Consumers

I hear we live in a consumer economy. The term is used in media constantly. It is a given. By defining human beings as consumers, some human beings exploit human greed and materialism for great profit. This is not new.

Stepping away from the addictive process of consuming every new thing is part of an awakening. The brainwashers of advertising use peer pressure and fear of isolation to peddle electronic devices, cars, clothing, alcohol and soft drinks. They used to peddle cigarettes in the same way, before the product was revealed to be more toxic than being the odd man out.

Watching television with commercials has always felt like manipulation to me. I could not enjoy the content of a drama or comedy without the nagging feeling that my brain was being programmed to do things against my better interests. I stopped watching commercial TV about twenty-five years ago.

I come back to the Japanese Buddhist mantra , "Person environment one." If you are submerged visually in commercial advertising all day, your mind and your environment are no longer your own. You are inhaling messages, overt and covert, which shape your ideals and your interests. The goal of the originators of these messages is simple. They wish to own you.

You are what you eat. In a similar way, you are what you watch and consume. Taking time away from the messages of media and the process of consuming or planning to consume is essential to finding your center. Meditation is a useful tool for this. Yoga is another. Other forms of focused activity, geared to releasing the mind from cluttered thought, are useful tools to break the pattern of wanting and buying and wanting more.

As I have said before, wanting more when you are full is a symptom of disease. The lords of the consumer economy never want you to stop wanting. This is a struggle for your health and mental well being in a world driven by money and profit. The choices are difficult and require great balance and persistence.

Anger

The politics of anger are rising from the relatively wealthy in the form of the Tea Party in America. Funny. I am reminded of the advent of the French revolution, when the relatively affluent Bourgeoisie manipulated the destitute and truly poor to dislodge the aristocracy for them. The result was a Reign of Terror, in which many of those leaders of the Bourgeoisie were cannibalized by their own monster.

The politics of common sense are seldom popular, because common sense is an antidote for personal greed in society. Greed wins the attention of the middle class. Trashing the concepts of progressive taxes, public health care and business regulation gets the bourgeois mob inflamed. They are motivated by greed, not by social justice.

This year's elections in America will be a test of the true center of the American conscience. Will the people choose the politics of anger and materialism? Or, will the people realize that patience and the correction of the materialistic and militaristic policies of the past decade will eventually promote greater economic equality in the country?

Disease

Wanting for more, when you are already full, is a symptom of disease.

Inertia

The human brain has its own form of inertia. This inertia seems to increase with material comfort and affluence. It leads to conservatism in most who follow that path.

Hunger combats human inertia. The hunger for knowledge, the hunger for food, the hunger for human affection. These are motivators for human change, human progress. Intentional use of hunger is a powerful tool, used for centuries by those who have sought enlightenment and freedom from desire. Hermits isolated themselves from human companionship to produce a hunger for human interaction. The silence of cloisters produced a hunger for human speech and conversation. Yogis fast to liberate themselves from the distractions of metabolism.

How do you overcome your inertia? Do you even try? The seduction of routine consumption of food, alcohol, and entertainment is ever present in American life. Those who have grown rich by glutting America with consumables now try to steer its government to allow for even more exploitation of the consumers' addiction and greed. Cheaper fast food. More drugs. Less need for mobility. More bad television and distracting gadgets.

Overcoming mental and physical inertia is part of my personal practice. As I age, this requires more and more effort and mindfulness. A rigorous exercise regime is necessary. A strict adherence to a healthy diet is necessary. Daily morning commitment to make each day a day of progress, not stasis. Inertia is easy. Practicing the art of being the most growthful person I can be is difficult.

Money

Greed is the social motivator in current human societies. This is simply a reaction to the obvious deterioration of the planet's resources and human overpopulation. Animal, mindless responses, translated into complicated derivatives and securities.

There is little rational basis for hoping that this trend will let up, since the destruction of the planet's health is well under way at the hands of those who hold financial and political power. The only possible hope lies in the heart of each individual who sees the value of human life beyond consumer comforts and the accumulation of things. If this hope is allowed to grow and spread to others, there may be some hope for humankind.

The salvation of the human species does not lie behind a teller's window or on the trading floor of a stock exchange. The salvation of the human species lies within your single individual heart and mind. By adopting a mindful, compassionate and loving daily practice, which turns its focus from getting things to doing good, you may well be turning the tide of greed and destruction.

Rain

A pre-Spring rain storm has deluged my area this weekend. The power of wind and water is humbling.

