My Brother and I were driving back to the office yesterday after lunch and I saw a truck with a bumper sticker on it. It said something like "Witches Heal", well ok, whatever ,and it had one of those fish things that folks like to put on their car that said "N' Chips" inside the fish. That did make me laugh, I guess that is why I noticed it. But I realized that rarely do you see bumper stickers anymore. I used to see them all the time, political ones, funny ones, W ones, rainbow ones, etc. Not anymore. I think we have gotten too scared to express our opinions publically. Someone might decide to run us off the road or pull a gun and start shooting or maybe just drag a key along the side of our car as it innocently sits in the parking lot.
I think people have gotten to this point because civil discourse is mostly a thing of the past. People form their opinions and will defend them to the death, no matter what contradicting evidence comes up. Maybe we as a nation learned this from old W, "I don't care what the evidence says I am sticking to the course". I learned long ago that if people can't defend their opinions with reasonable arguments then they just get mad at you and call you names or worse. Its too bad that this has happened, I miss the bumper stickers they were funny lots of times.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Monday, February 04, 2008
Rich and Green?
The other day I was watching "This Old House", I know, I know, but with the writer's strike it is slim pickins out there. No Slim Pickens comments please! Anyway, this old house is currently doing a "Green" renovation in Austin. Austin has a going green program of some sort where they assign you points for how green your renovation is. So the renovation seems like a nice project, a nice house that they are putting energy efficient appliances, heating and cooling, widows, etc. But, what got me worked up is the tour of the house that got the most green points ever in Austin's history. It is a gigantic, I am sure multi-million dollar home, with a pool, stone walls, recycled wood floors, with a man, his wife and a few kids living there. Probably a couple of thousand feet per person. What I want to know is, is that green? Just because you spend lots more money on the components of the house to save a bit on energy doesn't the mere size of the home kind of cancel that out. It would be kind of like buying a Hybrid Hummer, that instead of getting 10 miles per gallon gets 12. I kind of get fed up with the green magazines, green tv shows, etc. that go on and on about being a green consumer and advertise outrageously priced items for you to buy. Somehow I got it in my mind that being green would entail living in an energy efficient home that is appropriate for the size of your family, owning a non gas guzzeling car that your family can comfortably fit in and really being mindful about your purchases. Like, do I really need this, do I already have one, can I borrow one from someone else and can I put this purchase off until later. Not how can I build and consume the most possible, but in a way that makes me feel less guilty about being a big fat ostentatious hog. Anyway, it seems to me that Austin's going green program misses the mark by a long shot. But who can blame them, if it weren't for all the ridiculously huge homes where would the property taxes come from?
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks!
I have always been a bit suspicious of those that go around complaining a bit too loudly about something that has no effect on their lives. It appears that my suspicions may be well founded. In what the media is framing as a scandel yet another man who spent way too much time complaining about "The Homosexual Agenda" has been caught with his pants down, so to speak. I don't expect everyone to always live up to the ideals that they expound, but please, if you are going to be a public figure and make some position the cornerstone of your life, try to model your actions on that position.
I am no more shocked by the Senator in the restroom than I would be if they caught the head of PETA with a cheeseburger hanging out of his mouth, but at least eating a cheeseburger in public is legal. For some reason the closeted Republicans can't manage to just have a homosexual encounter either, they have to twist it up with something slimy or illegal; propositioning underage pages, sex in public, smoking crack with your long time prostitute trick. I just don't get it. I have been out of the closet for a long time now and had to learn about the secret gay signals for bathroom sex from a conservative, republican, senior citizen, Senator with a wife and a few kids, something is really wrong with that. What makes it even worse is it gives the general public, who may not have met a nice middle class gay man, the impression that we are always up to something really gross. NOT TRUE!! I get up every morning and go about a pretty normal day. I don't hang out in public restrooms, I don't try to pick up children, I don't do drugs, hell I don't even smoke anymore! I live in the typical suburban home with my partner of 11 years and a couple of dogs and a cat.
