War

The insanity of supporting war by the greater public is obvious. Centuries of wars have done relatively little to improve the human condition. Today's ludicrous indignation of the U.S. government over leaked Pentagon documents about the corruption in Pakistan and the failed strategy in Afghanistan underlines my point. The nonsense about a war for "freedom" in that part of the world has been shown to be a cynical public relations stunt to cover more devious machinations by our military, our industry and the allies of our politicians.

The U.S. government has turned a deaf ear to scores of human-rights and human-aid workers who are intimately familiar with Afghanistan. These peace-oriented advisers have repeatedly cautioned against stoking the Afghan tendency to belligerence and tribalism. Instead, they have suggested supporting the Afghan talent for small industry and perseverance. The Pentagon has ignored these calls. They are interested in more money for more weapons and more medal-encrusted grandeur for the war executives (officers).

Congress, still cowering behind post-911 flag waving, have caved in to the military over and over again. They are all too eager to forget the lessons of Viet Nam. Defense contractors have sunken their talons into the purses of political campaigns. Even the peace-talking, Nobel-holding Obama has become hawkish and easily cowed by the bluster of his own generals.

Insanity is doing the same ineffective thing over and over again while expecting a new result. This is the history of the military back through the ages. Armies represent and protect those who do not have the greater good in mind. Armies enforce the power of one elite over another. In doing this, they grind the bones of the common people.

Apathy

There is an active volcano of polluting oil spreading over a huge area of the Gulf of Mexico. No, it hasn't been fix yet, despite the cooling media interest. Political mayhem is also spreading in the states on the Gulf Coast. Politicians with considerable lumps of oil cash in their bulging pockets are looking at their shoes and mouthing the scripted litanies of "Don't panic." These are written for them by their masters, quite obviously. Less bribed politicians are calling the alert in hopes of mobilizing voter lethargy on the issue. The lethargic voters are more concerned about gas prices for their SUVs than drowning in polluted, globally warmed oceans.

Afghanistan, Iraq, oil spill, Icelandic volcano, Haitian earthquake. It is all becoming a series of paper cut-outs or digitized screen images to the overwhelmed, overinformed and undermotivated American public, who are treading their personal financial waters in a recession, which everyone in Government says is over. Other than the various fringe groups, there is no united, visible protest against the status quo.

Is it the corn syrup in the Dunkin Donuts coffee and practically everything else? Is it the overprescribed tons of anti-depressants, thrown at anyone with a blue day? Is it that life is still too easy for the middle class, despite all these problems? Is real protest being igored or actively hidden by media? Whatever it is, I can't shake the feeling that something truly wicked this way comes.

Reproduction

At the core of all the problems facing the human species is its inability to examine and effectively deal with human reproduction. Reproduction is considered a human right, but dealing rationally with reproduction has not been treated effectively by most societies as a human responsibility.

The result is the ever-growing problem of overpopulation, which lies at the root of all the planetary problems of our age. Do you doubt this? If so, I would suggest that you are either ill informed or naive.

Industrialization, based in petroleum, has developed as a means to support population, as well as a means for the most aggressive and wily of our species to ensure their own progeny's survival and dominance . This petroleum based industrialization is the cause of global warming. It is the basis of corporate agriculture, which is stamping out biodiversity and producing food which can maintain an overpopulated planet at a huge cost in nutritional and cultural value. The processing of human waste in industrialized, urban population centers produces a sludge, which is used as fertilizer on millions of acres of land. The heavy metals in that sludge have already rendered thousands upon thousands of acres permanently useless for food production, due to the heavy metals from pipes and pollutants in it.

Educated people in industrialized countries look to the underdeveloped world and shake their heads at the lack of family planning there. Well motivated couples adopt children from those countries, as opposed to having children of their own. These people are perhaps the most rational and courageous planetary stewards in our times. However, corporate capitalism preaches the values of overpopulation, which is considered 'growth'. More cookie-cutter developments, more widgets for more factories to produce more useless junk to fill more landfills. Insanity.

An examination of the Chinese experience with The One-Child Policy illustrates the inability of human beings to address, understand and control their own reproduction for the common good of the species. And, even in a China which is now reaping the benefits of that policy, it is spoken of with condemnation by 'human rights' advocates in China and abroad. How about the human right to have enough space to grow food and enough clean air to breathe?