When I encounter the unavoidable and uncontrollable effects of extreme weather, I try to use my powerlessness as a reminder of my true place on the planet and in The Universe. Rather than making it all about me, I try to understand that the "higher power" is simply the visible and invisible ecosystem within which I live, of which I am part. I am one relatively small creature in a massive ecosystem, relative to my size and individual, innate power.

Perhaps this is a key to why some members of the human species have taken a kick-the-dog attitude in their lives. Faced with their powerlessness in the face of their real place in Nature, they have retaliated against those elements in Nature which they can manipulate or destroy. They do this with a sense of impunity and entitlement, without regard to the ecological consequences for themselves, their fellow humans or the whole ecosystem itself.

This is not human ingenuity. This is a crime against humanity and our ecology.

The subtle and daily choices of the serious humanist in daily practice are sometimes exhausting. I often feel the temptation to say, "To hell with it!" And, sometimes I do simply go with the flow, when my energy runs out.

Each morning, however, brings an opportunity to start my practice anew, just as each moment is a decision, a cause, an effort. While water must seek its own level, we, as conscious beings, have the opportunity to actualize our own path, often against the gravity of human greed and indolence. It simply requires making that choice one moment at a time.

Democracy

Life is often a beauty contest. Perhaps this accounts for the snail-pace of human progress.

Our eyes are programmed for choosing sexual mates. Our brains, however, will decide ultimately what happens to the human species. A just, functional and happy human species will depend upon those who have the intelligence, compassion and inventiveness to apply science and ethics to daily life.

Democracy is a lofty concept. Mob rule is not. When democratic institutions are used by angry mobs to vent their rage, they cease to function for the good of all the people they represent. There is an ugly mood in the U.S. at present: A group tantrum by those who have become lured into superficial materialism by Wall Street and mortgage bankers. The American middle class threw away their own national dignity abroad, their own equity, their own privacy and their own power as laborers in the Bush era. What did they get? They got LCD TVs, polluting Hummers and barn-like mini-mansions, made of junk materials.

So, as these willing victims of the 'greed-is-good' con game rage at having to pay the piper, they look to vent their regressive anger upon the progressive politicians who are trying to help them clean up their mess. They kick their feet and scream as government tries to relieve them of the burden of unaffordable health care. They throw their support behind scheming opportunists, who represent the same creeps who stole their money in the first place. They look for new scapegoats and the same old ones, like gay people, African-Americans, immigrants and others.

So, politics begin to resemble high school prom-queen and prom-king competitions. Sarah Palin, a woman who has glaringly obvious deficits as an intelligent leader, gets into the political sphere because she looks pretty and has done all the conventional 'right' things as a wife and mom. Scott Brown, the U.S. Senate candidate in Massachusetts, gets into the political sphere because he was a jock, a nude poster-boy and drives a pick-up truck. Those whose lives peaked and plateaued in high school rally to the flags of these pubescent icons.

Meanwhile, democracy and the people's real needs are discarded. They are successfully sabotaged once again by the evil forces behind the doctrine of personal greed and materialism, who gladly fund and promote this process of regression. The bankers slink away to their gated mansions with a cynical laugh at their willing dupes, the Tea-Party-style fanatics.

Today is Martin Luther King Day. Martin Luther King, who was the most inspiring man in my adolescent life, was not a pretty man. He was no prom-king candidate. He did not advocate rage or tantrums. He did not advocate selfishness or materialism. He did not support free-market capitalism. He did not whine and rant about what he wasn't getting. Martin Luther King spoke to the hearts of those who yearned for progress, social equality and economic justice for all through civil, progressive government. And, he was killed for it by the same characters who are currently funding efforts to subvert peace, the Obama administration, human rights for all and universal health care.

Make your choice. Will you indulge your own negativity? Will you go on justifying your own materialistic selfishness? Will you continue to begrudge paying taxes for social welfare programs in America while not even blinking when your taxes needlessly kill civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq? Who will you support in the voting booth?

Opportunism

Since I didn't go to Oxford or Harvard, I'll begin by quoting Wikipedia:

Opportunism is a term used in politics and political science. It forms an important rationale as well for transaction cost economics. It is interpreted n different ways, but usually refers to one or more of the following:

....a political style of aiming to increase one's political influence at almost any price, or a political style which involves seizing every and any opportunity to extend one's political influence, whenever such opportunities arise.

....the practice of abandoning in reality some important political principles that were previously held, in the process of trying to increase one's political power and influence.

....a trend of thought, or a political tendency, seeking to make political capital out of situations with the main aim being that of gaining more influence or support, instead of truly winning people over to a principled position or improving their political understanding.