I am no more shocked by the Senator in the restroom than I would be if they caught the head of PETA with a cheeseburger hanging out of his mouth, but at least eating a cheeseburger in public is legal. For some reason the closeted Republicans can't manage to just have a homosexual encounter either, they have to twist it up with something slimy or illegal; propositioning underage pages, sex in public, smoking crack with your long time prostitute trick. I just don't get it. I have been out of the closet for a long time now and had to learn about the secret gay signals for bathroom sex from a conservative, republican, senior citizen, Senator with a wife and a few kids, something is really wrong with that. What makes it even worse is it gives the general public, who may not have met a nice middle class gay man, the impression that we are always up to something really gross. NOT TRUE!! I get up every morning and go about a pretty normal day. I don't hang out in public restrooms, I don't try to pick up children, I don't do drugs, hell I don't even smoke anymore! I live in the typical suburban home with my partner of 11 years and a couple of dogs and a cat.
What amazes me even more is that if in the last year so many homophobic public figures have been caught engaging in activeties that they publically denounce, how many of them are up to the same thing but have enough sense not to get caught? All of them? Are gay men really supposed to be conservative, republicans and I never got the memo? These family values folks really do protest too much!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Musings on Seven Generations
"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations." An Iroquois belief.
I came down with what I thought was a cold last weekend, turns out that I actually was coming down with pneumonia. I don't really find this surprising as a person that smoked for a very long time. Flu earlier this year, pneumonia now. I guess my lungs are still in the recovery process. I pray that they will heal some day and the damage is not permanent. As I was sitting on my sofa watching "Angel" episodes I noticed the above quote on the tissue box. The tissues are made by 7th generation. One of those companies that actually cares about the environment that sells their products at Whole Foods. I try to shop at Whole Foods when I can. Purchase some organic produce, meats that do not come with a side order of the horror of the commercial slaughterhouse, flowers that last for two weeks instead of two days. I guess I do what I can, when I can. Anyway, the quote got me to thinking. Seven Generations, such a long time to think about. Things seem to be going so horribly wrong that I wonder whether my generation will make it through the things that we are doing. I pray that the "tipping point" is about to happen, that awareness will arise spontaneously that we cannot continue to gorge ourselves on the fruits of the earth without some awareness of what we are doing. I try to be aware. I try to ask myself when I am out in the consumer world the 3 questions 1. Do I have one of these? 2. Do I need one of these? 3. Can I purchase this later? I guess the answer would almost always be no I don't need this now or ever, do I always manage to put whatever it is down and go on about my business? No. Maybe someday. We've all been brought up to equate success with material possessions, consumption, power over others. It is so hard to break away from that world view, yet in the end I guess we all know it is crap! Some of the richest, most famous people in the world seem to be tortured, unhappy souls. We tune in daily to see what horrible self-destructive activities they have been up to and consume their pain like starving dogs. Why do we expose ourselves to such? Why do we watch horror, violence, murder, rape, torture on our TV? Why do we invite such emotions into our lives? If you opened up the door and a murderer was standing there with his victim would you invite him in to put on a show while you ate dinner? No, probably not, but we do the same thing in essence when we turn the TV on and watch and experience the same thing. I realized something a while back. When I meditate I go to a place where my thoughts slow down and if I am having a good session turn off for a while. That is a good thing, reminds me that I am not really my thoughts, that there is an inner essence that is not my thoughts. Guess what happens when I turn on the TV and get absorbed by some horrible show, my thoughts slow down or turn off. I am directly exposing myself to the content of that show. It is like hours of meditation where instead of some inner peace and serenity are aroused in me, violence, pain, and the commercial break of consumerism are being spoon fed to me. What goes for news and entertainment seems to get worse all them time. Our desire to consume seems to get worse all the time. It is like a giant whirlpool that is getting stronger and stronger, adding more people, more negativity, more pain daily on a global level. And what suffers because of this? Everything and everyone. We all feel the pain, the isolation, yet we can't seem to extricate ourselves and say enough is enough. We all seem to have some gigantic hole that we need to stuff full of possessions, food, alcohol, drugs (illegal and legal). Some days I want to vomit it all out. Start fresh. Clean my house and soul. Fill my life with good things and good thoughts. Step out of the whirlpool, grab the hands of my friends and family and say "Hey, lets stop all this madness and see if we can do some good in the world". But it can be so hard to do that. I am going to try harder! Because the whirlpool is so big now that I am scared of what it will be like in two generations, not to mention seven. Namaste
