as a gift that we should appreciate, lest it be taken from our hearts and replaced with calloused cynicism.

As human beings have evolved, both physically and mentally, we have yet to make a dent emotionally or spiritually. We are still moved by sophomoric yet emotive techniques that should have been thrown in the trash with our baby teeth. We are so immature in our spiritual understanding it makes me queasy. Of course there are millions and perhaps billions of people worldwide who lack physical and mental sophistication but exude a spiritual and emotional maturity that allows them a peace of mind that others can’t even imagine. Not even Hollywood.

Perhaps this problem exists strictly in western countries, or maybe just in the U.S. I don’t know. I do know that when we create things to fix the problems created by other created things, we just create more problems (that’s a lot of creation). At one time in history, our worries were limited to food and survival. Now our worries and psychological problems are enough to warrant an entire industry to fight the negative side effects of our own inventions. It’s truly an amazing spectacle of hubris and fear.

This is no call to turn Luddite, blow up your TV, throw away your paper and move the country, as John Prine suggests. It’s more of a call to ask ourselves a simple question. Have Americans learned anything positive from the Sept. 11 attacks, or do we only care about defeating Islamic extremists? Perhaps what we need is a peaceful wing of Al-Qaida, a Christian Taliban. Maybe we need some people who want the same things but use peaceful means to achieve it. I’m not advocating intolerance against women and Sharia law, but I am asking us to join a fight against imperialism, against one-size-fits-all international policies, against ignorance and corruption and greed which are all symptoms of fear. A fight against the fear of "the other" that has plagued humanity since the tower of Babel fell and our pride thrust our tongues to choose a voice and we were forever separated from our brothers and sisters through language.

Rodney King, the simple-minded Los Angeles victim of the 1992 L.A. riots, was deeply observant when we mused, half-crying and with his head bowed, “Can’t we all just get along?” King echoed the very sentiment that has stirred the minds of every idealist since the tower of Babel crashed. Why can’t we get along? Why is fear so motivating?

If we listen to FDR and understand that fear itself is the only thing to fear, maybe we’ll get somewhere. If we respect fear only because of the power that it has to motivate our actions, maybe then we can stop using fear to achieve power or control. If fear exists only as something that stands in front of us, only an obstacle that must be overcome to achieve understanding, maybe we stand a chance. But we have a long way to go.

Only those who aren’t afraid to get their feet wet can really enjoy the ocean. If you can’t swim, maybe it’s time to throw yourself into the water and see what you’re made of. As long as you have a friend there who understands what you’re doing, you should have no fear, and neither should your friend. Only respect for the power of the ocean, and love for the gift of water.

Let’s all go swimming!

The dust of the war machine

2010-07-24T13:04:00.001-04:00

The book and movie Fight Club was an interesting commentary on human beings' substitution of natural pain with artificial materialism, and the resulting backlash. To see clearly the state of one's existence is to feel that one is alive. Without feeling the sensation of being alive, we are essentially walking corpses.

But the feeling of being alive means more than just experiencing pain. We as human beings desire love, success, friendships. We want to feel exhilaration and acceptance and security.

But for those who seek pain either consciously or otherwise, the masochists, they create a dichotomy within the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

If you enjoy or need pain, and you are a golden rule adherent, doesn’t that mean you will cause pain to others? And to people who don’t want it?

So where does that leave us? In a world where violence and pain are often the status quo, how can we ever live in peace? How can we treat others respectfully if we expect them to hurt us?

It comes down to knowing ourselves. How do we know ourselves? By looking at ourselves from the outside. How do we do that? By listening. How do we listen? By loving and respecting. How do we love and respect? We examine the great souls of the past. Yeshua, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr. The Saints. The Idealists. The Givers. Our ancestors who inspired us. Strangers who surprised us.

The irony of academic discussion is that improving the human condition is easy to illustrate via an essay, but in practice becomes horrifically challenging. It takes the full responsibility and dedication of every human being to make it work. We are, as CS Lewis said, all ships in a fleet heading towards the same destination. If one of us goes down, the entire fleet is weakened.

Objectivists may disagree, and argue that our innate selfishness is what inspires our compassion for our brothers and sisters. We only care because we get something out of caring, and we should only care if we are getting something. But, this sentiment only serves to strengthen and perpetuate the ego within each of us, further separating us from the natural wonders and the eternal connection of all living beings and all inanimate matter.

Academics, critical theorists, commentators, and college students with cause affectations, seize society’s flaws as if their own existence requires a state of imperfection. And that is, once again, a terrible self-perpetuating masochism. The idea is to come up with ideas that sound profound, because to actually create change would negate their existence.

So the real question is this: Why bother? If we made a change, we’d have nothing to talk about. We’d have no cause, no purpose. This isn’t a call for nihilism, but rather a call for singular and universal consciousness. Even in America where the oligarchy’s presence is hidden behind progressive and humane causes, where we limit ourselves by apathetic consumerism, where violence in the media maintains a bull market, where volunteers are used to create record profits while maintaining high unemployment rates, where images of computerized strangers affect individuals’ self-esteem, even here, positive change has conditions of acceptance. We can only improve x if y is unaffected. Or else, we will have to create z to combat the unintended consequences of x. And so it goes. The snowball of invention in the name of Utopia eventually crashes and leaves everyone in a melting pool of ignorance.

Let us revolutionize our minds. Let us begin the long process of understanding each other. Let us transcend borders and cultural barriers and reveal the true beauty that lies beyond the dust of the war machine. If we can see with our neighbor’s eyes, if we can hear with more than our ears, we won’t want to feel pain anymore and we won’t seek to be hurt. We will finally become alive.

July 12, 2007

The Price is Right to buy BP

2010-07-16T17:44:00.008-04:00

I just purchased stock in BP. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Brilliant, right? Surely, any company with talismanic foresight for business planning is a shoe-in for our investment dollars. Any company that can allow an oil deluge to go on for three months has got a plan. Big plans. The PR debacle is the smoke, and the response effort is the mirror. I can’t wait to see my investment skyrocket in an afternoon delight of new capital ventures.

Of course, the price to be paid is high. Lord knows, we all love our seafood and we’re pretty much lost in a pre-New Testament quandary about what kind of meat is okay to eat now that our bottom dwellers are incapacitated, most likely to their inedible delight. It’s difficult to pay twice as much for shrimp, but I know that I must do my part in the economic recovery of our nation. So I purchase my overpriced cocktails with red, white and blue gleaming in every consumption.

And what a shame it is for the fishermen. What a travesty! Livelihoods lost in the blink of an eye. But at least there’s some jobs with BP cleaning up the spill. God bless capitalism!

It reminds me of the symbiotic brilliance of the fast food and fitness industries. Let’s face it, without Burger King and McDonald’s we’d have little need for Slim Fast and Weight Watchers.

Or the relationship between the mental health and pharmaceutical industries. Without the thousands of psychoses that our brilliant psychologists are discovering through the potent and unbiased scientific method, we’d have no need for the myriad drugs that clog the prescription shelves at our local pharmacy. Go agoraphobia! I always thought grandpa was just ornery, turns out he was suffering from acute stress disorder with remnants of cyclothymic and delusional disorders coupled with trichotillomania. No wonder why I still have my hair! He pulled out all of his! It’s not genetic! Let’s hear it for the DSM IV!*

Life never had such deep meaning until long, Latin-derived names were attributed to our woes. And the true meaning didn’t arrive until drug companies devised a delicious concoction to replace self-improvement. God bless instant gratification!

So in reality, BP is just following in the footsteps of its brethren. This clean-up effort is causing them to really dig deep into their pockets. But what they’re truly looking for is something big. It’s a nasty chess game, and it seems they’ve just sacrificed their queen to give the king a shot at the final blow. I can’t wait to see it!

Maybe this is an effort to depress the stock value, so forward-thinking chums like myself can snatch it all up, away from all them Middle Eastern what-have-yous and European neocolonials. Or maybe, they’re trying to destroy the Obama administration by making it appear impotent. That way, a more oil-friendly republican can take office in 2012 on the heals of America’s distrust for idiotic liberal policy. Small price to pay for the bigger picture. A few billion here to ensure the democrats lose office. There are trillions of dollars to be made in the energy industry. I’m glad I’ve got my bit of heaven.

We the people tend to only see the now, and our thoughts on the future are only relevant to what we see happening now. We don’t see what’s really going on, so we can’t see what’s really going to happen. Luckily for all of us, I recently purchased a hand-made Indonesian crystal ball from Walmart for 13 cents, and it told me that BP is going to rake it in big. Got rake? I sure as hell do.

