Vengeance

I am fascinated by the current issue of the so-called 'Jena Six' in Louisiana.

I was a teenager and young adult during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. And, I believe, that movement was based on non-violence, inspired by Ghandi's passive resistance to British colonal rule in India. I was inspired by Martin Luther King for that very reason. And, in my own participation in demonstrations against war and discrimination against homosexual people, I was determined to practice non-violence. It was not easy.

Now we have a movement to exonerate young hoodlums who chose violence and vengeance to settle a racist conflict with other students in their high school. The ring leader, Mychal Bell, reportedly had a previous criminal record. I cannot see the point of the African American outrage in this incident. Is it not equally racist to demand a different enforcement of the laws on the basis of race when the perpetrator happens to have darker skin than the victim? After all, this was a gang assault by six boys on one boy, who was significantly injured. Is that not also a hate crime?

The issue here is not racism. The issue here is lawfulness and peacefulness. How can the African American community support lenience in this case when, at the same time, they are screaming for more and more 'support' from the society at large in the form of tax money and logistics to squash gang violence in their urban communities? Perhaps we now have a clearer view of the roots of gang violence in African American communities. Perhaps those roots are in the attitudes of the members of the African American communities toward gangs, lawlessness and vengeance among their own youngsters.

To have peace, one must practice peace. To have the rule of law, one must practice lawful behavior. These are principles more worthy of mass demonstrations in all racial communities.

Neoconservatives

Neoconservatives are frightened by the future. They are frightened by peace. They are frightened by the unknown.

Neoconservatism is a manifestation of middle-aged male impotence in those aggressive bullies who have pushed their way or paid their way to power in the USA. War lust is just another Viagra for these men. Their female supporters are like frustrated mates who urge them on in hopes of gaining the benefit of an overdue erection, literally or figuratively.

Neoconservatives are the enemy within, far more dangerous than the paper terrorists they promote to subjugate and exploit the ignorant with fear.

Things

I recently moved some things in my house. This set off a wave of moving more and more things. The house is small, and I have an acute sense of decorative balance. I am, after all is said and done, a gay man.

Where did I get all these things? The answer is simple. My eye is the culprit. If I see something that resonates with me and is cheap, I buy it. This is why I usually avoid all retail venues passionately. It is also why I love to give things away, when they seem to match a possible recipient. The flow of things prevents the weightiness of things to some degree.

When I was young, I accumulated people in much the same way. I suppose, in my youthful stupidity, I viewed people much the same way as I viewed things.

My practice now includes care and mindfulness in the collection of things. And, in a similar way, I practice care and mindfulness in making new friendships and contacts. Materialism is an addiction to be avoided. Superficiality in dealing with people is worse. It is a destructive force which corrupts the heart and soul.

Propaganda

The human tendency to denial under stress is natural and impressive. Kubler-Ross researched and documented this thoroughly. Since her death, the pharmacological psychiatric industry has even tried to deny her findings, which would diminish the efficacy and necessity of some of their expensive pills. However, those in power are all too aware of human psychology and how to manipulate it.

Since 2000, the Republican operatives in the US have utilized propaganda to convince the American public that the coup which occurred in the Presidential election of that year was a legitimate democratic process. It is clear now that these same aggressive totalitarians allowed the terrorists to perpetrate the massacre of civilians and government employees in September of 2001 to further their hold on absolute power.

Cynical and power addicted men are capable of their own denial of their evil. They are also prone to project their evil onto those they fear. They fear anyone who threatens their grip on absolute power.

The war in Iraq is a tragic combination of greed for oil resources and that projection of evil onto a society which has been decimated by the US, led by the fascists who began their rule with the coup of 2000. Yes, it is a pathetic, costly, bloody mess. But, it is clear that the leaders of the US are so entrenched in their lust for their illegitimate and abusive control of the American government that they are still trying to propagandize the American people into believing they are doing what is best for Iraq and for the American people. To believe this would be insane. I am happy to see that the vast majority of Americans, when asked, are not insane. They are waking up from their own denial.

To be a free individual, a person must study all he can about the human condition. Freedom is not granted by governments. Freedom is an act of human consciousness. It is a practice.

