Value

The rapper/gangster subculture of the last twenty years has based song after song on the theme of respect. That culture seems incapable of realizing that respect is gained where respect is given. Brutality does not earn respect. It earns fear and violence.

Rather than approaching one another with macho intimidation, I suggest we take each other in with an eye to value those things which make each of us unique and valuable in some way. Valuing one another and ourselves for what we can contribute is a way to avoid focusing on our deficits and weaknesses.

The current pop-culture abhorrence of "judging" is often a defense against looking at selfish and/or dysfunctional behavior in ourselves. Judgment is absolutely necessary to survival and productivity in life. Anyone who stops judging human behaviors and situations will have a bumpy road ahead. However, judging behaviors can be balanced by valuing those aspects of behaviors, people and situations, which enhance our lives. In other words, it helps to learn to tolerate the bad, within limits, while appreciating the good in any relationship or situation.

As we become more adept at recognizing and validating value in our relationships and life situations, our lives gain depth and quality. This process helps us to define our own personal values, which then become sign posts along our paths in life.

Violence

Violence begets violence. To indulge in violence for entertainment or aggression brings violence in return. The true tragedy of September 11, 2001 is the failure of most Americans to see their hands in creating the atmosphere for that horrific act. America's history of aggression and support of violence, since World War II especially, in the name of capitalist ideology is at the root of the hatred against it around the world.

American culture is violent. High murder rates, gang violence, domestic violence, violent media. These plague American culture. Yet many continue to iconize violence for profit. The film industry, the computer gaming industry and professional sports are vendors of violence for profit.

Violence porpogates more violence. A personal practice of peace eliminates violence from the seeker's life. Violent speech and fascination with violence are as corrupting as violent behavior. Striving for personal growth and peace for many begins with channeling impulses to be violent into conscious intentions to promote peace in all situations, moment by moment.

Vision

Maintaining a personal practice of truth, compassion and mindfulness is aided by a vision of life as it could be without suffering, greed and violence. Formulating this vision is helped by focusing on alleviating your own suffering, monitoring your own greed and purging violence from your own thoughts and actions.

My own life is my best laboratory. By showing myself that I can effect change in my own actions and perceptions in the moment, I can instill hope into my life for the eventual liberation of all life from suffering. This requires an ongoing commitment in moment after moment.

The mind slides to its animal or habitual nature all too easily. Being fully awake entails guiding the mnd along a path to wellness against the resistance of habit and history in each moment of awareness. This takes practice. This is practice.

Fireworks

strolling tired in summer heat
long day of july independence
moving against a human tide
madly rushing to water's edge

avoiding addled drugged stares
pairs and triads of angry men
seeking source or target of pain
along steaming paved streets

near empty subway rumble ride
loud asian syllables in the air
yearning for quiet in my rooms
interrupted by more angry eyes

ambling along to my own street
suddenly peopled with strangers
climbing the low hill with relief
old wooden door unlocked yields

flashing and booming fireworks
there outside my own window
now shrugging with wide yawn
happily drifting to sweet sleep

Commonality

In a recent group discussion about forgiveness, the consensus seemed to be that reaching some sense of commonality with the person who offends helps when trying to forgive that person. One member of the discussion spoke of trying to summon forgiveness for a person who had committed atrocities against many human beings. This was a hard case.

The ultimate commonality which we all share with all other beings is our mortality. I have begun to incorporate a more present consciousness of this reality in my daily practice of being. For example, when confronted with an insect in my kitchen, I struggle with the impulse to kill it. I think of the parallel between its life and my own. I question whether my ability to kill it easily is a justification for killing it. I consider that the minor violence of killing the insect brings me closer to committing future violence. If the insect poses a real threat to my own immediate well being, I may kill it. Otherwise, I will attempt to remove it without fatally harming it.

I am not a Jain, but I understand the Janist approach to defeating the impulse to violence in our animal brains. The building of patterns of behavior in daily life leads to the growth of the human condition, individually or societally. By remembering the precious brevity of all life, I find that the impulse to anger and violence is much more easily managed. Getting to the awareness and acceptance that we al die all too soon is a challenge in a world of electronic avatars and fundamentalist religions, which promote an illusion of immortality.