Pay no attention to the liberal media’s idea that more government policy is needed to ensure safe oil drilling. Or the right-wing media telling us that liberal policy is what forced BP to drill in such deep water to begin with. Listen only to your inner Warren Buffett. What would Buffett do? Drink a margarita and eat a cheeseburger in paradise? Only after he was sure that he owned the tequila, the beef company and the royal park. So let’s start buying up BP stock. After all, we wouldn’t want our children growing up without cheeseburgers, shrimp cocktail, combustion engines and bipolar disorder. Would we?

* Narrative bomb! This grandfather passage does not reflect the author's feelings regarding his parents' fathers. In fact, he's bald and so it goes in his family.

The BP guide to profiting from disaster

2010-06-12T18:34:00.006-04:00

The public relations debacle instigated by the BP oil deluge seems to mean nothing in the long-term business plan of British Petroleum. It’s all about the numbers. And the quality of information that is being spoon fed to the media is a slap in the face to free speech democracy. The gross co-optation of governmental bodies by BP officials is harrowing to say the least. Kelly Cobiella, a reporter for CBS news, tried to gain access to the beaches along the Gulf when she was met by a boat of BP stooges and two Coast Guard officials who threatened her arrest. A man from the Coast Guard actually said “this is BP’s rules, not ours.”

Matthew Lysiak, a reporter from The Daily News of New York, was told by a local sheriff that he needed BP’s permission to access a public beach, and that a BP official was required as a chaperone. BP employees are actually answering the telephone for the Coast Guard-Federal Aviation Administration command center, and BP officials denied a fly-over request by a pilot who was carrying a journalist on board.

The oil flow estimates have increased from 1,000 barrels a day to upward of 100,000. Scientists have been denied access to the deluge, and the flow rate estimates are actually surmised from observing a low resolution video. Fisheries are becoming toxic, wildlife is dying, ecosystems are being destroyed. This is deplorable. The entire event, from start to finish is unacceptable. The only possible explanation for this situation is that the cost-benefit analysis performed by BP would seem to indicate that, in the short term, keeping the leak open will enable them to collect more revenue in the long term.

Now, this is where it all gets dicey. Why would BP keep the oil deluge alive when it is obviously a PR disaster? Why would they not plug the leak and tap into the oil again later? There are several, perhaps dozens of deciding factors within BP’s maneuver, and it is almost impossible to know what’s really happening.

But why keep the leak open if it’s bad PR, which is bad for business? BP has already publicly stated that they are going to use all revenue from the oil collected to pay for the clean-up. That’s their PR move. But is still does nothing to answer the question of why the deluge is still active after nearly two months. Maybe bad PR is good for long-term business. More on that later.

Even BP’s “positive” PR campaign is fraught with manipulation and eyebrow-raising actions. After denying a request to pay for clean-up of the Barrier Islands, they spent $50 million on television ads telling the public that they will “make things right.” They even purchased search engine phrases to maximize the number of people going to their Web site, and minimize the number of people going to actual news organizations for information.

That said, let’s take a logical look at this situation through a financial-incentive lens. Oil is pouring into the gulf, causing BP’s stock price to fall, causing BP and its cohorts to pay billions in damages and claims and clean-up. At the same time, BP is going to refine and sell the thousands of barrels of oil they gather from the Gulf to help pay for the clean-up (and buffer their bottom line).

BP claims to have a plan to stop the oil deluge that involves drilling relief wells to relieve the pressure and then sealing the wells with concrete. But they are saying that it will take upwards of three months before this happens. Why aren’t they plugging the hole immediately? Why are they performing surgery on this thing that will take months? And why have attempts to plug the spill consisted solely of processes that would allow for future access to the oil? Aside from the top kill method, all procedures were focused on containing the spill but allowing for access to the oil at a later date.

It is quite possible that BP did not want top kill to work, as certain interested parties could be poised to profit from this envirocide. The hole in the Gulf could be plugged now, but it is not. BP officials stated that they didn’t want to detonate an explosion because if it didn’t work, it would limit their options. Perhaps their fear was that it would work, and eliminate the opportunity for investors to cash in. The problem isn’t a lack of ideas, but in the gross manipulation of our government and we the people by a private company.

Does the manner in which the federal government and BP are handling the disaster make sense? Obviously, no. It doesn’t. So, how do we make sense out of the nonsensical? We have to understand the factors at play; access, influence and control. We have to consider even the most imaginative scenarios because at the highest levels of governance and business, the temptation to retain access, influence and control is more potent than the draw to do what’s right.

The amount of money and power and political clout that the oil industry wields is mind boggling. This is not a BP disaster, it’s an oil industry chess game. The international economic climate is dreary, with positive prospects only in sight of the wealthy. The government is yielding to BP because of all these factors. Interest groups, think tanks and lobbyists are no doubt behind the scenes, making deals that determine when the hole actually gets plugged. People are gathered at expensive hotels, dining on the finest imported caviar (not from the Gulf of Mexico, for sure), discussing ways in which to profit from this disaster. If it drives the stock of BP down, that could be good for people who are trying to take hold of the company. Perhaps we should surveil the sale of BP stock as it continues to decline to determine if this is a systematic takeover in the Hudsucker Proxy vein. BP’s stock value has fallen by nearly 50 percent since the incident. Just before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, New Jersey’s pension system sold it’s $465.5 million investment in BP for a $5.5 million gain. Call it luck, call it whatever you wish.

Of course, this is just an example, and there are an infinite number of possibilities that create the need for a disaster like this to continue (or happen). It could even be an excuse to go into bankruptcy. Oil is not a popular player in the modern energy game, and any disaster could be an opportunity to position themselves for a sneak attack on consumers.

Unfortunately, it is not below human beings to use a disaster to gain something. During times of war, the federal government spends billions of dollars on weapons from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and the like. Billions. In one strike alone against Iraq, the U.S. dropped $64 million in Tomahawk missiles. $64 million worth of missiles in a few hours. Not a bad day's work for Raytheon, the company that manufactures Tomahawks.

During World War II, the New York-based company International Business Machines (IBM) supplied the Nazis with the computers used to keep tabs on their eugenic genocide. U.S. officials did nothing to stop it. The battle for tanks also spurred a record-breaking spending spree on both sides of the pond, filling the pocket books of ingenious businessmen with no shred of conscience. Many human atrocities are lost or forgotten, hidden or falsified by the powers that were. Even in America, we still consider the battle for freedom was against the British, when really it was a struggle to contain Native Americans and exploit African slaves.

We must first acknowledge that anything is possible. Anything. That would seem easy if we considered our stories. The fact that BP is not giving us accurate or complete information is confirmation of their power. The fact that they are calling the shots, controlling government agencies and limiting government involvement, not answering letters from government officials, denying journalists access to information and providing false and misleading statistics, and preventing independent scientists from personally observing the leak is confirmation that the status quo is what needs protection, and the federal government is along for the ride.

The impotence of our government exposed by this travesty is inconceivable, especially after our executive office has denied help from at least a dozen countries due to the outdated Jones Act, which is easily waived as evident in Delaware where foreign-owned vessels are allowed to operate.

The true loss is not to the environment, but to democracy and the ability of the citizenry to actively engage in the decision making process. If we lose this battle, what’s next? This event is establishing a horrific precedent in government compliance with corporate strategy. What other disasters will take place in the future that will allow for democracy to be stifled? Is this the beginning of an Orwellian society? Or is this just a glimpse into the everyday happenings of global economics?

The tragedy is that we will forget about the real disaster, which is democracy’s loss to the oligarchical power structure. Perhaps that is the purpose for keeping the oil deluge alive–to remind us that we have no control, that we have no power. BP will obviously divert attention to the clean-up effort, and rightly so. But what will that do to the real question, Why didn’t the hole get plugged immediately? We will surely forget, because we must move forward. But with BP’s spit lingering on the face of democracy, it’s a shame we don’t jump on this opportunity and gain a real voice in the sea of political and monetary agendas.

If BP comes out of this with only a PR debacle and a massive clean-up on its hands, then they did pretty good. But if they come out with the idea that they can manipulate public land during a disaster, if they can control water and resources and deny fundamental rights to citizens, journalists and scientists trying to understand what’s going on in order to help, if they walk away from this knowing that they succeeded in controlling this entire debate, then democracy has truly lost. It will only further strengthen the divide amongst the haves and have-nots. It will exacerbate corporate influence on First Amendment rights like never before. Inevitably, it will force our minds to shopping, to our 401k (or lack of one), to our two-week vacation, to Big Macs and extra large fries and extra large concepts of America so we can forget about the pain of reality.