I hold the opinion that being a truly mindful and compassionate Humanist entails a commitment to fostering and practicing socially responsible reproduction of the human species. It is key. Wars, disease and famine have been the only modifiers of human population to date. With advances in medicine, a growing abhorrence of war, and a growing movement to feed the poor of the world, overpopulation will become a more and more obvious issue. Whether human beings will be able to chose quality of human existence for all people over their selfish choices, based on sexual and instinctual urges, may well determine the survival and continued evolution of our species.

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.

Gaza

Overpopulation is the most critical environmental and ethical issue on the planet. It is also the most ignored. This is simple to explain. Overpopulation is a problem of heterosexuality, ignorance and religion. Heterosexuals are the majority. Ignorance is rampant in a world where personal greed takes precedence over public education. Religion maintains control of women by the men who foster it by encouraging high birth rates.

Gaza is a striking microcosm of this phenomenon.

Women who maintain practice and their personal freedom are especially challenged and especially admirable. They must overcome great obstacles to see past their conditioning and control by men in their lives. Women will either solve the problem of overpopulation or the species will suffer tremendously before becoming decimated by starvation, disease and perpetual war.

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.

Military

The problem with the military mind is its lack of ability to see its narcissism. It can only see war as necessity to justify its oppression and brutality. Peace keeping, another term for oppression of demands for human and economic rights by the poor and undereducated, in the 21st century can be achieved without hundreds of thousands of exploited underclass citizens being amed with lethal weapons.

The military-industrial (corporate) complex needs to process these underclass men and women to control them, disable them or route them into underclass jobs after their service. If they were not controlled in this fashion, they might well form an army of revolution against the status quo.

This is the old reality behind armies and wars.

If wealth were not hoarded and passed on by the rich, there would be ample financial resources to spread peace, rather than just keep it. Schools, clean water, healthy housing and more could be afforded to the poorest of our brothers and sisters worldwide. Armies guard the rich at the expense of the poor. Armies, like the violence they perpetrate, are evil without exception.

We

We the people have allowed our planet to become our sewer. We the people have allowed corporations and corrupt politicians to tell us that evil is good. We the people have killed and plundered in the Middle East, in Viet Nam, in Cambodia, in El Salvador. We the people foster the misconception that killing under the pretext of war is honorable, when we bow our heads to the military. We the people allow gang violence to exist in impoverished slums by allowing the politicians whom we pay to not do their jobs. We the people allow vandals to deface and destroy public accommodations and private property by not holding the parents of these vandals and negligent police responsible. We the people encourage overpopulation, poverty and stupidity by supporting the folly of reproductive rights without reproductive responsibility. We the people are the cause. We the people are the only solution through practice and right action.

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.

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.

Soldiers

It is important to study history. Without knowledge of history, a person is easily convinced that peace is impossible, or that peace is brought to the planet by war. This is absurd, of course. Soldiers are not in the business of peace. Soldiers are in the business of homicide, mutilation and destruction. Therefore, by living 'by the sword', they logically die by it or are mutilated by it. Sentimental pablum about soldiers is mirrored in civil society by attraction to other violent gangsters, like rappers, drug dealers and sports figures. The male predator is an unfortunate heirloom of our animal past. Peace is achieved by non-violence. Defense is achieved by resistance, not aggression. Currently, in Iraq, American soldiers are aggressors, not defenders. If you understand history, you understand that soldiers in Iraq are spreading death, not freedom. The greedy and power-craven always resort to lies and manipulations of emotions to achieve their personal aims in the name of patriotism. And their accomplices always intone the same sentimental chorus about 'our troops' to absolve their consciences. As Gandhi said, "Truth is God." In my practice, I look to the truth of things.