Most politicians are "opportunists" to some extent at least (they aim to utilize political opportunities to their advantage), but the controversies surrounding the concept concern the exact relationship between "seizing a political opportunity" and the political principles being espoused

Milton Friedman, the Father of Contemporary Narcissistic Greed, in my opinion, is quoted as saying, "One man's opportunism is another man's statesmanship."

The problem is this: Media and politics have merged in our electronic age. Media has made politics a spectator sport. This is, of course, intentional. The powers who hold the media wish to hold the world's vision and shape it to their liking. The Fourth Estate, a free and somewhat anarchic press (newspapers), has disintegrated under electronic capitalism. The anarchy exists on the Web, but it is only anarchy within the boundaries of commercial capitalism. It is bourgeois anarchy. One must have a computer and a certain amount of capital, as well as technical education, to get one's message actually seen on the Web. In order to influence society in any way in the world of virtual information, one must subscribe to Google Ads or other mechanisms of capitalism. And this trend is becoming more and more entrenched.

So, as media and politics do their dance, politics effect media as well. And, as media is effected, or infected, with political opportunism, the whole public discourse becomes opportunistic. As the whole public discourse becomes opportunistic (think: bipartisan, extremist, materialistic, etc.), people themselves become opportunistic. Human beings tend to mimic their leaders. Now, more than ever, human beings study their leaders by being bombarded with constant information about them. Perhaps this explains why Sarah Palin has become a perfect storm of a relatively ignorant beauty queen, elevated to national political figure.

I wish I could say the leaders have taken this to heart and put their houses in order under the weight of their responsibility to the public they represent and influence. They have not.

The Oprah-ization of the population is one result. To have the light of the Oprah spotlight shine on your life is salvation in the modern culture in the US and, increasingly, in the rest of the world, as it becomes infected by American media. The Oprah spotlight now comes in many forms: American Idol, Survivor and dozens of other reality TV shows. The book-publishing industry has been particularly infected with Oprah-ism, since it was soon discovered that her magic wand can make or break an author's sales record. An author's sales record is what determines the quality of what is published more than ever in increasingly attention-deficient times.

So, what happens when a world becomes overpopulated by one predatory species, infected by opportunism? I think we are beginning to see exactly what happens in our environment and social structures. Sharp divisions between the wealthy and vast majority of struggling-to-be-wealthy. With these divisions, environmental fall-out is inevitable. China and India, among the latter class, refuse to consider curbing their carbon emissions, for one example.

As for 'American culture', what else could evolve in a country which tries to idealistically apply the illogically mutated principles of slave-owners from two centuries ago to a present world that has absolutely no scientific relationship to that past? If America turned to its present with hard and discerning eyes, it would walk away from its self-righteous meddling in the affairs of other nations with shame and embarrassment. Perhaps it would then tend to its own health and survival.

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.

Plutocracy

US citizens are allowing themselves to be ruled by a plutocracy. The current whining of the Democrats in Congress that 'the votes aren't there' for universal health care for American citizens, when there are a majority of Democrats in the Congress, is the open admission that we no longer have a two-party democracy in the US. We have a plutocracy: Government by the wealthy for the interests of the wealthy.

The recent 'solutions' to the US 'financial crisis' should have been evidence enough for those with eyes and a brain. The solutions entailed propping up the wealthy who had raped the financial system by defrauding the middle class with bogus loans. The middle class is broke. The wealthy bankers are still flush. The government of the US continues to hold the hands of the rich, while the middle class and the poor struggle on their own.

The health care debate is the biggest tip-off of all. First, there is no debate. Universal health care was never really on the table. Now they are force=feeding the public with universal coverage. They are equating the two concepts in an attempt to fool the public into thinking that a compromise has been reached. This is a patent lie. There was never a legitimate debate.

Universal health care would mean that any US citizen or legal resident would have the ability to access health care (medical assistance or treatment) anywhere in the US at any time it was required without worry about being bankrupted by that need. In other words, medical care as a human and civil right.

Universal health coverage keeps up the illusion that medical care is a commodity, not a human and civil right. This is the position of the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry, the wealthy interests who obviously own our Congress lock, stock and barrel. So, the Congress will keep funneling customers to the insurance companies. More than ever, since every US citizen will be forced to buy private insurance in order to get medical treatment.

Perhaps it is time to stop mooning over well-meaning President Obama. He has surrendered to these interests by giving Congress the go-ahead to sell the American citizenry down the river to the lobbies who have made this country the mess it is right now. Perhaps it is time to get involved, to write your Congressional delegation. Demand your human right to health and well being. Do not surrender your rights as a human being to the insatiable greed of the wealthy.