We must plug the hole ourselves, immediately. It will tell BP that we take ownership of our own destiny, and that the lives of millions of people and animals and plants and microorganisms are more important than any agenda. We will gain access to the impenetrable system by breaking down the doors of influence. It is a measure reflective of the times–an act of desperation in the name of democracy.

Plug that hole!

The grocery store philosophers

2010-06-07T19:30:00.000-04:00

Spontaneity is so refreshing, even when it’s dull. It’s funny how life sometimes requires it of us, even when our minds are so narrow-minded and focused on control that it would take death to keep us from achieving our goal. But sometimes we listen to our inner traveler, that free voice deep in the pit of our chest that’s connected to the core of our mind and spirit. Sometimes, we listen to that honest consciousness, but not as often as we should, as we often confuse it with our desires which often lead to feelings of guilt and heightened self-consciousness.

I was on my way to pick up a piece of music equipment when I decided to stop at the grocery store. My wife had been ill, and I wanted to grab some vitamin C rich products and organic veggies to concoct a natty meal plan that would enable her body to murder the microscopic infidels. I chose to stop at a grocery store that I never patronize because it’s far from my house. But I felt that little nagging nuisance inside me urge me out the car. So I obliged, feeling empowered, perhaps, by what I perceived was a mission of valor and virtue.

I grabbed some artichokes, fresh ginger and garlic, some asparagus, spinach and herbs, and of course oranges, mangoes, papaya, pineapple and cantaloupe. I also snagged a drink chock full of vitamins and organic veggies, and since Uncle Sam was paying, I bought organic. This was my health care plan. No job, no insurance, fugetaboutit. I’ve never had better access to basic services since I lost my job. When I had money, I couldn’t afford anything. Now that I’m broke, it seems like everything is taken care of.

After stocking my cart with fresh produce and trendy fruit drinks I mozied towards the processed organic food aisle. Man, I felt like a socially conscious green consumer! I imagined my car was a hybrid, and that I lived in an Earth ship buried in the ground with solar panels on the roof and a composting toilet that fed my organic garden of grains and grasses that I fed my goats and chickens. I thought about getting a Flock of Seagulls haircut, spending $85 on fair trade jeans that had pre-worn holes in it to make me appear to not care about looks, and then getting a bicycle and walking everywhere with my right pant leg pulled up so everyone would know how much I respect the earth.

I was observing the selection of teas and the Yerba Matte jumped out at me in all its trendy and hip glory. As I perused the conscious-yuppie staples, three teenagers came laughing down the aisle, seemingly in touch with their emotions and content with their weaknesses (which I perceived by their self-deprecating humor, tight jeans and interesting verbal patterns.)

“It’s Fig Newmans,” Blane said. I turned around and smiled at them. The box had a picture of Paul Newman and what I assumed was his wife on the cover in classic American Gothic style.

“So if you buy them does Paul Newman come out and do a little dance?” I asked, and gave my best rendition of what a Paul Newman dance would be if he were an awful Riverdancer.

“They don’t have milk in them,” he replied. Serai and Greg smiled at me. Blane was 19, tall and lean and health conscious. I suspected that his parents were liberal and he was given guitar lessons at a young age but he perhaps rebelled against the formalities of music education and pursued more visceral audio interests. He seemed a bit taken back by my comment, as he was the obvious leader of the group and his cohorts laughed at my dance whereas he focused on the dairy-free nature of the Fig Newmans.

Greg was fit and very American: blue eyes, tightly cropped hair and a constant smile. His eyes were glazed over, and I suspected that they perhaps had the munchies after a ride on the sativa train. Serai was petit in her physique and minimal in her projections. She seemed to have grown up in a conservative household that reminded women of their “place.” All three appeared to be an odd fit for each other. She seemed Muslim, Greg seemed Baptist and Blane seemed agnostic. But that all changed with a quick and random invitation issued by Greg.

“You should come to a bible study,” he asked. The others looked on and nodded in agreement. I immediately gathered myself. I find these kinds of uninvited invitations most disheartening. It’s reminiscent of a stranger offering a child candy while the mother isn’t looking. But, I knew they were only trying to reach out to me on a spiritual level. They weren’t aggressive or judgmental, just curious and anxious and naive.

What began as a spontaneous invitation quickly turned into a religious debate, right there in the organic aisle of Kroger.

“You see, Christ, in my understanding of him, didn’t go around telling people to come to meetings,” I said. “He lived a certain way. He didn’t talk about it, he did it. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t go around telling people how great he was, which is what most people who call themselves Christians do. If we are Christians, than why are we in this store talking about being Christian? Why aren’t we giving our time to others, helping the poor, living selflessly?”

Paul took offense to my position. “Yeah, but it’s all contextual. What they did in their time is different from what we do now.”

As the debate heated, a man with large dreadlocks tied in a bun walked past us. I noticed he glanced at us as he passed, and he seemed to linger near our conversation. Then, a young woman who was most certainly from the Middle East hovered close by. Before we knew it, it was a real live debate.

“All your perspectives are coming from a Euro-centric worldview,” said the dreadlocked man, whom I will call Peter. “Jesus was not blond-haired and blue eyed, he looked more like a modern day Muslim.”

The new girl, Haya, also interjected her heart. “We have to look inside ourselves to understand the truth,” she said.

After half an hour of chatting, my phone rang. It was my wife. I knew she was waiting for me, and I knew she was not feeling well. But the naivete of these three youngsters was so deep and misguided, I felt i had to stay and talk with them.

“When you say, ‘Christ said this,’ you’re already misguided because Christ didn’t speak English,” I said. “It’s what we think Christ said. And the knowledge of Christ is deeper than any book. Jesus Christ didn’t come to the Earth to start Christianity. He came to show us how to live, and that transcends all religions. I don’t know any Christians who live like Christ lived.”

But the argument continued, and they were more interested in what Peter had to say, probably because they had no exposure to African-American thought on the subject. Or maybe they felt that if they focused their attention on him instead of me, they wouldn’t feel racist. I soon realized that my time with them was ending and that I had responsibilities to attend to. Without getting their names, I left, and insisted that we meet the following Thursday at 9 p.m. in the same spot. They agreed, and I knew I would see them again.

I was obsessed with the upcoming meeting and the potential for a real and progressive spiritual group to emerge from these discussions. Thursday arrived on schedule, which surprised me as I considered my exaggerated emphasis on the importance of this meeting to be a real time-stopper, as if the universe would end before the kind of knowledge we would discover could be unveiled to humanity. The world wasn’t ready for our minds!

I drafted some questions that I thought we be interesting for us to discuss and printed out about a dozen copies, with quotes from the Bible, the Qur’an and the Tao Te Ching. I made my way into the organic aisle of Kroger, eager to catch a glimpse of at least one of my former comrades. With me was a Muslim friend, and I knew he would be a welcomed addition to the discussion. As I turned the corner with much anticipation, at 9:05 p.m., my eyes saw only the products along the aisle and the glistening tile floor. Nobody was there.

I left knowing that it was probably for the best, as the spontaneity that inspired that moment with those strangers whose names I may never know existed in that one moment, like an improvised song that is impossible to recreate but permanently memorable.

I left the store with the stack of print-outs, still looking in the parking lot to see if perhaps someone was there, just running a bit late. Perhaps they came, most likely they didn’t. But I am positive that they will always remember the organic aisle at Kroger with a warmth and affection that no other grocery store section can compare.

Ambulatory Adventures

2010-06-05T13:07:00.000-04:00

I exit into a sea of commerce, culture, society and depravity. An old man with no hands and blank white eyes holds his stubs out, asking for the sake of God to give him money. His eyes have seen more than I dare to imagine. Sometimes I give, sometimes I don’t. I have the luxury of choosing, and my choice could easily determine if this man eats or not. I don’t like that kind of power, as it fills me with guilt if I don’t act, and consumes me with responsibility if I do. I continue walking.

A line of metal chairs waits for souls with dirty shoes. The orange seats are worn down to the rusted frame, and the remaining fabric is camouflaged with dirt and oil stains, blending perfectly with this cultural microcosm. Young boys occupy these thrones, and call their subjects to them with dirty cloth in hand, putting marketing skills to the test as they attempt to herd the masses to their Kiwi wax and horse hair buffers.

