Zinn

Howard Zinn is dead. This is a stinging loss for me. In fact, during a radio show today, in which an interview with Howard Zinn was replayed, I wept as deeply as I did when my own father died. In some ways, Howard Zinn was my socio-political father.

I listened to Howard Zinn speak at several anti-war events in the 1960s and 1970s. His passion for Truth in the face of conformity inspired my own determination in fighting for gay rights politically but also personally, by standing out as a gay man in my life and work. He was instantly perceivable as the 'real article'. We were of the same working class of immigrant forebears. We both knew what those who work hard with their hands for little pay endure.

Unlike many who achieve celebrity, Howard Zinn relentlessly preached the Gospel of Social Justice. His sermons were never laced with superiority or hypocrisy. His impact on this country was monumental in my generation. And, I hope the just in my generation do not forget to turn their grandchildren on to Howard Zinn's work. His voice is needed now, perhaps more than ever.

Morphing

Change. Inside out or outside in? Some Buddhists say, "Man and environment, one."

I have often used the outside-in approach to supplement a fairly constant inside-out approach to changing my life. This entails more than geographical cures, though I have found those useful too.

Buddha's Pillow is leaving soon. I am staying for now. I will be writing another blog. Watch this space.

To those of you who have followed Buddha's Pillow or just dropped by occasionally, I convey my appreciation for your willingness to read my thoughts, so to speak. To those of you who have commented on Buddha's Pillow over time, I convey my heartfelt gratitude for letting me know you are there, letting my thoughts in and sharing yours.

Decisions

Maintaining this blog is a growth-promoting process for me. I previously maintained my own Web domain, the former paulcreeden.com, where I published my stories, novels, cartoons over a five-year period (1999-2004). I took paulcreeden.com off the Web when I discovered it was being used illegally as a cover by a pornographer in South Carolina, who had hacked into my domain's server while I was preoccupied with fighting cancer. As an outspoken gay man, I did not want to give the modern-day, fundamentalist-inspired Thought Police any excuse to accuse me of committing some hideous sex crime involving the non-consenting. So, paulcreeden.com, ironically and indirectly, fell victim to the sex industry, which I would otherwise defend as having a valid place in consensual, adult society.

Currently, I am actively involved in several fronts of major change in my life. Thanks to a productive writers' group of which I am a member, I have begun the process of submitting my fiction for on line publication on literary sites. Through this blog, I have become involved with Harvard Humanist Association in a small way. I am considering giving more time and support to the growing humanist movement, as exemplified by that group. And, since I will reach the traditional retirement age in 5 years, I am trying to wrap my head around how best to plan financially for an old age which no sane person who have expected me to have until recently.

I see great fortune in my life. The greatest fortune is being awake, consciously alive and able to still learn and change.

Buddha's Pillow has been an important part of my practice. Through it, I have learned to stretch my awareness of political and social issues. Frankly, it helped me get through the dark Bush years with my sanity. It also represents a personal transition in my life. While I have been an atheist since my adolescence, This blog has helped me to integrate the several serious encounters I have had with organized metaphysical thought. Buddhism was one of those. Parapsychology was another. New Age-ism another. And so on. These roads all taken after leaving the initial path of traditional Western Judeo-Christianity.

As I assess the various changes ahead of me, I am considering the end of Buddha's Pillow and the beginning of a new form of encouraging daily humanist practice in myself and any others, who wish to read and communicate about it. This process of making decisions is, for me, the refinement of practice, since I see humanist practice as operating on two levels: The Present and The Ongoing. In The Present of practice, I am trying in every living moment to train my brain to the path of light, kindness, compassion and mindful truth. In The Ongoing of practice I am bringing all my baggage of life-history, financial circumstances, mundane skills to bear on the bread-and-butter issues of daily life, not only today's, but also tomorrow's. Since I do not believe in magic or miracles, I must strive to integrate The Present with the Ongoing, by doing what I must do in a materialistic, commercial and somewhat indifferent society to have a roof over my head and food on my table.