Practice is fighting greed and stupidity for your own humanity's sake. Compassion is doing the same for all humanity's sake.

New

I recently downloaded Windows Live Writer, so I am trying to post this first entry from that application. I find that technological learning curves help me evolve as a human being. Therefore, I appreciate the great minds who devise these toys for the mind and its expression.

I do not like the greed which eventually captures these devices for its purposes of accumulating more and more monetary wealth. This is a flaw of capitalism. In capitalism, as we know it in the US, greed often motivates innovation.

Innovation motivated by greed inevitably falls short of the mark as a boon to mankind. Exploitation, just as inevitable, follows this form of innovation. The wonderfully ingenious and mad Edison mastered artificial light and developed the groundwork for the electric utilities of today, which have left a wide swath of destruction of the environment and a stifling of true innovation in their wake.

In Buddhist thought, the practitioner is encouraged through mindfulness to look at all aspects of human actions, whether beneficial, destructive or ineffectual.

This new application, while it delights me in the present, may also lead to the easier composition of the most vile propaganda in the wrong hands. Or it may lead to the most inane dribble about Barbie doll collections or celebrities. Or it may lead to the publication of words about Buddhism that succeed to reach one open mind.

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.

Education

There is a current debate about the costs of college education in the US. The education industry (yes, it is an industry in the full corporate sense) has worked with government and professional interest groups to degrade public education in favor of private education, which costs a lot of money and makes a lot of money for a lot of people.

The focus of the current debate is the college loan scam, which has become a lucrative business for banks. High interest rates, bankruptcy-free guarantees of full repayment, thanks to bought-off legislators who have supported the gutting of public-financed educational loans over two decades. Another ruinous part of the Reagan legacy.

Education, I believe, ultimately has little to do with a degree from a college. Degrees are tickets to job interviews. Education is something else altogether and usually ensues with effect long after a student gains a degree.

However, shouldn't an intelligent government, self-proclaimed as a democracy, wish to be representative of an intelligent constituency? The quality and quantity of free public schooling in the US are inferior to the quantity and quality of free public schooling in most of the other wealthy world democracies. It is shameful. It is contributing to the corrosion of the quality of American life, and life around the planet.

Meanwhile, those who make over $250,000 per year in the US are wailing at the prospect of paying increased taxes. This group is 1.5% of the US population. And, for the last 8 years they have been calling the fiscal shots for the government of the US. Do you call that democracy? Are you happy with the results?

Part of practice is understanding the world around us. This is called 'study' in Buddhism. Traditionally, when there were very few literate people in society, Buddhist monks carried the burden of literacy and the arts in many cultures, as did Christian monks, imams and rabbis in the West. Today, dedication to a Middle Path entails study of all of society and understanding one's place in it. It entails placing one's steps along the correct path to further personal and human evolution.

Those who begrudge free education of all human beings by refusing to contribute to that cause do not practice. They are consumed with greed and blinded by nearsightedness which comes with addiction to personal pleasure at the expense of the greater society. It is the responsibility of those who do practice to try to show those who are so obsessed with greed the way to a life which can bring greater happiness to all.

Terrorism

Yes, let's wage a war against terror.

Let us wage war against those who teach their children homophobia, sexism, selfishness, materialism, violence, elitism, brutality and hatred, whether they be Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Mormon, atheist or Muslim.

Let us wage a war against those who greedily accumulate wealth from sweat, fear and trepidation of those who actually do the world's labor in the Americas, in Europe, in Asia, or in Africa.

Let us wage war against those who poison our air, our food, our water with irresponsible child-rearing, huge cars, fast food, sewage, and toxins.

In other words, let us wage war against our own human laziness and fear of change. Let each of us become a practicing warrior against materialism, jealousy, indolence, greed, stupidity, gluttony, addiction, prejudice, rudeness, hypocrisy, mindless reproduction and indifference. Let each of us practice looking toward the light of right thought and right living. This practice colors everything with new light. There is no shadow in this practice where terrorism can breed.

Fire

The media interest in the recent wildfires in California has been focused on the rich and their losses. Multimillion-dollar homes destroyed near the beach. The obsession (attachment) of the society with money and things is reflected in these stories.

Fire, like flood, is a predictable force in the environment. It is man's dysfunction in Nature which worsens the effects of fire. Nature is not the enemy. That attitude is responsible for the deterioration of our planetary environment.