“Farenj! Farenj!,” they call out. Foreigner. I was called “China” once, which, as I understand it, refers to people of Asian descent. But like many Americans, I am a Euro-mut, with no semblance of Asian roots, aside from my alleged connection to the Caucasus Mountains.

I continue walking. I come upon an ocean of blue cars, Fiats and Renaults mostly, from the early 80s and late 70s. A group of older men stand on the side of the road, talking shop and planning their next attack on victims of an intimidating road system. “You! You!,” they call out. “Me?” I ask. “You,” they say. “You?” I ask. “You,” they reply, and point at a car. I point at their car. “Me?” I say. “Where are you go?” I point down the road and continue walking. My unwillingness to succumb to their salesmanship only fuels their technique. They call out “you, you” again and point at their car, as if a ride in their haughty machine could somehow bring meaning into my life, and without my fare my money would disown me for having never been spent on such an eloquent ride. But today my feet are my steed, as a beautiful day in Addis brings a perfect balance of warm air, cool shades and a kaleidoscope of stimulation for the senses.

A man selling Chinese belts approaches, attempting to convince me of the high quality of these items, which cost about $3 or $4. A woman selling skin-on peanuts, Hip-hop biscuits, chewing gum and suckers waits patiently for her customers to buy something to keep her and hers on the up and up. She sits with a stoic patience, with eyes that know the sun, hidden under a cheap umbrella which she traded a kilo of peanuts for just before the rainy season began two years ago.

Then comes the market. In five steps you have five options. Ten steps, fifteen options. How many different versions of ginger can there be? Who is the best vendor? The competitors eat from the same table, share secrets, lend each other hands. The true spirit of capitalism, invested in the acumen of each of theses respectful entrepreneurs. The only kind of market. A bailout for this system would involve loaning a few sacks of seed and water, maybe an extra hand to plow the field. Civilization never seemed so uncivilized until I saw how ‘uncivilized’ people live.

Walk into the metal-workers section. Men covered head to toe from years of hard labor. Their clothes the color of mace and tar, their faces reveal added years from all their sweat which dissolved their youth. Sparks fly as the saw-man takes off a few meters of rebar. Two youngsters carry heavy poles on their shoulders with effortless grace, as if their identity is tied to manual labor and without an aching back, existence would be meaningless.

Into the automotive area I go. Walls of tires, with radial wire spiking out and glimmering in the afternoon heat, sending waves of vapor and star-like reflections bouncing off the tire-man who waits for someone with a stroke of bad luck to improve his own. The ground is all rubber, beaten into the dirt like a child’s lost toy found years later by the boy who had become a man. The entrance is shredded tires, black filets enticing the appetites of weary motorists in need of a rubber fix.

I walk past homes made of cow dung and all I can smell is sweet incense and the intense aroma of roasting coffee, a scent that never enticed me until my trip here.

On the ground is a man with legs much too small for his stature. He sits in a permanent lotus position–a yogi of the street world. His eyes are healthy and real, and his arms strong from supporting his weight through many years of life. In his hands are wooden blocks, made to slightly elevate his body while he walks with his hands. He looks at me, desperately, trying to pull out my empathy with his eyes. But any reasonable effort I make to help this man is ultimately fruitless. Tomorrow he will still be on the street. Next year, if he’s still alive, my empathy will have long since evaporated into the ether, and that moment when he and I were connected in his struggle will be nothing more than words on a page.

Ethiopia, the Olympics and cosmic consciousness

2010-06-02T13:26:00.000-04:00

Ethiopians have much to be proud of. This past winter Olympics offered hope to young Ethiopians and Africans around the world that one day, they too could participate in the ancient competition. Ethiopia’s son Robel Teklemariam competed in cross country skiing, an event which is considered by most to be the most physically demanding athletic challenge in the world. It requires massive upper and lower body strength and an endurance level that tests medical definitions of possibility. These athletes actually have more blood vessels in their body than any other living human, experts say.

Robel, whose family owns the Nile Restaurant in Richmond, Virginia, first competed in Torino in 2006. The mere fact that he was able to compete was satisfaction enough for the dreadlocked athlete. He admits that his appearance drew an assortment of judgement and negative comments from the media and his contemporaries. When he was tested for drugs, his hemoglobin levels were above normal, a sign that performance enhancing drugs had been introduced to his system. However, people who live at high altitudes also have high hemoglobin, and Robel had lived at high altitudes for most of his life. But many people focused on the drug factor because Robel seemed to represent something different, something non-western. For centuries, western societies have continuously found ways to manifest their fear towards other people – especially those of color. This was just another one of those events used to intimidate and get inside the heads of “the other.” But he prevailed, and won. Not the Olympics, but the game of prejudice killing and stereotype shattering.

In Ethiopia, jokes abound about Robel being a skier, given that the country has a mostly tropical climate with snow only existing at the top of the tallest mountains. Who cares that there’s no snow in Ethiopia? There’s no snow in Florida, either, but people from Florida can compete in the winter Olympics. Where do we draw the line? Geography is not the issue, it’s a matter of principal. It’s an extension of the increasingly globalized world in which we live. Anyone can do anything at anytime. Robel is a physical manifestation of the power of the Internet, the interconnections that bind us all together, the spirituality of our religions, and the universal cosmic consciousness that unites every molecule in existence. That’s a lot of responsibility, Robel!

In addition to having a representative in the winter Olympics, Ethiopians should be, are are naturally, very proud. Aside from the fact that the recent elections are strewn with allegations of corruption, Ethiopians are not a people of the government. Before Meles Zenawi, they were Ethiopia. And they will be Ethiopia long after he is gone. Legacies remain, and they are defeated. Dynasties last only as long as the bloodline remains securely selfish. Eventually, all powers find rest in the annals of history. People are the true leaders of their destiny, and they are the true dreamers of dreams. Ethiopians are survivors. More than 80 recorded famines in their 3,000 year history, not to mention countless droughts. Westerners think that famine started in 1973 with Jonathan Dimbleby’s report, but the reality is that Ethiopia is no stranger to these events. And they have survived. They have not been defeated by the hand of nature or by the hand of man. But, like gold in the rock, they have been purified by fire. This is no argument for eugenics, but one of natural selection, a process that has been stunted in western societies by modern medicine, which in reality, only serves to strengthen the bacterias and viruses that are exposed to our antibiotics and vaccines. Of course, some benefits are obvious, but long terms effects are not known and history has a way of showing us how our vanity comes crashing down on us at the most unexpected moment.

This is no argument for the importance of famine, but a reality of what famine does to a people. And, most importantly, what a country’s reaction to famine really means. It is no different than walking down the street in New York City, eating a hot dog and feeling happy with oneself and life, when suddenly a man clothed in rags and reeking of a horrid conglomeration of urine, alcohol and body odor approaches and asks for change. It’s usually when we feel the best about ourself that we give to a homeless person. Why? Because we feel guilty for doing well, for feeling good. We only give to relieve ourselves of our guilt, not to really help this man. If we wanted to truly help this man, we’d sit down with him, find out his story, listen to him, understand him, hear him out. If he’s destined to be on the streets, as is sometimes the case, so be it. But, if he’s just one of the those people whom life has shat on constantly, the best thing we can do is offer him a place to stay, food in his belly and clothes on his back. Then help him get a job and teach him how to keep the job. That’s how we help people. Giving someone $50 or 50 cents doesn’t do a damn thing except perpetuate the socio-economic divide and exacerbate the neediness of the needy. In the western eye, Ethiopia was a homeless country whose story the west never took the time to know, only threw money at it to make us feel better about ourselves.

That's not to discount the people who came together with a heart of right to help those in need. But they are not limited to westerners. True heroes are the unsung; the neighbor who leaves food on your doorstep then disappears in the night without being thanked. The stranger who sees you sleeping on the sidewalk in the cold and leaves his jacket on you without you knowing until you wake up, surprisingly warm. The farmer who opens his field to anyone willing to bend their backs. These are true heros, and they'll never be interviewed because the attention we give them removes their real reward – their anonymity.

