Practice

There is a current media blitz, waged by humanists and atheist organizations in the US. One of these promotes Greg Epstein's "Good Without God", an examination and exposition of humanism in modern society. This is all good. The more options of developing a constructive daily practice the better.

However, in this Facebook age, I do worry that a core piece of the message conveyed by Greg Epstein and others is being missed in the same way that a core piece of many religions is missed routinely. Humanism and religion are structures of intellectual conviction about the nature of the human experience and how best to make that experience worthwhile, moral, ethical, meaningful.

The practice of humanism or religion is the daily application of principles to reality in each human life. Some call this service, some call this mindful compassion, some call this practical morality. This practice piece, in my opinion, is the core value and worth of humanism or any religion.

The Facebook age is about information sharing, networking and virtual community. None of these is practice, as understood by most belief systems. These may lead to or support practice, but practice is something the individual does in real time with real people on real issues. Painting a disabled person's apartment is practice. Visiting hospice patients is practice. Volunteering in poor school systems is practice. Caring for your own elderly parents on a daily basis is practice. Teaching your children nonviolence and ethics is practice. Writing against injustice or for social progress to your political representatives is practice.

Virtual practice is not real practice.

Corruption

The Blue Dog Coalition is the dragging brake on social progress in Congress. I see them as the opportunists they obviously are.

These are politicians who are exploiting the Democratic Party in states where Republicans traditionally get elected. In fact, I suspect many of these conservatives of being Republicans in Democratic clothing. I blame the national leaders of the Democratic party for allowing these Right Wing politicians to pose as Democrats in order to achieve token electoral results.

While I have heard Howard Dean actively debating some of the Blue Dog camp, I am not convinced that the Democratic Party has not sold out to corporate America, especially Wall Street Banks and the Health Insurance Industry.

The necessary progressive agenda on the environment, energy independence, health care and education cannot proceed under the present conditions in Congress. The politicians in that body have conveniently subscribed to Neoliberal Economic Theory, as cover for their prostituting themselves to corporate America. In reality, they have been paid off or threatened by the wealthy interests in this country to not pass any legislation that will shift the tax burden back on those who own 90% of the wealth in the US. The wealthiest 5% of the US population are calling the shots, in other words. This means no progress to drastically improve the lives of the other 95% of the US population.

It is a strange experience for me to concede that the Right Wing extremists in the Republican Party are perhaps more genuine and less corrupt than the Neoliberal Blue Dogs. This does not compensate for their ignorance, of course, but it is a stunning realization that the Democratic Party, which once stood for transparency, fairness and economic equality, has gone over to the dark side of the corporatocracy.

Observing this is part of my practice. Speaking it is also part of my practice. Writing to those who represent me is also part of my practice. If all those who see the absurdity of the Blue Dog positions on progressive initiatives simply wrote to their Blue Dog representatives, things may well change for the better for all US citizens. The current trend to enrich the rich and further impoverish the vast majority can only lead to disaster for all.

Hoax

The recent 'balloon boy' hoax has uncovered the current gullible nature of a mass-media society. Millions were convinced that the live coverage was really about a boy in a shiny balloon. The TV outlets loved it. Sponsors were probably calling up as it was happening to get product placement onto those millions of screens.

Madoff was a hoax master. The guys at Enron were as well. How many hoaxes have been successful in this last decade of funny money, 'lent' to the gullible? Billions and billions of dollars worth. That's how many. We will all be paying for that gullibilty for years to come.

The deeper meaning for our culture is seldom addressed in the media. Why? The media live off your gullibility. If you weren't suggestible, there would be no commercials. There probably wouldn't be any broadcast TV.

So, why be so surprised when a demented parent abuses his paternity by enlisting his cherubic child in a fraud in order to get back on TV? It's just a symptom of a society polluted by commercial media.