I came down with what I thought was a cold last weekend, turns out that I actually was coming down with pneumonia. I don't really find this surprising as a person that smoked for a very long time. Flu earlier this year, pneumonia now. I guess my lungs are still in the recovery process. I pray that they will heal some day and the damage is not permanent. As I was sitting on my sofa watching "Angel" episodes I noticed the above quote on the tissue box. The tissues are made by 7th generation. One of those companies that actually cares about the environment that sells their products at Whole Foods. I try to shop at Whole Foods when I can. Purchase some organic produce, meats that do not come with a side order of the horror of the commercial slaughterhouse, flowers that last for two weeks instead of two days. I guess I do what I can, when I can. Anyway, the quote got me to thinking. Seven Generations, such a long time to think about. Things seem to be going so horribly wrong that I wonder whether my generation will make it through the things that we are doing. I pray that the "tipping point" is about to happen, that awareness will arise spontaneously that we cannot continue to gorge ourselves on the fruits of the earth without some awareness of what we are doing. I try to be aware. I try to ask myself when I am out in the consumer world the 3 questions 1. Do I have one of these? 2. Do I need one of these? 3. Can I purchase this later? I guess the answer would almost always be no I don't need this now or ever, do I always manage to put whatever it is down and go on about my business? No. Maybe someday. We've all been brought up to equate success with material possessions, consumption, power over others. It is so hard to break away from that world view, yet in the end I guess we all know it is crap! Some of the richest, most famous people in the world seem to be tortured, unhappy souls. We tune in daily to see what horrible self-destructive activities they have been up to and consume their pain like starving dogs. Why do we expose ourselves to such? Why do we watch horror, violence, murder, rape, torture on our TV? Why do we invite such emotions into our lives? If you opened up the door and a murderer was standing there with his victim would you invite him in to put on a show while you ate dinner? No, probably not, but we do the same thing in essence when we turn the TV on and watch and experience the same thing. I realized something a while back. When I meditate I go to a place where my thoughts slow down and if I am having a good session turn off for a while. That is a good thing, reminds me that I am not really my thoughts, that there is an inner essence that is not my thoughts. Guess what happens when I turn on the TV and get absorbed by some horrible show, my thoughts slow down or turn off. I am directly exposing myself to the content of that show. It is like hours of meditation where instead of some inner peace and serenity are aroused in me, violence, pain, and the commercial break of consumerism are being spoon fed to me. What goes for news and entertainment seems to get worse all them time. Our desire to consume seems to get worse all the time. It is like a giant whirlpool that is getting stronger and stronger, adding more people, more negativity, more pain daily on a global level. And what suffers because of this? Everything and everyone. We all feel the pain, the isolation, yet we can't seem to extricate ourselves and say enough is enough. We all seem to have some gigantic hole that we need to stuff full of possessions, food, alcohol, drugs (illegal and legal). Some days I want to vomit it all out. Start fresh. Clean my house and soul. Fill my life with good things and good thoughts. Step out of the whirlpool, grab the hands of my friends and family and say "Hey, lets stop all this madness and see if we can do some good in the world". But it can be so hard to do that. I am going to try harder! Because the whirlpool is so big now that I am scared of what it will be like in two generations, not to mention seven. Namaste
Friday, December 22, 2006
Globilazation Sucks
Have you noticed that everything is getting to be the same? The same stores, the same restaurants, the same clothes? All of the sudden I realized I live in a beige world. From coast to coast, city to city, neighborhood to neighboorhood all is the same. When I have the chance to go shopping all the clothes in all the stores look exactly the same. As I drive home from work in the city to the suburbs I can't tell you the number of times I pass the same shopping center with the same stores, starbucks, etc. It is all so boring! Why did we do this? I guess being able to go to the same places no matter where you are does lessen the fear of the unknown, but at what cost. What will you have to talk about when you get home from vacation? "Hey, Chicago is so cool, their Gap is two stories instead of one and the Starbucks is painted brown inside instead of beige; it was like being in a different world!" Anyway, don't want to stand on this soapbox for too long, but if you happen to live somewhere that has some local color and flavor, support it, enjoy it, soon it will probably be torn down and a mini-mall put in its place.