Of course, people who are starving are hardly going to deny help. Nobody wants to experience that, as millions of people can lose their lives in a most brutal fashion. But, is dying from famine better or worse than being blown to bits by a remote control airplane? At least when you die of famine, you look to God for answers, because it was nature that failed. When you’re blown up by a remote control airplane (AKA Drone), you tend to look to the person flying it. Unless of course we want to declare war on nature because of her weapons of mass destruction that have been working overtime lately, I suggest we re-examine the nature of international aid, which is a cultural and historical blight on the integrity of the people receiving it. And if we continue to offer aid to combat famine, then we must cease every and all wars and engagements and occupations of foreign lands (starting in Okinawa) or else our hypocrisy will feed the hate that already fuels violence against our country. Save a child from hunger in one country, blow up a child by accident in another. They don’t cancel each other out, one doesn’t pay for the other, it is not good policy.

Of course, one might argue that we are responsible for our brothers and sisters, because if we know there is a famine, we are responsible to act. That is, a starving person may blame us if we do not act, because now instead of nature it is human beings who have accepted the responsibility to act because we are aware of the famine’s existence. This I will not argue against. But, western society, in all its good intentions, does absolutely nothing to bring long-term solutions to these situations and is consciously unaware of the consequences of their good intentions. There are NGOs and small groups of people who drill for wells and do their best, but it is not the status quo. The status quo is control, as exercised by all players in the international community. Nobody wants a famine, but it offers an opportunity to exercise control like no other, so much so that I would argue that famine is political capital on a global scale. Without the opportunity to stop a famine, there would be no chance to show how much love we can give. If we can’t show our love, how will people know of it? Especially in time of war, what better deterrent from killing babies than to talk about all our efforts in Haiti? Therefore if behooves international interests that famines and natural disasters occur, however random and staggered in their occurrence, as international political capital is gained from their existence. Especially in times of war.

But what does that mean? It is an argument for the need for human beings to break away from their perceptions of reality and understand that we are all 13 billion years old and that our physical body is just flash in the pan of time. If we can revolve our minds, unchain them from the illusion of the material world, if we can understand the human condition from the lens of universal consciousness, then perhaps one day famines will cease. The amazing thing is that heaven is on the earth, it is everywhere. We just have to find it and live in it.

Can I get a witness: writing for social change

2010-06-01T17:18:00.000-04:00

Social change. That was the topic of a discussion held by the James River Writers and the Richmond Times-Dispatch on May 27. The panelists included Michael Paul Williams, a columnist with the RTD; Emily Troutman, a journalist with AOL; and Linda Beatrice Brown, an author of fiction. The host was Maya Payne Smart, a freelance journalist and author.

I was hopeful, in the beginning. I went in knowing that I would be surrounded by introverts. Writers. Artists. The best and the worst kind of people. But I was still hopeful. The event was titled, Can I get a witness: writing for social change. The title in itself is enough to energize anyone with even a vague notion of the importance of the written word. For me, words don’t lie. People use them to lie. The words we use as writers more often reflect our own level of honesty within ourselves. Our own self-knowledge is between every line.

I was a bit uncomfortable, as it was held at the Children’s Museum and I was much more interested in the abstract artistic visions that adorned the walls and in exploring the ambulance that sat in a lonely corner than snob-hopping with the literary elite of Richmond. I don’t mean to sound crass, but Richmond, in all its small-city glory, wreaks of cliques. Not that it’s bad, but it’s annoying. As I gathered the handouts and prepared to make my way into the room, there was a stack of note cards and a small, hand-written sign asking attendees to write down their literary accomplishments. These would then be read aloud at the intermission. I thought about it, hesitated. The whole concept seemed masturbatory. Of course it was done with the best intentions, but I couldn’t help but feel that this event wreaked of sycophants. Come intermission time, no names were read. Perhaps everyone felt as I did or perhaps I was in a room of amateurs. Or, most likely, people felt the need to be modest in a room where intellectual judgement is the status quo.

Like a good little lab rat, I wandered into my labyrinth seeking the cheese and trying desperately to avoid any external stimulus that would negatively impact my mission. It quickly became apparent that what could have been a rally call to excite and engage socially aware writers was actually a watered-down saccharine melange of industry-saturated sentiments flanked by polite attention-seeking questions and pretentiousness. One of the panelists had been to the Congo, and made sure that the crowd knew that by reminding them every chance she got.

Racism.

The only social issue that was discussed was race. Nobody even mentioned the oil spill in the gulf, and the lack of real reporting covering the event. BP could dump a ridiculous amount of rocks and cement on top of the damn thing and it would be plugged. But no, they need to salvage the well. They need to find a way to have access to the oil, that’s why it’s still flowing. My goodness, it doesn’t take a scientist to tell you that. But media won’t budge on it. Why? Because it’s too touchy and the BP scientists have enough of their own “data” to fuel a legal battle that would bury the media outlets, not to mention reduce the advertising revenue to the media from BP.

The panelists, who represented mainstream media, touched on humanitarian issues, but nothing else. Not one of the panelists said what social issues needed to be addressed, aside from the racial issue. I wish I were black so I could feel the freedom to talk freely about race in American culture. Any white person who talks about racial issues seems to be a racist. If they are not a racist, it’s easy to construe them as racist. It’s the default stereotype.

But I’m going to out on a limb here and speak my mind. If people have a problem with racism, than stop seeing race. If people think that remembering slavery and segregation is a means to understand our current situation, where does it end? I am so tired of the “remember slavery” sentiment. Since the dawn of mankind, human beings have enslaved each other. Why do Americans with slave ancestors seem to dwell constantly on that fact, as if talking about it will magically make racist white people see the error of their ways? All people, all colors, have the capacity to hate and to love. Almost all cultures throughout history have enslaved their brothers. Where does “remember slavery” end? In America, apparently, it ends in America, the toddler in the global family of culture.

Make no mistake about it, racism transcends every gender, color and belief system. I have met white and black racists, both who scared me at the depth of their ignorance and the strength of their convictions. And when a person talks passionately about the horrors of racism, perhaps it’s best to look inside one’s own self before bantering on about the hate that came from an era of pure greed, fear and human indecency. If we have a problem with racism, we need to look inside. Do we allow our hatred of racism to create racist sentiments in our own minds? Without even knowing it, by casting the first stone we fail to see the stone that waits to be thrown at us. Do we, when we talk about the horrors of racism, use our own hate of this hateful act to create in us a racist mentality? The answer is undoubtedly yes in a vast majority of people. Even though we like to talk about the importance of turning our cheek to our enemy, it’s much more gratifying to poke out the eyes of the one who blinded our vision.

Do we, when we talk about ignorance and oppression and slavery, instill those realities into our brothers and sisters, to fight fire with fire? Obviously not in the same form, but slavery of the mind, ignorance of the heart and oppression of truth? Not intentionally, because our hearts are filled with good intentions, but as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with them. Did Hitler know he was evil? Yeah, right. He thought he was doing God’s work. Good intentions paved the way to his demise and built a wall of mistrust against the German people that still stands today in the eyes of many.

Do we talk about the ills of racism while we also ignore attraction to other races? Is it a cultural thing, or is it our own internal racism? Do we judge a man in a beard who wears a flowing robe and a quirky hat and speaks English with an accent? Do we judge a group of men, small in stature and dark-skinned, working on a building and speaking Spanish? Do we judge the woman with small, narrow eyes who waits for us at the convenience store? Or the man with the dark turban who takes our change at the toll booth? Or the lady whose face is covered in a burka? Do we make assumptions and pass judgement based strictly on looks? Of course we do. It’s human, and it’s racist. Perhaps it’s not violent racism, but it’s the seed of discord that is sewn by us and harvested by our children. It is what has kept humanity separated from itself since the dawn of evolution, and it is what prevents us from being a human race instead of a conglomeration of man-made races.

It doesn’t seem right to constantly bring up the civil rights movement and slavery. The panelists didn’t even mention Native Americans. Not a single word. European invaders completely erased at least seven nations in the Americas. Not tribes, nations, each nation consisting of a diverse group of peoples and languages and customs, completely lost to time. At least African slaves had a part in society, at least they had value, albeit it was inhumane and profane and disgusting, at least they were not systematically annihilated, at least they did not experience genocide. Oppression, murder, barbaric treatment, lack of respect, yes. But if we’re going to talk about the history that people need to understand to make better life choices today, why didn’t anyone mention the plight of Native Americans? To talk about social change, and to mention the two things that constantly remind white people of their duty to make-up for their perceived ancestors’ stupidity is childish, irresponsible and only serves to deepen the racial divide.