Addiction

I am impressed by the current trend in U.S. society to accept binge drinking and public intoxication. In the urban environment, it is matter of course to see inebriated people in public in the middle of the day. On weekends, drunk young people are commonplace during the afternoons on city streets.

Thirty years ago, this would have been unacceptable public behavior, associated with sociopaths and derelicts. Not so today. What has happened?

Well, the U.S. was led for eight years by an alcoholic, who, despite claims of longterm sobriety, managed the government like an unruly drunkard. President Obama chose to resolve a serious racial incident, involving a cop and a Harvard professor, by having a beer with them. When did drinking alcohol become a panacea?

While I believe it is useless to try to control human behavior, like drinking alcohol, by stern prescriptions of sobriety, I am concerned that all the ills associated with addiction will once again blossom with the inevitable social repercussions. Domestic and random violence are among the worst of these.

Personal and social peace is dependent on the mindfulness of individuals. Alcohol/drug use is antagonistic to mindfulness. Mindfulness requires a useful, alert brain. Managing brain function cognitively is difficult enough in itself without adding external intoxicants.

The occasional medicinal use of alcohol, cannabis or other intoxicants may have some beneficial effects for some people. However, the routine, habitual use of intoxicants has no beneficial effect for any individual or society. Learning this lesson is a necessary first step for many on their path to personal growth.

Matewan

The Matewan Massacre in 1920, as depicted in John Sayles' 1987 film, Matewan, represents the struggle between corporate power and human rights. Any American who carelessly condemns socialism as evil should perhaps take the time to see this film, which is readily available in video rental shops or from Netflix.

The Matewan story speaks for itself. However, I believe the neoconservative movement within the Republican Party in the U.S. still represents the powers of blind greed and materialism which cause poverty and human misery in too many American lives today. Today's free-market capitalists are the descendants of the coal magnates who used economic subjugation and violence to maintain their profits.

They work through trading rooms on Wall Street, while their minions slash payrolls with massive layoffs, export jobs to easily subjugated labor markets and manipulate U.S. government officials to avoid regulation and taxes. They begrudge universal health care for their own population. They prop up wealthy banks and insurance companies, while those duped into buying into their schemes are turned out of their homes. They are the new aristocracy, Social Darwinists who feel they are inherently better than those they exploit. They are about winning, not about sharing.

Militarism

Humans disagree. Conflict is inevitable. Violence, however, is a human choice in the twenty-first century. While violence works for the biggest and strongest at any given moment in human history, it does not work for the human species.

There is a new militarism in the US. It is becoming subtle, gentrified by corrupted politicians, who value re-election and financial gain over the welfare of their constituents. Militarism is no longer a Left-Right issue. Corporate corruption of our political system has seen to it that the media they own foster this new militarism with sentimentality and near-sightedness. Even 'public' broadcasting outlets, both radio and television, have fallen prey to this. It was probably inevitable when all media succumbed to the Bush-Cheney manipulation of embedding reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As a child of post-WWII America, I have lived with the side effects of the militarism of that period. I was raised by a traumatized father, whose psyche was permanently twisted by his experiences in WWII. I watched as my own government tried to intimidate those of us who demonstrated peacefully against the Viet Nam War. I was a college student at the time of the Kent State Massacre. I watched Buddhist monks set themselves on fire in front of TV cameras to show the suffering of their people and the evil of war.

We are emerging from eight years of Right-Wing indoctrination and intimidation in the US. The military establishment was an active part of that process for eight years. Now, while portraying himself as a centrist, our President, who we elected as an agent of change, is engaging in the militarism of the culture by participating in sentimental patriotism, which sounds to me like old-fashioned nationalism, complete with 'God and country' speeches.