Overpopulation, greed, selfishness, materialism...these are the enemies of the planet, which will adjust to their onslaught with pure, unprejudiced physical and chemical reactions. It is not a moral, or even human, struggle. We are one species, a species which has intentionally abused the planet and many other species.

Effective practice for personal evolution demands confronting these realities daily in your own life. Practice includes taking responsibility for your own relationship to the planet. Without contact with Nature and education about it, there is no understanding of your own place in it.

Corruption

The word, corruption, usually evokes images of a fat politician with a cigar in one hand and the other hand held out for a bribe. But corruption is much more subtle and pervasive than that image conveys. All things, on a basic physical level, are prey to corruption, due to oxidation, entropy and other phenomena. The process of evolution is a process directly opposed to corruption. Civilization is a human method of dealing with corruption on many levels. Our individual lives become corrupted physically by disease and mentally by greed, laziness and/or unhealthy dependency on people or objects. The shared lie corrupts and often leads to behaviors which hasten physical corruption as well.

Daily practices of exercise, nutrition, meditation, truthfulness, cooperation and sharing affection can aid in our attempt to ward off corruption of our lives.

Epicureans

This is a time of obesity in the consumer world and hunger in the laborer world. Is it any wonder that American cable television boasts hour after hour about expensive food consumption and preparation? The elite, who have captured and dominate the international television industry, are obsessed with material pleasure and excess. This is not new, of course, but the elite of today number in the millions. They are served by billions who labor harder and harder as their overall compensation dwindles as a proportion of planetary resources and production. Greed is in. The Epicureans flaunt their devotion to pleasure, while always talking on TV about how they have paid their dues or worked their way up. This is myth in most cases. The masses are lulled into submission with false promises of open access to the upper levels of society drilled into their hypnotized TV-medicated brains. They stuff down their anger with starch and fat. There is no happiness in obesity or hunger. There is ultimately no happiness in attachment to pleasure and excess. There is happiness in the practice of moderation and living to promote economic equality and justice for everyone.

Microfinancing

Last week an Indian banker was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Truly amazing. This man has made a living from giving loans, as little as $27, to the poor of India. He boasts changing lives by bringing entrepreneurs out of poverty. There is a 50% success rate among his customers, though most pay him back. His greatest boast entails lending money to women in rural villages who then buy HIS cell phones (he happens to own the largest cell phone company in India). The women then charge fellow villagers to use the cell phone because they cannot afford to buy one. Chances are most never will, if they spend all their meager savings renting the cell phones from this man's customers. In a society where people are reduced to feeling like microbes due to poverty and overpopulation, I wonder if it matters to them whether they are consumed by a shark or a minnow. In any case, I think the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has really captured the spirit of these times. I suppose, in the current materialistic mind, which is encompassing the Industrial World, the possibilities for profit and sainthood are endless and entwined. I do not believe in saints, con men or profiteering philanthropists. It is part of my practice to see and speak the truth as I see it.

Stocks

The stock markets are evolved monsters, originating in market squares of primitive villages. They are the playground of the wealthy, greedy, aggressive and materialistic. In recent times, they have been touted to the general public as beneficent and necessary features of 'freedom' in the capitalist catechism. This is part of the scheme, of course. The scheme of the rich to get richer at the expense of the gullible. Socialism is the only check against runaway capitalism. Socialism, basically embodied in the sharing of capital and resources through government administration of tax revenues, has been responsible for the general improvement in health, education and quality of life for the masses of the industrial societies. Stock markets are to social welfare, as casinos are to hospitals. In other words, apples and oranges. While freedom does entail the unimpeded existence of stock markets, it does not exclude socialism. And, the source of the wealth required for social improvements in a society is basically irrelevant. However, the recent attempt of government to fuse the concept of stock market trading with social welfare is perverse and dangerous. That is the road to fascism. In my own practice, I try to align my need for economic freedom with my social responsibilities to the general society. I do not begrudge my tax payments, unless I see those revenues being stolen or squandered by unscrupulous politicians. It takes the vigilance and right action of all citizens in a society to maintain and promote the welfare of everyone in it.

Ugliness

Beauty is probably in the eye of the beholder. However, I have had some insight into ugliness recently. I was on the subway the other day and was in a mood to observe the other passengers closely. There was a generous cross-section of humanity on my car. The ugliest person on the train, as far as I could see, was a snarling businessman with movie star looks and an expensive suit who nearly knocked an old man to the floor in his aggressive leap for a seat while talking without a pause on a cellphone. In a society obsessed with money, big houses, celebrity, plastic surgery and physical appearance, I see ugliness everywhere in the pretty and the privileged. And, their ugliness infects the society which they dominate.