You want to end racism? Stop talking about race. Stop using race in conversation, stop separating people. You are trying to elevate society but you are using the methods of the magician who sold you his bag of tricks. You want to kill racism? Elevate your mind, look inside yourself, see how you yourself use race, how you talk about slavery and segregation and what you are really saying. Yes we need to know our history, but do we need to be bombarded with a single aspect of history so much until we’re desensitized by it? Do we have to hear about slavery in America when some countries are experiencing racial injustice as we speak? Where a woman in Saudi Arabia can’t talk to man she’s not related to unless she’s with a chaperone? Where a shoe shiner in India will never realize his dreams because of his social ranking? Where a Chinese Muslim will never have the respect of his secular brethren? What about this racism? Yes, it exists in America, absolutely. But talking about its existence doesn’t make it go away. Tell me a story about a murder and people will still kill. Now, this is not to say we shouldn’t talk about these things, but, everything is relative. American slavery lasted a few hundred years. Some groups have been slaves for millennia or more. It’s all relative, and slavery in America is a small part of the history of slavery in the world.

That said, it is important to note that Africans have been one of the most marginalized peoples in the history of our world, and the devastation of colonialism and imperialism has permanently scarred our motherland, the cradle of humanity. History and ignorance does not end in America, and western powers are accountable for their vast and corroded influence on indigenous peoples from foreign lands. How they do this is a topic for another day.

The question today is not one of slavery, racism or segregation. At least not in the traditional sense. Today, our enemy is slavery of the mind. To paraphrase Bob Marley, we need to emancipate ourselves from this mental slavery, this societal cancer that manipulates our desires into perpetuating the status quo, into becoming a de facto supporter of the power structure by our ignorance of it.

Of primary concern for me, regarding the “social change” panelist discussion, was the fact that the speakers represented corporate media, the status quo. If you subscribe to the fact that greed is a systemic problem in our society, than you must know that corporate, mainstream media will never be a vehicle for social change. Real and necessary social change would erase the need for corporate mainstream media. Even our fiction writer, with all her freedom to reach out, chose not to discuss the real and necessary social changes that need to occur and how, as writers and journalists, we discuss the topics that will inspire in people the desire to change.

And let’s be honest. There’s no such thing as objective journalism. Journalism is storytelling. That’s it. If you’ve ever played the rumor game in elementary school, we all know how stories mysteriously become embellished. But, journalism is also a search for truth, as Mr. Williams attested. But, as an audience member pointed out, truth is relative to our experience and each person understands truth as it relates to their own opinions. We read what we agree with so truth doesn’t make us afraid of ourselves. Most people are this way, at least. Most people are like this because of the profound and paralyzing fear that inhabits our society on a global scale. A true, primal fear that we suppress with all our materialism, hobbies, “responsible living” and “philanthropy.”

So, with all this cynicism, what’s the point of it all? If truth is relative and journalism is the pursuit of truth, than journalism is relative? Yes. Objectivity is a means to an end, it is not an end in itself. Objectivity is showing all sides, but our choices in who talks the most, who leads, who follows, who reacts, who comes out as the winner, our story structure and style and the facts we choose to follow other facts all contribute to the message that the writer is trying to convey. It is not the reporter’s fault, it’s our nature. Reporters are also subject to fear.

I thought it was only fair to ask the panelists how they deal with the fact that they represent corporate media and how they dealt with that kind of censorship. Of course, in the guise of the crowd my question came out quite offensively. Here’s how I would have liked to have reacted:

“Here we are, talking about social change, and nobody, not one of you, have mentioned the fact that our country is facing the most serious crisis of consciousness it has ever faced. Ever. I say that because in the past, our crises were obvious, if not to everyone, at least to those who were affected. Now, in the genius of our system, we are so easily blinded by what is truly important, our blissful ignorance has absorbed our souls like a slow cancer that we welcome with open arms because without the cancer which dulls our senses we would have to face the real world and its real pain. Karl Marx had it wrong, it’s not religion that is the opiate of society, it is consumerism. But I’m not going to rant about the ills of society and human depravity. You talk about starving children in Africa? You talk about this problem this country has with that country, and you think that you spend a few weeks or a few months abroad and you write a few human interest feature pieces and you attend some UN conferences and you have lunch with NGOs at a fancy restaurant, talking about how people need food, you think you’re serving a cause? All this self-righteousness is like pile of bullshit rotting under a mound of rank flesh. Mr. Williams you are quite honest, even in your evasiveness. You have an air of acceptance, a resignation that you’ve learned to deal with the fact that you work for Media General. I do respect you for that. And I respect all of the panelists as human beings and professionals. But. Oh, but. But you, (name omitted), have a moral dilemma about giving ice cream to some fucking kids on the street? Are you effing kidding me? Get over yourself! You are not the welcoming arm of God for these people. (If you were at the meeting, you would know what I am talking about). You are not a spiritual crusader doing what’s right for the sake of what’s right. Only for the glorification and satisfaction of your soul that you are doing something you think is good and right.

You see, it’s not the things we read about in the paper or watch on TV or hear on the radio that are our real problems. Our real, true and honest obstacle to social change is ourselves. It is our pride, our arrogance, our greed, our lack of humility, our exacerbated nationalism and jingoist attitudes, our lust for objects, our passion for our creations (food, cars, travel, etc), our self-worship, our good intentions that leak evil consequences, and especially our false use of religion and beliefs to deal with our fear. Human beings will never change unless we decide to be human. The amount of change that needs to take place is mind boggling. Human beings are so far away from what is real, we are so wound up with what’s new, the new toys and gadgets and living quarters, what’s the new green, green living, carbon credits, bring your own bags to the grocery store, eating organic if you can afford it, ecotourism, technology and human body integration, writing a book about writing a book, who’s who in the movies, who did what in what country, who adopted the blackest baby with the most flies on its head, where the best deals are, who has the biggest TV, the fastest computer, the biggest harddrive, the smallest keyboard, the coolest mobile phone, the tightest ass, the biggest lips, the juiciest hamburger, the greasiest fries, the smoothest talkers, the biggest walkers, the Joneses, the Joneses, the Joneses. And that’s only here in America. These types of problems exist everywhere, they’re just manifested differently.

Wealth and ice cream

I would like to now take a moment to talk about the wealth of “developing” countries. We, as westerners, look at a nation and define a people as “poor” based strictly on material wealth, as if that is the only measure by which a people’s worth is considered. Disgusting. The qualitative importance of a people is never an economic matter because it doesn’t affect global policy and it is of no benefit to “global stability” or the “global economic interests.” I’m not going to rant on about how western countries only invade the countries where there is an economic incentive to win. I’m not going to go into a tirade about how the IMF and World Bank (what a presumptuous name!) put countries into debt and offer no planning strategies that are specific to that region and culture. I’m not to talk about how every true democratic leader that has emerged in the developing world was instantly opposed by the U.S. government because a truly democratic leader is an enemy to U.S. interest (see P.E. Lumumba, et all). I’m not going to talk about that. But I am going to talk about a story that our panelist who was in the Congo talked about.

She mentioned a story about kids who walked up to her car asking for ice cream. She had a moral dilemma, as the ice cream in the car did not belong to her and she wanted to give the young boys an ice cream. But what’s funny, is that if she were never there eating ice cream in the first place, they would have never run up to her car. If westerners had never invaded and flooded Congo with its practices and diseases, ice cream would have never been introduced in Congo. Or if it was eventually introduced, most people would probably be able to afford it because they would have developed on their own and not under the knife of an oppressor or under the post-oppressor stress and pressure from countries with a golden tongue and a sneaky eye. You talk about knowing your history? Are you effing kidding me? Her dilemma is over giving a kid some ice cream? And then, suddenly, in a flash, her eyes were opened by her friend who used common sense and gave the kids his half-eaten cone for them to share? And she thinks it was her judgement which she passed on them, that she expected each of them should have their own cone, that that was her dilemma? My god! What a pretentious load. It was sickening. And when the thing was over, the sycophants emerged. I tried talking to the one woman who made sense to me during the meeting, but even she was eager to meet the Congo-advertising journalist. Networking, they call it. It should be called hook setting, or maybe frenzy feeding, or no, even better–parasitic orgies.

So, it ended, with my hand high in the air and the attitude of the people on stage obviously averse to even acknowledging me. I left, not really wanting to talk to anyone because it seemed like no one there even addressed the real issues that need to be changed. Sure we talked about ignorance and racism, but those are only symptoms of the grand disease of our society–our self-deification and our fear.