I mourn this Veterans Day for all those pacifists who have fallen, who have been victimized, who have been forced to leave their country to avoid persecution. I mourn all those civilians all over the planet who are killed and tortured by men and women, wearing uniforms and wielding guns or machetes.

Massacre

The Kent State Massacre on May 4, 1970, was the intentional murder of four unarmed, peace-promoting civilians by the US military. Now, Americans are being propagandized to see the deaths of soldiers on a military base at the hands of one of their own officers as 'tragic'. While I mourn the loss of any human life to violence, I suggest that the US military is part of the violence problem, not part of its solution.

CEO-Plutocracy

I have used the term 'corporatocracy' to describe the current world government. Yes, world government. The world is being governed (badly) by corporations.

The Business Roundtable, for example, represents 160 US corporations through their CEOs, who as a group lobby and push around the US government at all levels. There are similar organizations and institutes in every industrialized nation. This amounts to a plutocratic group who govern through veiled bribery and campaign contributions.

The US sees its most blatant putsch by the CEO-Plutocracy to date in the $700 billion demand placed before Congress. Amazingly, Congress has said a temporary 'No', but this is temporary. This minimal show of resistance is spurred now by genuine fear that there will be a popular uprising in the voting booths this November, when a general election takes place.

The reality is this: Those in corporate power know that the planet is polluted, overpopulated and under-resourced. They will do whatever it takes to see that they and their offspring survive in the opulence to which they are accustomed and feel entitled. End of story. It's that simple, ladies and gentlemen.

Practice will become more essential for those who are not part of the CEO-Plutocracy. That is, for 90+% of the human species. To survive in a world controlled from the top is difficult. Look to stories from Victorian England for a primer. To evolve will become more and more challenging. To refrain from self-defensive or forced military violence will become nearly impossible. War will be used to keep the poor occupied, distracted and limited in numbers, as much as possible without alerting them to the real reasons for their systematic enslavement and destruction.

Practice living without aspirations to be part of the CEO-Plutocracy. It is a closed system and it is a corrupt, evil system. Live to be compassionate. Live to be whole in mind, body and spirit. Live without material obsessions or addictions. This practice will put your truth and your essence out of the reach of those who would dominate you or destroy your essential being.

Sports

The top photograph to the right was recently taken in front of the Science Museum in Boston. The museum is hosting a corporately funded exhibit on Olympic sports history. The photo below it replicates a Nazi propaganda poster which was used at the time of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, which were presided over by Adolph Hitler and are considered the beginning of the current commercial Olympic movement. This represents the same genre of propaganda used to equate teamwork with family with social responsibility.

The sad truth which history conveys is that genetic-family-centered, sports-centered societies are less socially responsive to social needs. In fact, these societies, like ancient Rome and ancient Sparta, were war-centered and brutal to those in their societies who did not measure up to the warrior classes. These societies, like the current American society, were fractionalized by gangs, political factions and family feuds.

As a taller-than-average boy with a father who was compulsively driven to conform to conservative heterosexual values, I was cajoled and then bullied into participating in basketball games. I had no aptitude or interest. The result was a widened permanent rift between my father, my older sports-minded brother and myself. I was verbally demeaned and humiliated within my family and in public for the remaining years of my childhood and adolescence in my working-class environment. While ineptitude at sports was the overt reason for ridicule, the subtext was my suspected homosexual nature.

This was valuable training for my personal evolution. I saw through the mindless popular myths about sports and masculinity and aptitude. I was able to work out that the men who were most driven to conform and comply with these myths are the same men who support war, child abuse, the abuse of women and the suppression of their own homosexual feelings. I can only assume, from my experience, that the women who are similarly driven are similarly motivated by rage and fear.

I firmly believe that organized sports as they exist are part of the problem, not part of the solution. I believe they are impressed on youth to produce compliant citizens who will join armies and fight real or virtual wars for the corporate powers. The merging of nationalism or global capitalism with organized team sports is glaringly obvious everywhere. I am sure my simple assertion of this opinion could throw indoctrinated team sports fans in to blind rage. This would simply prove my point, in my opinion.