I share this process as an attempt to show that my humanist practice is not based in some armchair ideology. It is a challenge, I realize, to those who live in far greater materialistic comfort to understand how crucial the balance of these factors in my decision-making is to my own practice and my life. Yet, I also know how fragile all comfort is. And, I offer this blog to all with the knowledge that we all face reversal, sickness, aging and eventual death, no matter what our current comfort level is. We are all equal in these things.

Anger

As I see the U.S. wend its way to the Right, I do experience a fair amount of anger. Some readers have offered their opinion that my anger is non-Buddhist. They may be correct. But I seek here to explain not myself, but that anger which is evident in my writing at times, when I see things in society or politics which push my buttons.

Most of this anger comes my frustration from spending the last forty years defending myself and other gay men against homophobic discrimination, denigration and outright violence in this society. Those who are identified with the heterosexual mainstream cannot understand this fully. Just as a white man cannot fully understand the weight of being non-white in a white society. Just as a man cannot fully understand the problems of being a woman in a sexist society. Most heterosexuals, whether white or not, in my experience, simply do not even want to try to understand it what it means to be a homosexual in heterosexual society. The word 'tolerance' is used routinely by even liberal heterosexuals when they talk about their attitudes toward gay men.

A secretive holocaust, a form of intentional cultural cleansing, occurred in the U.S. from 1983 until 1990 under the Federal government of the Republicans, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and Congress. Gay men were shunned during the course of one of the worst modern epidemics. The government condoned the worst scapegoating of gay men. It withheld resources intentionally. It spoke of gay concentration camps for the infected.

Yet, society expects gay men now to deny this ever happened...to forget about it. AIDS in the gay community, due to well-earned compassion fatigue, is 'old' and 'tired'. Few of us with the political consciousness of Gay Liberation of the 1970s have actually survived AIDS. Those who conducted the cultural cleansing, the Reagans, the Bushes and their cohorts, who are now the bulk of the Neo-Con movement, succeeded in crushing Gay Liberation as a political movement. The symbolic assassination of Harvey Milk was a portent of things to come.

We endure being forgotten whenever a Holocaust memorial is erected to memorialize the Nazi victims unless we scream loudly. No Mossad searches out and brings to trial those who tortured and killed the gay men of Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary. The killing of gay men was not mentioned noticeably at Nuremberg. There is no gay country, like Israel. And so, when gay men are stigmatized, beaten, ostracized, experimented upon by therapists and regarded as toxic in homes, in jobs, on streets and in hospitals, as during the AIDS early epidemic, very few heterosexuals cry out.

We are expected to be satisfied with the spectacle of the AIDS Quilt. A fun, arty day out for those who were untouched by the epidemic. A stabbing, recurrent grief for those who lived the epidemic. And we still suffer and die from AIDS. We watch as the fundamentalists and Neo-Cons bemoan AIDS in Africa, while condoning the persecution of gay men in Africa. We know that the millions spent in Africa also serve the purpose of bleaching the blood stains from the hands of those who ignored us.

So, pardon me if I decry the earliest glimpses of fascism, especially when they are ignored by others who should be shouting as loudly as I am, based on history. Pardon me if I think anyone who would deny human equality in civil law by withholding marriage rights for gay men is a heartless bigot. Pardon me if I do not try to excuse my own humanity because I carry a socially inconvenient disease. Pardon me if I seem angry, because, about all this, I am and will be until it stops.

In my daily practice, this anger is a perpetual threshold, over which I try to step to remain open to life and all humanity. No amount of meditation or New Age or religious hocus-pocus or therapy or pharmacology. will erase this anger. This anger is as much a part of my survival as the many medications I must swallow every day. Yet, I have become an expert at living with anger and grief. Amazingly, I can still learn to love and nurture other human beings for their goodness by nurturing the embers of love in my heart. I credit this to my practice, perpetual study and endless attempt to seek the good in the people I meet.

Fascism

Fascism, pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/, is a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism[1][2][3][4] with a corporatist economic system,[5] and which is usually considered to be on the far right of the traditional left-right political spectrum.

