Perspective

My life is a single bubble in the vast ocean of the Universe.

Vietnam

The overwhelming stupidity of the current American policy in Iraq, including the support of Congress for another year's 'mandate', must be motivated by corruption and greed. I say this as someone who lived through the American involvement in Vietnam and paid attention and protested. Anyone who lived through the American mistakes there cannot possibly deny the growing parallels with this misery in Iraq. And what happened when American troops left Vietnam? Eventually peace happened. The same will occur eventually in Iraq, and that very peace is what the corrupt and greedy fear most. A peaceful, reformed Iraq, whether democratic or theocratic, would not threaten American citizens here in America. That is a big lie to promote American paranoia and submission to an out-of-control Rightist regime, which has reaped billions of dollars from this policy for its patrons. It would threaten big oil, Zionist collusion with big oil, and despots like the Saudis. A reconciled Iraq and Iran, under common Shi'ite Islam, is the great nightmare of corrupt governments in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. This concept scares the hell out of the Right Wing everywhere. Why? Because Shi'ite politics are far to the Left of any of the major players in the region at this time. It really is less about religion than it is about corporate control of all nations under one god. That god is money. And that god only smiles on the wealthiest ten percent of the world's population. My practice is to remain balanced and detached despite my anger over this bare fact. This practice separates me from the violent and the hopeless. I believe Truth and Light, the objects of man's earliest devotions, will eventually create balance and peace for all those who seek them.

Marxism

Karl Marx, refugee, philosopher, political scientist, lived poorly in exile in London with his family until his death. Marx, influenced by the great philosophical minds of his age, worked with his close friend, Friedrich Engels, at studying and expressing class dynamics in capitalist societies of the early industrial age. Marx is out of fashion. We have the dismal failure of the Soviet system of oligarchic and bureaucratic applications of Marxist principles to thank for the current eclipse of Marx's genius. However, history does repeat itself and capitalist ideologies will continue to face increasing population pressures, combined with environmental deterioration of the planet. I recommend reading Marx or about Marx in the readily available forms on the Web. He has helped to shape my world view, and has also helped me to form my personal practice. I feel Marx has as much to offer the modern underclasses as Jesus, Moses, Siddhartha or Mohammad.

Corporations

Gangs, clans and militias are the smaller versions of corporations. The behavior of the poor and disenfranchised reflects the behavior of the rich and powerful who dominate and exploit them. The world, as dominated by atavistic war-based competition between heterosexual males, is bound to be violent, despite illusions of so-called capitalist democracy. Until the people of the world unite against the greedy and aggressive, as they have done historically nation by nation, there will be no real peace or general human evolution.

Rituals

The Thanksgiving holiday approaches here in America. While the Democratic Party politicians may have a lot to be thankful for this year, the rest of us are struggling to figure out just what this ritual means in a fragmented society where even the sanctimoniously touted extended family is an anachronism. Yes, there is always a place for a party, a pot luck dinner, or a brunch among friends and relations. But, the commericalization and indoctrination associated with these end-of-year holidays seems more and more hollow each year. Perhaps this is a good thing. Our human attachment to the past is constantly being challenged. As population and survival pressures increase, due to environmental deterioration of the planet, it would do the species well to snap out of it and tend to what is important for the future. Perhaps the erosion of the overestimated family values, organized religions, national identities are all symptoms of an unconscious human adjustment to what is actually happening to us on a basic natural level. I hope so. For my part, it will require special attention to my practice to get through this holiday season with balance and emotional well being.

Warriors

I wonder at the universal acceptance of war memorials. We honor those who kill with impunity in the name of nationalism. Americans are hardly entitled to honor its soldiers as defenders. American soldiers, from its very inception, have been commissioned for aggressive acquisition of land and power. The first American army was commissioned to take the thirteen British colonies from the British Empire. It was not a defensive struggle. In fact, it was a struggle initiated by the colonists, who did not want to meet their fiduciary obligations to their country, England. The War of 1812 was indeed defensive, but it was defensive against the claims of the English resulting from the revolution. The bombing of Hawaii, an American colonized territory, by the Japanese marginally qualifies the American intervention in World War II as defensive. The Civil War was just that. It was not a war of aggression against "America". The current war in Iraq is a war of aggression and colonization. Warriors who defend the innocent with their lives may well be seen as heroes. Warriors who kill and maim the innocent in the name of some vague ideal which covers materialistic motives of the wealthy are hardly heroes. Killing is inhuman, from the perspective of the 'higher nature' of man. It is unjustifiable altogether in Buddhist thought. In my practice, I wrestle with my own tendency to anger, violence and hatred. This is indeed a war within myself. Perhaps we should strive to win these individual wars, billions of them on this planet. Then, and only then, will there be world peace.

Redemption

The truly stupid cannot be redeemed. Intelligence and information redeem the human mind and spirit from its greatest disease and greatest evil, stupidity. I was reminded of this today when I heard interviews of members of a fanatical Christian sect in Colorado. It seems their shepherd, a Svengali named Haggard, was buying drugs from and having sex with a gay male prostitute, while preaching intolerance to ignorant bigots on the weekends. It was, after all, a good living. He even got invited to help President Bush with his own stellar ministry of hate and destruction. The interviewed members of Haggard's church (money machine) refused to believe that the story was true, even after the lying Haggard went from an outright denial to gradual revelations of his guilt of the charges. I'm sure it will get even more entertaining. It's a basic 'my-shit-doesn't-stink' story. Glass houses abound out there, especially in Middle America. So do stone throwers. And, apparently, so do Tina queens. Redemption from stupidity begins with the acknowledgement of it. Unfortunately, it takes quite an education to learn just how stupid you are. Perhaps today even you would agree, Mr. Haggard.

Elections

Yes, it's payback time here in America. The cycle of human folly. They have destroyed a country, thrown it into civil war, to satisfy our rage over 9-11. Now the masses are bored with Iraq. The media too, it seems. Perhaps the two are the same. So, with the mentality of 'Monday-Night Football', the Middle Americans may actually vote to the left. They weren't motivated by the potential gutting of Social Security. They weren't motivated by the Medicare drug plan to help the upper middle class (Republican base). They weren't even motivated by illegal immigration. IF America were truly a democracy, we would all have a big, red VOTE button on our computer keyboards and on our digital-TV remote controls. Could Middle Americans handle that responsibility? Perhaps not. Politics are a true test of my resolve to maintain my practice.