The men responsible for creating democracy in modern times, men like Adams and Jefferson, did not play team sports. They did not learn the politics and philosophy of liberation on a football field or basketball court. Far from it. They read books, studied history and promoted cooperation of the many against the gangsterism of the few.

A world at peace would indeed have plenty of teamwork to do to correct the negligence and environmental corruption caused by corporate power. The time, money and energy spent on corporately sponsored team sports may eventually be put to better use. This would indeed be an evolutionary step for mankind.

Equality

Equality as a human right begins in the mind of the individual.

Getting married does not make a gay man equal. Adopting a child does not make a lesbian equal. Going to Harvard does not make a black man equal. Running for President does not make a woman equal.

These are simply the outward signs of equality according to human law and convention.

I made myself equal in my own mind and heart when I revolted against a violent and domineering family. I was twenty at the time. It was the beginning of my adulthood and the beginning of my individual practice of personal evolution. I said "No!" to violence, insults and constant attempts to control my life by my parents. Until then, I was depressed, confused and impotent, just the way my family liked me to be.

No amount of mimicking or sincerely imitating an oppressor will give you your own equality and subsequent freedom. This has been the mistake of many conservative political movements for change in the status of minorities. The wealthy heterosexual elite in American society derive great pleasure from these attempts at being like them. But they will not surrender their power and oppression without fear of the consequences of not surrendering those evils. They fear one thing: Loss of money, whether it be in the form of personal property, corporate assets, political power or social power.

The only protection of human rights is constant protest of their abuse in the face of the abusers, those in power. The human rights of all will not be assured until the weakest among us are protected from violence, oppression and poverty. The core of that protest is each individual person's actualization of his/her personal equality. That begins with saying "No!" to those in one's life who hurt, oppress and impoverish.

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.

Respect

The current gangster culture uses a perverted concept of respect as a currency to justify murder and other crimes. Gangsters demand respect with brutality and violence. The music of this subculture has infiltrated into the general society. It has been sold to youth by unscrupulous capitalists for profit. Television and films have furthered the infection of society by these dehumanizing influences.

Respect is indeed a concept of evolved civilization. Not the fear and threat of retribution, which gangsters equate with respect. True respect begins with the educated and evolved human being who understands that self respect is the precursor to generalized respect for all beings.

Respect cannot be extorted or demanded. To get respect, one must first learn to behave respectfully. And, despite having self respect and giving respect, there is no guarantee of getting respect when dealing with human beings who live in a low life condition due to stupidity, addiction and/or poverty. In the face of disrespect, the wise person immediately places distance between himself and the source of that disrespect. There is no sense in bargaining with disrespectful behavior.

Respect is both an element and product of practice.

Violence

Israel is currently invading and bombing Lebanon. Civil war is raging in Iraq and Afghanistan (more quietly there). All over the ailing planet, violence persists. Despite great technological advances in communications and medicine, people are still resorting to primitive means to stake out territory, maintain control, sustain life. Why? The wealthy and privileged all over the planet shrug and say, "It has always been and will always be so." In reality, the wealthy and privileged promote violence to secure their own power and control. They buy and sell weapons. They play sides. They wager in stock markets on the outcomes of violence. This is the greater world-wide evil. In my practice, I avoid violence as best I can. Internal violence and external violence. However, my practice does not preclude self defense or the defense of the defenseless.

Violence

I had the displeasure of viewing Mel Gibson's "Passion of Christ" last evening. I also listened to a story this morning on National Public Radio about the sentimental and commercial issues of civilians in a military town in the South. In both situations, I was appalled by the lack of understanding that violence is the enemy of human progress. Gibson promoted a lascivious orgy of violence with graphic special effects in his idiotic retelling of the Christian myth. These same sobbing patriots in the military-base story are those who promote war and violence which causes their histrionic grief over "our lost loved ones". The problem is the assumption that violence is an acceptable human behavior on a national or individual level. If violence were surgically removed from society by the elimination of guns and weapons, the human species could get on with the work of conscious evolution. And that would be miraculous.