Politics

The media obsession with details of politics in America breeds an apathy, born of overkill. Politics have overshadowed government. The manipulations for power have become a spectator sport on the level of professional wrestling. Meanwhile, the quality of American government on all levels deteriorates. Look at your roads, your buses, your subway trains for an illustration.

The yowling Tea Party contingent bring more dysfunction to this environment. Playing with covert racism and homophobia, these closet Republican Rightists seek to immobilize any progressive legislation in a time of national crisis. Their motivation, shrilly misrepresented as patriotism, is obviously manufactured by corporate financing.

Progressives of all types are disillusioned by the Obama administration's sadomasochistic love affair with Wall Street. Summers, Frank and Geithner serenade Obama with sonnets of Wall Street's inherent love of democracy and freedom, as the money men continue to pick the pockets of the American people.

There comes a time in any organization's life when it begins to exist for itself, not for those who have formed it or pay for it in money or labor. This seems glaringly true of the U.S. administration, Congress and Supreme Court. Our government is foundering in a sea of political self-interest. And the people are suffering for it.

Perhaps it is good for the citizens to disengage from this government, as it now operates. Perhaps this is a time for a Jeffersonian revolution. This Fall's election will definitely be a harbinger of what form such a revolution will take in America.

Taxes

Taxes pay for roads, sewers, schools, hospitals, etc.. Government is required to administer tax funds. I know this sounds simplistic, but I hear less than simplistic protests against government and taxes every day in the media. If you walk around your closest city, as I do daily, you will see rusted bridges, potholes, cracked sidewalks, weedy parks. If you ride a mass transit system, as I do several times a week, you will see vandalized cars, torn seats and filthy floors. I am sure the interior of many public schools are plagued with similar issues.

Life in a civilized society requires citizen participation. Too few citizens vote. Even fewer actually contribute time to their local city or town government. Crimes are observed and unreported daily. People treat the public space like a trash can. I speculate that many of the people who scream against taxation of any kind exhibit the least responsible behavior in the public sphere.

President Obama is being targeted by Republicans and some Democrats, newly won over to the Right, for trying to return some fairness to the tax system. Imagine. A President of the United States is standing up for a vast majority of Americans who are not wealthy by requiring those who hold an inordinate amount of the wealth to pay their fair share of taxes. The media, largely in the hands of corporate control, pretend to present the situation as a matter of opinion and debate.

Lack of government funds to maintain infrastructure is not debatable. It is disaster in the making. Poor schools propagate crime, proverty and violence. Poor roads endanger lives and inhibit commerce. Low city treasuries threaten public safety by gutting police and fire department budgets.

It will never be a "good time" for the wealthy to pay more taxes. People don't get wealthy by giving their money away. Wealthy people give money away to avoid paying taxes.

I wait to hear the voices of the wealthy who claim to be in favor of a civilized and humane society here in the U.S.. I do not hear them yet. I do not hear Bill Gates stomping the country with speeches in support to increased taxes for the wealthy. I do not hear Mayor Bloomberg shouting for increased taxes on Wall Street executives. I do not hear the voices of all those corporate donors who supported President Obama's election.

I'm listening, but I have little confidence that those who have will come forward for those who have not.

Community

I live in a densely settled neighborhood near a large metropolis. I was born into this type of living. I grew up in a densely populated small city next to Boston. My first memories are set in an apartment in an old, three-unit tenement building. My first playground was the street.

One of the side effects of the increasingly mobile American culture is the loss of bedrock populations in neighborhoods. In my own city, the transition in every neighborhood is visible and palpable. I walk quite a bit around the city and witness the constant changes. My city is mostly populated by people of low-to-middle incomes. The ripples of immigration are touching many neighborhoods as well. This was true of my native city in my childhood. I am familiar with it.

Despite all the benefits of diversity and mobility, the losses are also considerable. Change is never all good or all bad. It simply is.

My particular neighborhood has a scattered, diminishing long-term population, bound to it by socioeconomics largely. The poorer sons and daughters of original homeowners have stayed in their humble family homes, attached English-style townhomes in four-or-five-house rows. Because the houses are at the low end of price for my city, new immigrants have often bought or rented when houses come on the market.

The older residents all know each other. They have had their bonds and their feuds over the decades. There are cliches of old women who know each other for various reasons, such as shared church or club. The general attitude of these older residents towards new ones is cool, reserved observation. It takes some effort to get them to say "hello".

The newer residents, mostly foreign-born, stay to themselves. A few have developed curbside relationships based on shared nationality or ethnicity. Those of us who are American-born and new to the neighborhood manage to connect randomly with a neighbor here or there, but the reserve of old to new never quite melts.