We will only be human when we can all live like our Christ, our Buddah, our Mohammed, our Gandhi, our Martin Luther King, our Mother Teresa, our monks, priests, imams, ascetics, single mothers, estranged fathers, orphaned children, diseased infants, and damaged soldiers who have risen above the physical world that dominates our mind and are now in the elevated realm of the Way. We can not be happy, we can not have change without a revolution of our mind, without an emancipation from our mental slavery. Until we realize that we are living in Babylon, until we unplug our hearts from the system and only use it as necessary and not as a necessity, until that day comes when we don’t see color, we don’t hear blasphemes, when there are no disgusting tastes or foul smells or violent touches, until we live in that world in our minds and hearts, until we are free from our desire to control everything, until we are free from our fear of each other and our true selves, until that day, we are slaves to the status quo, and we will never be free, and we will never have “social change.”

Can I get a witness?

Surely, i must be the most stupid of men

2010-06-01T17:16:00.000-04:00

“Surely I must be the most stupid of men, bereft of human intelligence, I have not learnt wisdom, and I lack the knowledge of the holy ones,” Proverbs 30:2-3.

Wisdom is the most elusive of virtues. The very thought of having it seems to take it away, as if it’s intrinsically ironic, cursed to never be possessed. I like to think I know a little about a lot of things, but in truth I don’t know a damn thing. Let's consider the existence, or non-existence, of an all-knowing and omniscient being we in the west call God. Voltaire said (in French of course) that if God didn’t exist it would be necessary to invent him. But, Voltaire also considered the existence of God a fact not based on faith but on reason. And make no mistake, Voltaire believed in God’s existence. My non-contextual rebuttal to his statement would be that, for me, an imaginary God is better than no God. It may take me a while to prove that, but bear with me if you like, or move on to something more adjusted to your taste.

There is one religion. It’s not Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddahism, Taoism, Hinduism, Rastafarianism, Humanism or any other -ism. It’s just the Way. I’m not trying to create a religion, only to share what I think I know. You be the judge.

I also think that Jesus Christ walked the Earth and was God in the flesh. Now, even Christians have a hard time understanding that Christ was God, as most of them consider Christ a part of God, a son of God, as in the holy trinity. This is of course true, but it lacks the fundamental understanding of eternal existence. How can our finite minds truly comprehend eternity? Is it even possible? The first law of thermodynamics states that matter is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction. But what does that even mean? If nothing is created or destroyed in a chemical reaction, and chemical reactions are the pulse of all life in the universe as we know it, then all matter is a recombination of atoms, a recycling of molecules, a reformation of basic life elements. I may be 30 years old, but my atoms are as old as the universe.

Now, I am not eternal, as my molecules were created somehow (in my mind, by God) at some point in time. A point. In time. That is how we understand just about everything, isn’t it? Our environment, our experiences, our knowledge, it all has a beginning and an end. It is finite. So, first we must grasp our true physical nature before we can even think of trying to understand eternity and eternal wisdom.

If the universe is 13 billion years old, than we are all 13 billion years old (We should all be getting the senior discounts everywhere we go and AARP should be raking in the dough). The atoms that form my physical body were perhaps a tree at one time, perhaps a person, a bottle, water, a rock, a cloud, a star, fire, dust. From dust to dust. When I die and my physical body decomposes in the dirt. If I were to allow my body to be buried directly in the dirt, eventually I would decompose, my molecules would be absorbed into the earth where a fruit tree might grow, taking up my molecules to grow its fruit. Then maybe a person comes by and grabs the fruit, taking my molecules and making energy, then poop. Dust to dust to dust to dust. In some traditions it’s called reincarnation.

But that’s still only the physical world, only a point in time. Now, let’s consider the imaginary God. What does an imaginary God represent? Eternity. Without the concept of an imaginary God, the concept of eternity does not exist, because without God, without eternity, everything is based on a point in time. With the imaginary God, there is the concept of eternity. An athiest would perhaps argue that eternity does exist without God. But this concept of eternity is only a vague abstraction at best, as it does nothing to answer the question of eternal wisdom. It also begs the question, or rather the idea, that everything, the universe, life, our planet, everything began at a point in time. Reality, in an atheistic worldview, is based on structured time. Even if it is unanswerable, as for the agnostic, the search for the answer lies in the idea of time. Of course, the open-minded atheist may argue that time is relative to space and that time can be bent and manipulated, even overcome, perhaps, if by anything, through the brute force of human invention. Science (which by the way is not separate from God, but only seeks to understand God’s language–nature [see Darwin]) offers us finite solutions with finite possibilities because it is based on finite principals. It is safe and rational because it can be seen and tested and proved and retested. Even with quantum physics exploding the doors of contemporary science, it still only proves that what we know is only a fraction of a percentage of what there is to know. We are all wise in our own eyes until we see in our reflection that we have no eyes.

Now there is, of course, the question of language and semantics. How many names does God have and why am I using the word God to describe God? Call it laziness, lack of wit, contempt for ingenuity. I merely think that the word God represents eternal wisdom and love, the never-ending flow of energy that blows life into nothing to create something. Eternal. The name doesn’t matter, as one day I am sure that we will have an opportunity to ask God what names God prefers. Pronouns for God are also superfluous, as the word “superfluous” is also superfluous.

The imaginary God is simultaneously personal and abstract. God is the mystery that atheists ponder but refuse to acknowledge out of sheer rebellion, fear and repulsion from religion. The imaginary God is everything and nothing. Imagine for a second, what our perceptions are based on. Our five senses. If we were born without the capacity to see, hear, taste, touch or smell, what would our reality consist of? How would we generate thoughts if we had no language to represent thought? Would we even be human? How could we communicate in that senseless world? Ironically enough, the physical world, as mathematics is beginning to prove, is only a fraction of the realities that are possible. But we are obsessed with consciousness, and there is no other understanding of reality aside from physical perceptions that we can accept because we are truly incapable of stepping outside of our five senses and into the eternal light.

So imagine the imaginary God in a world where God does not exist. What does that God stand for? As I mentioned, God represents the eternal, the no-beginning/no-ending life force that is the reason for everything. Or, imagine a world where God does not exist. The closest thing to God in this world would be mathematics, which, through numbers such as pi, create the illusion that there is infinity. In any number system, you are bound by rules, by a finite set of parameters that must be adhered to. With any man-made creation, there is a finite limit to its abilities and use. Such is the world where God does not exist. Limited solely to the ingenuity of mankind and the tumult of nature which exists solely as a giant cosmic accident. A belch in the creation of universe.

But in the world of the imaginary God, where human beings use the (imaginary) eternal connection to them to transcend the physical world and become a true saint (read Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, and all the Dalai Lamas, monks, ascetics and regular joes and joans who used that (imaginary) connection to the eternal to elevate their consciousness beyond the ego and into the realm of pure servant to humankind. That, to me, is the human way. Unfortunately we have not lived like humans throughout our entire existence. We try, but we fail, as we are our own worst enemies. The bombs we build to protect us from evil only make the evil create bombs to protect it from us (which, in the eyes of whom we perceive as “evil,” we are actually the evil ones. When was the last time a dictator committed genocide or human atrocities and knew that it was evil? On the contrary, good intentions [Hitler, Milosovic, Lenin, etc.] mask the reality of evil.) Few people are evil for evil’s sake. They consider themselves doing good for humanity, ridding the world of “evil” through evil means. As Gandhi said, an eye for an eye leaves both sides blind. We are all wise in our own eyes, until we realize we are in fact blind.

Which brings me to humanism. A beautiful, secular way to put morality into one’s life while maintaining religious neutrality and spiritual autonomy. I met a young lady once who told me she was a humanist, and I asked her what that meant to her. She told me that it meant to do good for the sake of goodness, to treat people the way you want to be treated, the golden rule. When I asked her what “good” means, she said of course something that helps people, or does something positive for society. One can imagine the Socratic questioning method continuing ad nauseam. If I ask her what kinds of things are positive for society, we will engage in that catch 22 that will inevitably leave her frustrated that her point was never made, and myself equally frustrated because I never enabled her to better understand her point. The real question here is this. Is her good work actually doing good for someone else? If she, in her eyes, is helping someone, is she in fact helping that person? Or is she, rather by virtue of the intended goodness in her act, merely serving her own desire to do good? It’s the karmic butterfly effect. Our actions, good intended or not, have consequences that we cannot possibly fathom. If we give a homeless person money, how do we know it’s good to do that? If we help an old lady cross the street, how do we know it was good? Maybe she hates to be touched. Maybe she has a contagious disease. Maybe she’s crazy and all she does is cross the street all day. But should we not do good because it’s impossible to know the consequences? Of course not. But, we should only do good because it is right, meaning that we do it with great love for ourselves and our fellow human being because of the undying and sacrificial love shown us by our Creator. Of course, a humanist will say, “That’s what I do!” But without God in our life, our knowledge of who we are is stunted and we will never know the full depth of existence through our eternal creator. Again the argument will be, “But how does that make what you do good and what a humanist does not good? Just by a belief in God?” Not the belief in God, but in the pursuit of the understanding of the eternal love God has for all life, especially the stewards of the earth, human beings.