Monday, September 04, 2006
The Thread of Happiness
So, once again it has been a long time since I posted. I think in the past my lack of posting has been due to my low energy level, but things have changed for the better in the last couple of months. I recently re-read several of the books by Dr. Andrew Weil. His book "Spontaneous Healing" gave me some ideas to try and they have really made a difference in my life.
As most of you know I have been interested in the environment for some time now. A constant consumer of books, web-sites, movies that explain and clarify how we, the human species, are destroying and polluting the Earth, our only place to live. In "Spontaneous Healing" Dr. Weil gives the case histories of several people who were either abandoned by the traditional medical establishment or were prescribed treatments that had side effects that were intolerable. I think one of the main ideas he was trying to get across is that we are responsible for our own mental and physical health. Our health is determined by the things we expose ourself to, both mentally and physically. If we consume unhealthy food, expose ourselves to negative people, fill our minds with the horrors of the world, pollute our homes with toxic substances then we will not be positive healthy people. This turned the light bulb on in my head. For years my intuition has been telling me to lead a more spiritual life, eat vegetarian, surround myself with serenity and peace. I have tried to do all of these things off and on, but with little success. I would find myself giving in to the consumer, least effort society we live in. It is easier and cheaper to pick up some unhealthy fast food than to spend the time and energy required to prepare a vegetarian meal from organic sources. It is easier to turn off your mind and stare at the televison than to practice meditation, yoga or some other uplifting and calming activety.
From the depths of a really low energy, anxiety ridden time I decided to be responsible for my own health and happiness. I now clean my home with only non-toxic products. I prepare organic vegetarian food in my home. I meditate daily. I protect myself from negative people & negative news. I have learned that you do not have to explain to anyone the actions that you take to protect yourself. I have learned that a lot of people feel the need to question, criticize anything you may do that is different. I have had untold numbers of people tell me that I will not get enough protein unless I consume animal flesh, even though I have heard of no mass starvation of the hundreds of thousands of vegetarians in the world. I have had people try to tell me the horrible things that appear in the news daily, even though I have asked them to please not do so. The list can go on and on of the intrusions on my serinity and personal choices I have made. Choices that I have made to be happy, healthy and free of misery. Choices that I have made to lessen my foot print on this earth. Choices that I have made to connect to the ever present, all inclusive spiritual energy of this universe. I have finally realized that I do not have to defend my self and my decisions. I can choose to listen and ignore or I can choose to walk away. Protecting my happiness and wholeness is what is most important. Part of my happiness and wholeness is not causing others harm, so I try to be as polite as I can be when I find that I have to excuse myself, but a simple change of the subject usually works.
What I have discovered with these changes is a thread of happiness. A thread that runs through my days and nights. Bad things may happen all around me. Confusion, anger, greed, negativity, may swirl around me like a cyclone, but I can stand in this thread of happiness & calm and esentially not be affected. Don't get me wrong I still have some low energy days, but the nice thing is that I can usually tie it down to some toxic exposure, whether it be mental or physical, note its effect on me and choose not to let that happen again. It is my wish that all could find this place. It is my wish that I continue to dwell in this place.
As most of you know I have been interested in the environment for some time now. A constant consumer of books, web-sites, movies that explain and clarify how we, the human species, are destroying and polluting the Earth, our only place to live. In "Spontaneous Healing" Dr. Weil gives the case histories of several people who were either abandoned by the traditional medical establishment or were prescribed treatments that had side effects that were intolerable. I think one of the main ideas he was trying to get across is that we are responsible for our own mental and physical health. Our health is determined by the things we expose ourself to, both mentally and physically. If we consume unhealthy food, expose ourselves to negative people, fill our minds with the horrors of the world, pollute our homes with toxic substances then we will not be positive healthy people. This turned the light bulb on in my head. For years my intuition has been telling me to lead a more spiritual life, eat vegetarian, surround myself with serenity and peace. I have tried to do all of these things off and on, but with little success. I would find myself giving in to the consumer, least effort society we live in. It is easier and cheaper to pick up some unhealthy fast food than to spend the time and energy required to prepare a vegetarian meal from organic sources. It is easier to turn off your mind and stare at the televison than to practice meditation, yoga or some other uplifting and calming activety.