Some may say this is a Bostonian or New England phenomenon. Bostonians have a repuation of being reserved. New Englanders have a reputation of being parochial. However, I feel this is more than that. I think this is genuine culture shock. And, I think this in part accounts for the current extremes of anger at the political process in the United States. After all, who is screaming loudest? Those who are screaming loudest are those who live in cities like mine, which voted overwhelmingly for Tea-Party-sponsored Scott Brown for the U.S. Senate after decades of being centrist Democrat.

The price of change is often discomfort and anxiety. Without a concerted effort, led by government in many cases, building community from isolated populations can take decades. And, how can the government build community when there is an absolute phobia in the U.S. about 'socialism'? This is a symptom of the absolute failure of the government to take control of immigration policy, and its failure to compensate American cities for its effects on public education, infrastructure and civic planning.

The key issue of immigration, in my opinion, is not legality or illegality. The key issue is community. If community is valued and fostered by government policy on local and national levels, the negative side effects of immigration can be minimized.

However, in the current exploitive political climate, dominated by corporate profit motives and tax avoidance, this is impossible. The wealthy interests in this country are obviously willing to sacrifice the community fiber, the social fiber, of the country to maintain their greedy accumulation of wealth. Wealth accumulation is the actual religion of our time. And, the gated community, the refuge of the wealthy, is the proof of it.

Politicians

The recent death of Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts gave the awake observer some tremendous insights into politics, government as we know it, and politicians. The mindful and truthful have been testifying against politics, government and politicians since these phenomena were invented. And King Solomon would again shake his head and shrug if he were alive today. Nothing new under the Sun.

At a time when politicians in the majority are taking bribes (they call these 'campaign contributions') from the private health insurance industry to keep the American people slaves to premiums which support a Byzantine insurance bureaucracy, we have heard somber, solemn and totally hypocritical eulogies about the one Senator in Congress who has consistently supported universal health care with no buts or ifs.

'That's the way our system works, ' I have heard them say in defense of their hypocrisy and corruption. They speak of the interests of corporations as though they were of equal moral and ethical merit as the interests of the population, The People. This is not only lying. It is unconstitutional. We are supposed to be a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people. Corporations are not people. CEOs and lobbyists are people, but they are an infinitesimal minority of the people. Why are their interests being held above those of all the people?

Most troubling to me is the lack of counterpoint coming from the Kennedys themselves. In order to provide themselves the glory of a state funeral, it appeared, they have allowed the most despicable celebrities of the political class to jump on the funeral publicity train. The very people who have plotted to defeat the central pillar of Edward Kennedy's career, universal health care, rushed to fill well positioned church pews in Boston.

Death is not negotiable. It has no nuance. It is not debatable. It has no Right or Left. And neither does Truth.

If Americans could grasp and internalize their mortality, stripped of all the opiates of religion, plastic surgery, hormone enhancement, and television, perhaps they would demand Truth from their politicians. Perhaps they would demand that a Truthful legacy be granted to honor a man of the caliber of Senator Kennedy. Perhaps they would demand basic human rights, like health care, for all Americans and all the people in the world.

Poverty

Without poverty, there would be no armies. The just distribution of financial and environmental resources would bring peace to the world. Hungry people can be convinced to kill for pay and booty. Healthy, well-fed and educated people are averse to war, unless attacked. This is a simple lesson of history.

So, it is admirable for President Obama and others to advocate broadening educational opportunities and health care. However, this is placing the cart before the horse. The engine of health and education is shared wealth. In a capitalist system, that means taxing the capitalists who tend to horde and transmit wealth through inheritance. This is also a simple lesson of history.

So, why are 1.5% of the population in the US still depriving The People of the US of just pay for work, public education and public health care by buying off the government through elections? The answer is obvious. Those in government are aligned with that minority of the population against the needs of The People.

Pakistan

The United States government supports dictatorships around the world. This is a simple fact.

The United States government, founded as an instrument of service and protection for its constituents by its designers, has deteriorated into an instrument of control and corruption in opposition to the true interests of its constituents. This is the way of men and women in power. Yes, power corrupts.

Any feelings of superiority which a citizen may feel as an American are unfounded. In fact, since the Constitution of the United States places responsibility for change and direction on the citizens, all Americans should currently be ashamed of the state of their nation and their democracy. And this shame should ideally be shown in the results of upcoming elections.

While waving an accusing hand at Muslim extremists, capitalist extremists under the false banner of Christianity have taken control of the American government, its army, its courts and its media. This must change, if the United States is to survive as a nation of justice, freedom and prosperity for all.

Human evolution toward mindfulness, peace and compassion requires a practice of responsible world citizenship. This citizenship, as a member of the human species, far overshadows the role of a member of a political party, a government or a nation. Those who unjustly control and corrupt the common good through politics are far more despicable than common criminals.

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.