Vietnam

The overwhelming stupidity of the current American policy in Iraq, including the support of Congress for another year's 'mandate', must be motivated by corruption and greed. I say this as someone who lived through the American involvement in Vietnam and paid attention and protested. Anyone who lived through the American mistakes there cannot possibly deny the growing parallels with this misery in Iraq. And what happened when American troops left Vietnam? Eventually peace happened. The same will occur eventually in Iraq, and that very peace is what the corrupt and greedy fear most. A peaceful, reformed Iraq, whether democratic or theocratic, would not threaten American citizens here in America. That is a big lie to promote American paranoia and submission to an out-of-control Rightist regime, which has reaped billions of dollars from this policy for its patrons. It would threaten big oil, Zionist collusion with big oil, and despots like the Saudis. A reconciled Iraq and Iran, under common Shi'ite Islam, is the great nightmare of corrupt governments in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. This concept scares the hell out of the Right Wing everywhere. Why? Because Shi'ite politics are far to the Left of any of the major players in the region at this time. It really is less about religion than it is about corporate control of all nations under one god. That god is money. And that god only smiles on the wealthiest ten percent of the world's population. My practice is to remain balanced and detached despite my anger over this bare fact. This practice separates me from the violent and the hopeless. I believe Truth and Light, the objects of man's earliest devotions, will eventually create balance and peace for all those who seek them.

Corporations

Gangs, clans and militias are the smaller versions of corporations. The behavior of the poor and disenfranchised reflects the behavior of the rich and powerful who dominate and exploit them. The world, as dominated by atavistic war-based competition between heterosexual males, is bound to be violent, despite illusions of so-called capitalist democracy. Until the people of the world unite against the greedy and aggressive, as they have done historically nation by nation, there will be no real peace or general human evolution.

Warriors

I wonder at the universal acceptance of war memorials. We honor those who kill with impunity in the name of nationalism. Americans are hardly entitled to honor its soldiers as defenders. American soldiers, from its very inception, have been commissioned for aggressive acquisition of land and power. The first American army was commissioned to take the thirteen British colonies from the British Empire. It was not a defensive struggle. In fact, it was a struggle initiated by the colonists, who did not want to meet their fiduciary obligations to their country, England. The War of 1812 was indeed defensive, but it was defensive against the claims of the English resulting from the revolution. The bombing of Hawaii, an American colonized territory, by the Japanese marginally qualifies the American intervention in World War II as defensive. The Civil War was just that. It was not a war of aggression against "America". The current war in Iraq is a war of aggression and colonization. Warriors who defend the innocent with their lives may well be seen as heroes. Warriors who kill and maim the innocent in the name of some vague ideal which covers materialistic motives of the wealthy are hardly heroes. Killing is inhuman, from the perspective of the 'higher nature' of man. It is unjustifiable altogether in Buddhist thought. In my practice, I wrestle with my own tendency to anger, violence and hatred. This is indeed a war within myself. Perhaps we should strive to win these individual wars, billions of them on this planet. Then, and only then, will there be world peace.

Ideologue

We live in strange times. Recently I listened to a black woman who happens to be an ideologue of the Bush militarism here in the US. She also happens to be Secretary of State. While I do understand how her rage over white racism of her youth in the South may have engendered in her a need to hold and wield power, I do not understand why she would choose to join a regime which wages wars on foreign civilians, spies on American citizens, tortures non-combatants and ignores the deterioration of the world environment. I have learned from oppression, due to my sexual orientation, that oppressing others does not foster peace and the reduction of hatred in the ecology of humankind. I hope this educated woman may someday learn that lesson.

Evil

Evil is not a vague, abstract, simple moralistic concept. Evil is violence. Evil is mindless hatred. Evil is the decision in any moment to deliberately harm another being. On May 27, Russian police and skinheads chose to be evil by violently attacking peaceful gay/lesbian Russians who were attempting to hold a gay-pride march in Moscow. Marchers were ruthlessly beaten and arrested. The current Pope, a former Nazi supporter, has been in Poland all week. He has been promoting the continuation of his predecessor's evil in that country, where the government has also oppressed free expression by gay/lesbian people in the city of Krakow. Evil is the perversion of laws and democracy to propagate war and the massacre of poor desperate youngsters who seek security by selling their lives to the military establishment. Evil is pretending to be compassionate toward illegal immigrants when, in fact, they are being exploited as the cheapest possible labor by a wealthy and greedy society. Evil is not an abstract concept at all. My practice entails struggling with evil in my life from moment to moment.

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.