My own practice has entailed not watching commercial television for the past 20+ years. I have found it tremendously liberating. I am happily clueless about American Idol, Survivor, Dancing with the Stars and the rest of the fluff they serve up to sell us more fluff. Taking the time wasted on watching commercial television, or television at all, opens a huge reservoir of useful time for expanding intelligence, education, relaxation, volunteering, exercise, creativity, community service, proactive parenting or anything else.

Service

This Sunday is National Secular Service Day, sponsored by secular humanist groups across the country. A wonderful idea. Hopefully, those who participate will be inspired to view human services in a new light.

George Bush the First is notable for trying to put a more philanthropic face on Reaganite materialism. After Reagan tore apart as much of the social service system in this country as he could, G.B. the Elder, tried to sell volunteerism as the remedy for all the societal chaos and suffering, caused by Reagan's policies. Well, as we can see from the urban pockets of murderous poverty and drug addiction, the amount of homeless people everywhere and the perversion of the public perceptions of what a socially-responsive government should be, the points-of-light theory of the Reaganites was bullshit.

Human services of good quality, delivered by highly qualified professionals, are superior to any hit-or-miss Republican model of volunteerism and 'social entrepreneurism'. There is no legitimate profit margin in caring for people properly and justly in a society which has vast differences in incomes. People cannot be itemized and made into commodity units. Life just doesn't work that way, as much as GAO CPAs, tax-resenting wealthy people and corrupt politicians would like to believe this.

Every day in this country dedicated, underpaid professionals work miracles with very little support in government-funded institutions: Public clinics, public hospitals, shelters, halfway houses, residential communities for the disabled, state mental institutions, child-protection agencies, public housing agencies. These service providers are my heroes. I have been fortunate enough to work shoulder-to-shoulder with some of them. I have profited greatly as a person by being among their ranks.

So, if you are inspired by a volunteer gig as a service-giver to a worthy cause this Sunday, make supporting the provision of government-funded services part of your practice by actively supporting politicians and officials who sponsor legislation and programs for the poor and needy. Do not begrudge tax dollars which go to helping people. Begrudge tax dollars which go to killing people, for whatever rationalization. Promote and show your willingness to pay for services to alleviate human suffering and to improve the general quality of life in this country.

Ethics

Peter Galbraith, son of a prominent American political family, has demonstrated the etiquette and importance of ethics in true democratic culture. He has been castigated for it by corrupted men in international seats of power.



The corrupt shrug at the practicality of corruption in others. This is the way of politics and the world of materialistic men without ethics and higher vision. Keeping their secrets overrides keeping their standards of ethical behavior. When exposed, the corrupt encircle each other defensively, like a pack of attacked wolves. The truthsayer is isolated, punished, expelled.

This behavior has infected all layers of civic culture and business culture in the U.S. and in the developed world. It is symptomatic of governmental and corporate reactions to overpopulation, stressed environments and stretched natural resources. Greed is a symptom of the awareness of the wealthy classes, usually well educated, to the impending environmental disasters on this planet.

Is this behavior conscious? I doubt it is as conscious as it is pervasive and infectious. Capitalism has no consciousness. Corporations have no definable consciousness. Accumulation of wealth drives capitalist corporations in the same way hunger drives a pack of wolves. However, the hunger of corporations is unmitigated. Corporations never have full bellies. They never sleep.

The practice of truthfulness in all things is a bad business model in a capitalist world. This is a crucial conflict for any person who wishes to practice mindfulness, truthfulness and compassion in his/her daily life. It is a moment-by-moment choice. Making the right choice and taking the right action in each moment over time builds practice. In my experience, living in this practice, while never easy or monetarily enriching, builds the strength and skills which also ensure living well within the realities of the world.