The United States Supreme Court opened the door wider to fascism yesterday. In a five-to-four ruling, it has allowed for corporations to directly fund advertising in election campaigns without limitations. In other words, corporations are now citizens. Yes, citizens with billions of dollars at their disposal to indoctrinate and propagandize the electorate. This, combined with the unlimited corporate monopoly of public media, rings a death knell for electoral democracy in the U.S..

It is also interesting to note that today's news reports that Senator-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts owes his election in part to support from the national Tea Party organization which mobilized its members to volunteer on the Brown campaign. This item, combined with a report that Mr. Brown stated his interested in sitting on the Senate Armed Service Committee, Homeland Security Committee and/or Appropriations Committee points to his deep roots in the Far Right, which mouths 'small government' but supports militarism, nationalism and religious fundamentalism.

I am afraid the American public is asleep. They seem generally blind to the obvious forces of corporate oppression which have already diminished their standard of living, made it harder for them to find work and continue to chop away at the social security structure of their government. They continue to buy new gadgets as fast as they appear. They subscribe to media which support their enslavement.

Now, as much as ever in human history, personal daily practice for health and mindfulness is one method to avoid being lulled into supporting the loss of human rights and human dignity. The practice of study, truth-seeking and truth-speaking is one way to avoid becoming a victim of fascism. It is a choice between making history and simply repeating history.

Politics

Scott Brown, the faux-commoner, nude poser and shill for the national Right Wing, is now the U.S. Senator-elect from Massachusetts. This is the political game in 2010 in America. The Democrat establishment has reaped the returns of its naivete and smugness. Obama is not the Messiah of a New Age. This is a good lesson for them and for those on the Left.

The battles for gay rights, universal rights to health care, just immigration policy and a peace-oriented foreign policy are still undecided. The powers of violence, fundamentalist hatred, greed and sexism are still alive and well in America. Those powers will pepper the airwaves with reactionary propaganda. They will spout liberal views in public and fund reactionary candidates in private. They will spur the resentful to the polls in January sleet in once-progressive Massachusetts. Politics are duplicitous. Nature of the game.

While I find the arrogance of Mr. Brown's duplicity particularly distasteful, I welcome the potential effect of this wake-up call. Neo-Liberals, like Coakley, have been shown to be ineffectual, monotonous and Republican-lite. The national political soup has been well stirred by this little Massachusetts election. I, for one, say, "Let it boil."

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?

Haiti

This portion of the island of Hispaniola, occupied by 9 million people, is the size of Massachusetts, home to 6.5 million people. The economic, environmental and demographic differences between Haiti and Massachusetts are gigantic.

Tragedy breeds sentimentality. Sentimentality clouds level-headed judgment, the quality which is absolutely necessary to respond effectively to crisis. Haiti is a perpetual tragedy in perpetual crisis. It is plagued by bourgeois greed, hereditary poverty, aggressive ignorance, avid superstition and an entrenched caste system. The depth of the current tragedy of its earthquake damage is magnified by these factors.

Bill Clinton, who is special Presidential envoy to Haiti, has made the observation on the PBS Newshour that Haitians in the U.S. are 1% of the black community and 11% of the country's physicians' community.

This points to the lack of balance in Haitian society. A strong bourgeoisie with its diaspora in the U.S. fuels an engine of emigration from the island nation, while those with no resources fend for themselves in Haiti with no government, no infrastructure, no education and no escape. This is another example of the failure of the ripple effects of immigration here in the U.S.. It works for the U.S.. It does not work for the source of immigrants, as evidenced by Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala, Columbia and other nations.

From a planetary perspective, wealthy nations have no real commitment to places like Haiti. There is no oil there. There is no gold there. There is no copper there. There is no well-educated, cheap labor pool there. There are many problems (costs) and no profits. Free-market capitalists shun such situations.

My heart goes out to the many people from the U.N. and N.G.O.s who have been working against the tide of ignorance, violence and poverty in Haiti. But, I have many questions about the sensibility of their efforts. Haitians have cleared almost all their trees, thereby degrading their cultivatable land and water supply. The trees have been used to make cooking charcoal. Yes, cooking charcoal for the overpopulated environment. So, I would ask, "Why haven't the U.S., U.N., N.G.O.s, or its educated-diaspora organizations financed windmills, solar generators or a trash-powered generating plants to supply electricity for cooking with some of the trillions of dollars in aid which have been poured into this island for decades?" This is just one question I could ask, but now is obviously not a time for getting answers.