Laborers

Like my spiritual ancestor, Walt Whitman, I h0nor those who carry and build and sweep and dig and sew and reap. Hard physical labor brings the body and mind together to focus on the battle with gravity and inertia, two humbling and unrelenting universal phenomena. Hard labor brings the understanding of one's place on the planet and of the planet's environmental forces.

Combined with education and meditation, hard labor is a clear path to enlightenment. Build something. Plant a garden. Paint your house.

Elite

The elite, who by aggression, wealth and/or ancestry lead lives of luxury, are an insulated human minority. Yet, they govern. The Bin Ladens know the Bushes. They are friends. Be conscious of the absurdity of war and diplomacy in a world manipulated for the comfort and amusement of the elite. Modern democracy, which is actually representative Republicanism, in which the people chose leaders from the elite by an easily manipulated election process, is a method propogated by the elite to control the many by offering them the illusion of control of their own lives.

Until the great majority of human beings become conscious of their individual mortality from an early age, through secular and comprehensive education, this pattern of the subjugation of the many to the will of the few will continue.

As a secular humanist with that education and understanding of my mortality and my place on the planet, I attempt to awaken as many individuals as I can. This is part of my practice. Freedom is not a political slogan. Freedom is the liberation from the slavery of self-delusion and self-subjugation to the elite.

War

War is barbaric, stupid and toxic to human evolution. Wars are always rationalized into great causes by the evil men who wage them. There is no such thing as a 'freedom war'. Freedom of all classes is precisely what wars prevent in the hands of the elite who wage them.

War is murder. War is mindless destruction. War by the United States in other countries is exploitation as well.

Begin to practice Peace today. Write to the government wherever you live, if you have that privilege, and denounce war, all war.

Truthfulness

Truthfulness begins at home. It begins in your mirror each morning. It begins in your heart, not you mouth. Truth begins by looking your own image in the eye and being honest about who you are and what you think and feel. Start where truth begins each day, and you will be amazed at the results.

Boundaries

I ride the subway every week. I have found that the walls around people in that social space have become all but impenetrable. Eye contact is avoided. Facial expressions are flat and devoid of emotion. Occasionally, while reading an advertisement above the heads of passengers opposite me which solicits subjects for a depression study at a local medical center, I fight the urge to direct my fellow riders' attention to the ad above them.

Is this just post-911 ennui? I do not think so.

Boundaries are necessary in a civil society and in healthy relationships between friends or family. Yet, in this society, which is increasingly uncivil, the boundaries erected by individuals against social contacts with strangers are not symptomatic of health. Rather, these are walls built out of fear. And the fear is quite justified, when teenagers are carrying illegal firearms and all the mental institutions have been emptied onto the streets.

My practice is simple. I try to remain open in social situations, yet I also respect the boundaries obviously erected by those who are afraid. I do intervene when I see criminal behavior. I report it or directly address it. Recently I told a teenager to stop defacing the interior of a subway car with a permanent marker, for example. He was so humiliated, he sat like a turnip with his head bowed for the next several stops when I left the train. Part of practice for me entails doing the work of determining the boundaries and responsibilities of being a responsible citizen, friend or family member. Avoiding that work is irresponsible and will only make matters worse for everyone.

Episcopalians

American Episcopalian bishops were ordained in Uganda this past week. They were ordained in Uganda because the African Episcopal churches have become the new epicenter for religious-based homophobia in the Episcopal Church. Is it any wonder? The Prime Minister of Uganda spoke at the ceremony to lend his official gravitas to the proceedings.

Now, let's relax. There are hardly enough Episcopalians around to change a light bulb. So, I am not heralding an alarm. I would simply like to point out that this trend of public declaration of bigotry by Americans in other countries is exactly what the racist Southerners did forty years ago in their rage over equal rights legislation and desegregation. It is exactly what sexist politicians did thirty-five years ago during the feminist movement.

This illustrates one basic fact. Those who have aversion to change will waste their time, resources and energy resisting it. This works to the benefit of change agents who are patient and persistent.

My practice is to calmly and methodically focus on change for the evolution of my life. I trust in the force of change over the force of resistance to change. Water dissolves rock over time.