March

Tomorrow, October 11, 2009, may herald the reawakening of the national homosexual community in the U.S., after a long, exhausted slumber, caused by epidemic and the active Republican oppression, internal and external, of the last decade. Grass roots organizations have rallied, despite active discouragement by gay lobbyists, politicians and bureaucrats. Buses will roll down highways. Jet travelers will fill D.C. hotels. The tide of real, not virtual, community will come in to face the white marble indifference of the nation's capital in the name of universal human rights, guaranteed by federal law.

Notably, Barney Frank, U.S. Representative from Massachusetts, who is a homosexual man with a rather checkered past of his own, has posed as Pope of Gay Politics and issued a dictum that these young, energized people should stay home. Now, this is indeed surprising, especially in light of Mr. Frank's well publicized and one-time scandalous predeliction for young men. One would think he would be mingling happily among the marchers.

There have been other reactionary shouts against the Equality March from lobbyists and professional gay politicos. Is there really any question about their motivation? Gay rights and marriage rights, like AIDS services, have become a GLBT minority business with its own guilds and mafia-like gangs. Professional homosexuals are making their living in the nation's capital and in state capitals in the pursuit of 'equality for all'. Rather prosperous livings in some cases.

While I applaud the dedication of those who are selflessly pursuing a vocation in the name of universal freedoms and protections, I also need to remind the GLBT community that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Pop-culture heroes, the likes of Dan Savage and Andrew Sullivan, are very influential in shaping public opinion. However, few celebrities can resist the corruption of principles that occurs when money and fame become major motivators.

So, to you young and energetic marchers, I say, have a blast. Strut your stuff. And, pay little heed to the men behind the curtain of political respectability. You must meet in groups and bond to create a new vital human-rights movement. It is, after all, the American Way.

Prizes

What a difference a day makes. Or does it?

Recently I posted questions about the current U.S. government's commitment to nonviolence and universal justice. This morning I awoke to the good news that President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. This is a great honor, despite the fact that the Nobel Peace Prize was withheld five times from Gandhi, considered by many to be the modern patron saint of nonviolence. It is a great honor, despite the fact that two other nominees, a women-rights activist in Afghanistan and a Congolese doctor, working with rape victims, risk their lives every time they step out their front doors in their own countries. I sincerely hope Mr. Obama uses this elevated stature as peacemaker in the eyes of the world's elite to foster an end to American aggression and violence against civilian populations.

A more stunning development occurred in the U.S. Congress in the last twenty four hours. The House of Representatives managed to include GLBT people in the Federal Hate Crime statutes through an inclusion in a defense budget bill. I find this rather ironic, but I will accept this as an attempt of those with a clear popular mandate on this issue to deliver. Well done. The snarling of the Right Wing is minimal. Perhaps a more amazing development.

However, the most encouraging news of the past twenty four hours for me was an NPR report that new Supreme Court justice, Justice Sotomayor, courageously questioned the 1911 statute that declared U.S. corporations to be persons under the law. Brava! This question is potentially the beginning of a challenge to the strangle-hold the corporations have on the entire political process in the United States.

My previously posted questions about political will against violence, aggression and injustice still stand. I am heartened by today's news. I have not abandoned my belief that Mr. Obama and some in Congress and other branches of government are sincere in their own hope for change. Yet, I hope for greater transparency. I hope for actual results.

Cowardice

Nonviolence and universal human justice take great courage and sacrifice. Cowardice is taking the easy, most conventional course against one's higher instincts and ethics.

Why is an American president with unusually high popular approval and international enthusiasm waffling on bringing an end to our wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq? Where is his loyalty based? Is it based in the people who elected him? Or is it based in the political class to which he belongs? The same questions can be asked of the Congress and all politicians in America.

Why is America rated 13th in international quality-of-life polls? Why is the American middle class being reduced to poverty and high debt to the wealthy who are 10% of the population? Why does the American government refuse to provide affordable health care to all its citizens?

Look to the banks. Look to the insurance companies. Look to the corporations in the energy and military-supply sectors. Look to the private contractors in the war zones.

Has cowardice led the leaders of America to bow to greed and corruption?