Perhaps Haiti is a symbol of the long term effects of religiosity and truly libertarian politics. The history of the island is bloody with colonial genocide, slavery and dictatorship. Yet, the persistent features of Haiti's history since its 1804 independence from France are its religiosity, lack of public education and its every-man-for-himself (libertarian) sociology.

I would suggest that libertarians and the theocratically inclined look at Haiti and learn. Large human populations need governance, infrastructure and social supports. Large modern societies must ride the waves of modern science to maintain themselves on a planet with fixed and diminishing resources. Praying does not generate electricity, get rid of garbage or purify water. God isn't there when the roof caves in. You need a crane to lift the rubble. To pay for cranes to lift the rubble, you need to levy taxes and maintain a government treasury.

Lunatics, like Pat Robertson, to whom many Americans have turned for leadership, will predictably turn their backs in crisis. They are capitalists to the core. The God excuse is a handy tool to lay responsibility on everyone but themselves for anything. The dominating Haitian Catholic church and the Haitian government are also noticeably lacking in their capacity to help their own people.

I would hope that the devastation of this earthquake in Haiti's capital city will awaken the non-Haitian and Haitian-American organizations which are invested in helping that nation. It seems that some 'tough love' may be called for in the reconstruction. An emphasis on practical science, based in ecological sustainability, would be a good start.

WTF?

Yes, this usually reserved blogger could think of no more appropriate title for this posting about the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race for the seat vacated by the esteemed and deceased Senator Ted Kennedy.

In one corner, we have a prim Massachusetts Attorney General, whose record includes involvement in a case of pedophile-paranoia in a day-care molestation case, which years later appeared to have been contaminated by child-witness coaching and infantile imaginations. Martha Coakley, whose political stance has seemed neo-Liberal at best to some observers, has managed to garner centrist support from the Democratic mainstream.

In the other corner, we have a former nude model/beauty contestant for Cosmopolitan Magazine, Scott Brown, a Bush-Cheney-style Rightist, now that he's clothed. Think of crossing Mitt Romney with Sarah Palin. Scott, a living Ken doll, brags about driving a pick-up truck with 200,000 miles on it. However, he is an attorney and is married to a local TV reporter, a woman.

Sound Palin-esque enough for you? How does this anti-gay, family-values, pro-life, pro-gun, Republican, nudy pin-up get a pass when he could potentially break the 60 vote Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate? I personally haven't heard any reference to this in the media. Doesn't it point to some potential for hypocrisy to anyone but me?

Perhaps these are the End Times. At least, it is beginning to seem so to this Massachusetts voter, looking to the special election on January 19th.

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.

Rights

Human rights. Equal rights. Do we really all agree on what these terms mean?

As a gay man, I have a fairly clear understanding of 'unequal rights' from personal experiences in the workplace, my neighborhood and my business dealings.

Universal human rights imply equality for all human beings without qualification. But what are these universal human rights?

The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, passed in 1948, includes the following articles:

Article 1.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.
(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.
(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21.
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27.
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28.
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29.
(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

This declaration was signed over 60 years ago by 48 member nations of the United Nations with the exception of 8 abstaining nations. So, where have we come in that six decades in the area of human rights? What are the impediments to the actualization of universal human rights?

Religious fundamentalism, exploitative nationalism, totalitarianism, fascistic capitalism...all movements that exploit ignorance, racism, sexism, economic disparity and slavery...impede the actualization of universal human rights. How does your behavior impede the actualization of universal human rights? What systems...social, political, religious, or economic...do you passively or actively support? What do those systems do for the promotion of universal human rights?

I know I am most likely asking these questions of people who are already invested in doing whatever they can do to actualize universal human rights. But, I strongly believe that a certain amount of time should be spent regularly assessing these questions in my own life. Then, I believe it is my responsibility to do whatever I can do to adjust my behavior accordingly.