Moore

I consider Michael Moore my soul brother. Last evening, I watched his film, "Capitalism: A Love Story". If you haven't seen the film, I recommend it. If you don't agree with the politics of the film, you will still get a few laughs.

The laughs endear Michael Moore to me. He is the daring fool, the courageous bumbler, on the surface. Inside his down-home, just-another-guy exterior, Michael is truly awake to the truths of the human condition. He is wise, as well as being a wise guy.

For me, Michael's greatest service to humanity in this film is his exposure of the Ronald Reagan presidency as a coup d'etat by Wall Street. Everything political since Reagan's ascendancy in 1980 has been guided by the financiers in New York. This casts a clear light on the motivation behind the attack of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent bristling of the American government into war and internal-spying mode for the last 7 years. The paranoic response of a shadow government to the light of exposure.

The major Hollywood backing for Michael Moore's "Capitalism" confirmed my suspicion that the corruption and control of the government by Wall Street has offended even the most calloused sensibilities in America. Yet, the majority of citizens seem dulled, narcotized. Is it the high obesity rate? Is it the high substance abuse rate? Is it a societal depression? Perhaps it is all of them.

Corporatocracy?

This video (link below) was produced for Bell Labs in 1958. It warned of global warming. I am sure the oil industry has been suppressing this information since before 1958. Eisenhower, having allowed Congress, the oil industry and auto industry to tear apart the public transit system in the U.S. in order to sell more cars, warned the public of the military-industrial complex too late. Was it the confession of a guilt-ridden man?

GO TO VIDEO NOW.

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.

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.

Olympics

The Olympic games have historically been bound to politics. The bright light of the current international upset over the Beijing version of this politicized event is simply this: Some intelligent people are waking up to the new corporate fascism that is becoming a worldwide threat.

The current Olympic games are still patterned on the 1936 Olympics in fascist Berlin. The torch ritual was resurrected for that event by Hitler's Reich, which patterned itself on lunatic concepts of the Greco-Roman origins of the Third Reich.

Yes, Olympics and Fascism have walked hand-in-hand before.

One truly Greco-Roman concept was this: Give the masses bread and circus, and they will be distracted from the corruption which enslaves them.

Saints

The Pope, an alleged former Hitler Youth member, has set the agenda for nuns and priests who were killed while supporting Fascism in Spain's Civil War to become saints. He has shunned the deaths of the priests and nuns who died fighting Francisco Franco. Aside from making poor Mother Theresa look bad in the company she will now keep, this Pope has done a wonderful thing for secular humanism. He has made the stupidity and political cynicism of Roman Catholicism in a modern world quite obvious.

Abandoning imaginary friends and the people who use them to control you is part of growing up. Growing up is necessary before you can embark on your responsible, mindful and compassionate personal evolution.

G-8

Last week, the puppets of the world's greediest people, the so-called "world leaders", met in Germany, where they fawned on each other with embraces and applause, while thousands of committed, brave and mindful protesters were kept miles away by the fascist troops of the global corporatocracy (the government constituted by the concerted influence of corporations on world governments). This summit was not reported in this light by any of the several radio, television and mainstream Internet outlets I frequent. I feel I need to add my view here in this obscure space, because the number of those who are awake to the evils of fascist and oligarchic domination of the population of the world seems to be shrinking. How has the age of information brought us to this place? How has the age of information allowed for this surrender of the masses to economic and psychological enslavement? Perhaps this is simply evidence that knowledge itself does not bring mindfulness unless incorporated into practice. The practice of living in the light of truth, honesty with oneself and others in all things, does not allow for submission to the powers who are now trampling on human rights, the environment and the core values of civic responsibility to the people of the world, not the elite. As can be seen clearly in those whose forebears have submitted to slavery, the road back from enslavement is much longer than the road to submission.

Fear

Television, radio and print outlets in America are intentionally peddling fear for profit. Fearful people are easier to control. Fearful people do not parade openly in demonstrations against a corrupt, corporate-controlled government. Fearful people gladly hand over exorbitant taxes to pay for armies and police forces. Fearful people are more likely to act defensively and irrationally under stress. This fear mongering is intentional and corrupting. It can turn a peaceful and tolerant society into a Fascist police state. Perhaps this is the agenda of the corporations which control the governments of the developed world.

Limits

The lesson from German Fascism and Russian Stalinism is simple. If you are going to succeed in survival, you must draw a line over which you will not allow the evil of bigotry to corrupt your vision of your basic human rights. Man and his environment are one. If you allow the evil of homophobia into your life, into your heart, you are your own oppressor. If you participate in organizations, like Right-Wing political groups, most organized religions, homophobic family, you are your own oppressor and the oppressor of other homosexual people. You needn't hate your oppressors. You must stand up to them, distance them and condemn their homophobic actions. Only then will they recognize the repercussions of their bigotry. To plead, to bargain, to deny is a form of self-abuse, which has repercussions for all homosexual people. Liberation begins in the individual hearts of brave human beings who assert their human right to exist peacefully within their own lives.

Pinochet

Margaret Thatcher mourns the passing of Pinochet.
Who will mourn the passing of Margaret Thatcher?

Tyrants

George Bush the Elder and his aristocratic wife, Barbara, heir to a media fortune, celebrated the Thailand King's birthday in Thailand this week. The Thai King, educated at Harvard University, subverted the democratically elected government of his country recently and supported a military coup, which still holds power. The American corporate-owned press has neglected this abuse of democracy for obvious reasons. Tyrants still roam freely on this planet. They feast at elaborate ceremonies together. They are lauded. Books are published which hail them as exemplary human beings. And, obviously from this birthday in Thailand, they all stick together. My practice entails resisting the tyranny of the few and of the many.

Elections

Yes, it's payback time here in America. The cycle of human folly. They have destroyed a country, thrown it into civil war, to satisfy our rage over 9-11. Now the masses are bored with Iraq. The media too, it seems. Perhaps the two are the same. So, with the mentality of 'Monday-Night Football', the Middle Americans may actually vote to the left. They weren't motivated by the potential gutting of Social Security. They weren't motivated by the Medicare drug plan to help the upper middle class (Republican base). They weren't even motivated by illegal immigration. IF America were truly a democracy, we would all have a big, red VOTE button on our computer keyboards and on our digital-TV remote controls. Could Middle Americans handle that responsibility? Perhaps not. Politics are a true test of my resolve to maintain my practice.

Oppression

Oppression is accomplished by instilling fear.
Fearlessness is the antidote.
Face the oppressor.
Look him in the eye fearlessly and firmly.
Stare down the oppressor wherever he appears.

Oppression is accomplished by instilling fear.
Liberation is accomplished by rejecting fear.

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.