I’d like to interject a bible proverb if I may. “The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge.” This statement used to confound me. I used to take it to mean, one can not know anything until one knows God. This is partially true. But the beauty of great literature such as the bible is that the words are alive, always changing and growing, yet staying the same the entire time. But the depth of this statement was made clear to me by Van Til’s Apologetic, which is a heavy treatise on the virtue of Christianity. Van Til argues that the fear of God precedes knowledge, but is also placed in front of God, that is to say, knowledge only exists because God has allowed it to be in our lives. When I profess I know something, the fear of God must be present before my knowledge, or else the knowledge is useless, vain, and an extension of my ego rather than an emulation of my eternal creator to whom I owe all my knowledge.

Say for example, my friend Mark went skiing and was chased by a bear down a mountain and barely escaped with his life. A few weeks after he tells me, I get into a conversation about bears and I remember Mark’s story. But because I’m in the presence of people who I want to impress for some reason, I might embellish the story a bit, make it more exciting, maybe add in that he got bit. But if Mark were there, I’d have to tell them how he told me, or allow him to tell the story, because the knowledge came from him. It’s his, and I have no right to disrespect him like that. Such is the nature of all knowledge with God. We must respect the eternal wisdom (God) whenever we profess our knowledge, and know that God is the source of all true wisdom.

No other fear exists when one fears God. This is no license to do whatever one wishes if they believe God wants it to happen. This is where true knowledge of God is important. God wants us to love one another, to give without expectation, to love our enemy, to pray for those who persecute us, to give to those who ask, and to live a quiet and contemplative life. God shows us the eternal plan for us time and time again, but we constantly ignore God’s wishes and pursue our own interests, like religious expansion, nationalism and the pursuit of material wealth. Ninety-nine percent of the people who say they believe in God do not live as though they believe in God.

I am not here to change people. People are individuals, especially in western society and deeply in American society. If we were not individuals, if we did not view our personal selves as special by virtue of our consciousness, then we would not have 50,000 religions that serve to confuse more people than a French restaurant menu. If Christianity served the teachings of Yeshua (Jesus), there would be no Christianity, only people serving God through selfless action and humble hearts. If Islam served the teachings of Mohammed, there would be no Islam, only people serving God through selfless action and humble hearts. And on an on through the religions we go.

But I can not talk ill of religion, because through it mankind has gained its most profound insights, if not directly, than as a a result against its power. Many a Bill Maher fan will complain that religion is the real culprit behind the world’s problems. And yet, to me, it seems that this argument is only partially true. Religion, to me, is humankind’s attempts to reconcile our infinite nature. Not, eternal nature. I will offer a semantic argument here, so forgive me, but I see infinite as having a beginning with no end and eternal as having no beginning and no end. So, religion is our attempt to reconcile our infinite nature in connection to the eternal life force.

Religion is a tool, a spiritual hammer. It can be used to build a house or kill someone. Unfortunately for us, our minds are so trapped in the physical world that our understanding of God is limited to the physical world. That is why we are so confused by religion, because it is intended to show us through physical means the nature of eternal wisdom and our infinite spiritual state. That is far too much for us to handle with our finite concept of reality, so we constantly twist it and bend it and use it against our enemies in the name of God, but the whole time God is showing us his love in his creation and in certain people. If God actually chose to speak to each one of us individually, the entire human race would go insane. My goodness, we can’t even understand what other people say about God, how in the hell are we supposed to understand God! If we are such egoists, that we think the existence of God is negated by the fact that religions relate the word of God as spoken to a few individuals and God, if God exists, should speak to everyone in the same fashion, than that egotism is exactly why we have the problems we have today. And, by the way, God does speak to everyone, but in a subtle and universal language called nature. We are just too ignorant and proud to see it.

“For what can be known about God is perfectly plain... since God himself has made it plain. Ever since God created the world his everlasting power and diety–however invisible–have been there for the mind to see in the things he has made. That is why [non-believers] are without excuse: they knew God and yet refused to [believe in] him as God or to thank him; instead they made nonsense out of logic and their empty minds were darkened. The more they called themselves philosophers, the more stupid they grew, until they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for a worthless imitation, for the [creations] of mortal man.” Romans 1:18-23

For centuries, Catholics would not allow lay people to read the bible as the Vatican feared it was blasphemous. Conceptually, I agree, because if the bible were truly the word of God, how can we expect everyone to understand the word of God? If God is all-knowing and eternal, whose wisdom crosses all boundaries of our wildest imaginations, than how can people be expected to understand God’s word, if it indeed exists? If people can’t understand a high school dropout’s poetry (Lil Wayne), how can we expect people to understand eternal wisdom?

But no human being has the right to oppress any other human being, for any reason, in my opinion. No human being, or group of humans, has the right to dictate what knowledge the masses is allowed to learn. Oh wait, I just described our public school system. But that’s a topic for another day.

So, this imaginary God. This God, even though it only exists in our minds, allows for our minds to at least accept the idea of eternity. Why did it have to be God that created the universe? Why couldn’t it have been an accident? But what preceded the accident? The agnostic questions come from a good place, but they can not use time-based reasoning as an argument for the origin of the universe. The only way for anything to be created is by a creator. Call it God, call it whatever you want. But ignoring the eternal is ignoring the very heart that beats within us. It is denying that heart the blood that carries its oxygen. It is denying our mind that connection to creation that burns deep in all our souls. It is killing the pulse and rhythm of the world, the music of our spirits, the beat of our perpetual blissful existence. To deny the existence of God is to forego all the knowledge in the world to human imagination, as if a tree is nothing, but an automobile is everything. If knowledge is based strictly on experience, than there is no knowledge, because no two experiences are the same and there are an infinite number of experiences that can take place along the line of time. This knowledge is useless because it is finite and will one day end, no matter what human invention we create to preserve it, it will end. But the eternal knowledge, the eternal wisdom, even if it’s imaginary, takes the mind to infinite possibilities of knowledge. Understanding the illusion of the physical world allows for the reality of our infinite nature to take hold, and opens our minds to the possibility of eternal wisdom. Imaginary or not, God exists, and my mind is better for it, how about yours?

some questions

2010-06-01T17:12:00.000-04:00

How do we define truth? How do we understand the nature of reality? How do we experience the nature of existence and eternity? Who are human beings? What is our responsibility? Why is there so much pain and suffering and hatred in the world? Why do we define ourselves using physical/cultural characteristics? How is the physical nature of our bodies related to the infinite spiritual nature of our true being? Why is the physical world used to judge spiritual matters? Why do we use human standards and arguments for the sake of truth, when truth is spiritual and outside the realm of the material world? Why do we judge based on our five senses? What would our perception of reality be without our five senses? What is love, and how do we love? Why is love so difficult to practice yet easy to understand? How do we define wealth and poverty?

What is the nature of religion? How is religion used and for what purposes? Who, or what, is God/Allah/Yahweh? Why do people judge and hate in the name of God? Who was Yeshua, son of Mary and Joseph, and reputedly of Divine origin? Who was Abraham, father of Ishmael and father of Isaac? Who was Mohammed? What is the Bible? What is the Qur’an? What is the Torah, the Talmud, the Kebra Negast, the Gnostic gospels, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Tao Te Ching, the Book of the Dead? What is a church? What is a temple? What is a mosque? What is the real, true significance of place, in a theological context? Why do we sin, or rather, why do we commit acts against ourself that seem to elevate our place in society, but only serve to distract us from the reality that we are depraving ourselves from spiritual food?

It is Allah who causes whomsoever He wills to grow in purity... (Qur’an 5:49)

Indeed, when [non-Jews], who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts... (Romans, 2:15)

Whoever submits his whole self to Allah and is a doer of good, will get his reward with his Lord. (Qur’an 5:18)

There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil... honor and peace for everyone who does good... For God does not show favoritism. (Romans 2:9-11)

The Way that can be experienced is not true;

The world that can be constructed is not real...

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,

Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.

- Tao Te Ching