From the depths of a really low energy, anxiety ridden time I decided to be responsible for my own health and happiness. I now clean my home with only non-toxic products. I prepare organic vegetarian food in my home. I meditate daily. I protect myself from negative people & negative news. I have learned that you do not have to explain to anyone the actions that you take to protect yourself. I have learned that a lot of people feel the need to question, criticize anything you may do that is different. I have had untold numbers of people tell me that I will not get enough protein unless I consume animal flesh, even though I have heard of no mass starvation of the hundreds of thousands of vegetarians in the world. I have had people try to tell me the horrible things that appear in the news daily, even though I have asked them to please not do so. The list can go on and on of the intrusions on my serinity and personal choices I have made. Choices that I have made to be happy, healthy and free of misery. Choices that I have made to lessen my foot print on this earth. Choices that I have made to connect to the ever present, all inclusive spiritual energy of this universe. I have finally realized that I do not have to defend my self and my decisions. I can choose to listen and ignore or I can choose to walk away. Protecting my happiness and wholeness is what is most important. Part of my happiness and wholeness is not causing others harm, so I try to be as polite as I can be when I find that I have to excuse myself, but a simple change of the subject usually works.
What I have discovered with these changes is a thread of happiness. A thread that runs through my days and nights. Bad things may happen all around me. Confusion, anger, greed, negativity, may swirl around me like a cyclone, but I can stand in this thread of happiness & calm and esentially not be affected. Don't get me wrong I still have some low energy days, but the nice thing is that I can usually tie it down to some toxic exposure, whether it be mental or physical, note its effect on me and choose not to let that happen again. It is my wish that all could find this place. It is my wish that I continue to dwell in this place.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Passing Storm
Yesterday while driving to work I managed to raise a storm in my mind. You can read yesterday's post to see where I ended up. Sad, lonely, confused, all because I started thinking to much on my drive in. This morning when I came up to check my e-mail the first thing on the top of the list was my "Daily Dharma" from Tricycle magazine. The quote is from Sylvia Boorstein who wrote "It's easier than you think", a simple Buddhist text that was one of the first books on Buddhism I read 10 years ago. It is a wonderful book and if you have any interest in Buddhism at all I encourage you to go to your library and check it out! Anyway, I copied the quote. I hope it helps someone else as much as it helped me this morning.
In traditional Buddhist texts the five energies of Lust, Aversion, Torpor, Restlessness, and Doubt are called "Mind Hindrances" ...because they obscure clear seeing, just as sandstorms in the desert or fog on a highway can cause travelers to get lost. They hinder the possibility of us reconnecting with the peaceful self that is our essential nature. They confuse us. We think they are real. We forget that our actual nature is not the passing storm. The passing storm is the passing storm. Our essence remains our essence all the time.
Five different energies seem like a limited menu, but they present themselves in an infinite variety of disguises. Ice cream sundaes are different from pizzas are different from sex, but fundamentally they are all objects of the lustful desire....Grumbly mind is grumbly mind; sleepy mind is sleepy mind; restless mind is restless mind; doubtful mind is doubtful mind.
The fact that it's in the nature of minds for storms to arise and pass away is not a problem....[It] helps in keeping the spirits up to remember that the weather is going to change. Our difficult mind states become a problem only if we believe they are going to go on forever. -- Sylvia Boorstein
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Crazy
As I drove into work early this morning I somehow started wondering, who defines crazy. I think some of my friend's worry about me because I have been a little isolationist these days. When does being alone go from "Thoreau" to "Unibomber"? What is it I am supposed to be doing outside of my house? I am sick of shopping. I hate the movies, I am not going to pay extra to hear someone elses commentary. I don't have any desire to go stand in a bar and talk about the people around me. I am once again eating vegetarian food, so that does limit going out to eat a bit. I think most of my hobbies are rather by myself kinds of things. I like to read. I like to meditate. Sometimes I like to cook. I like to watch wierd tv shows. I don't really know anyone else who enjoys those things. I don't know anyone who has a desire to discuss my spirituality with me. I don't know anyone who wants to exchange vegetarian recipes. No one likes the tv series Gothic except for me, I'm surprised they even put it on DVD. Meditation is not exactly a team sport. I realized this as I drove to work. I am lonely. I am kind of sad about that today.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Miss. Negativity
Today I am working from home. I always enjoy the days that I get to telecommute; no long drive into work so it frees up a little time for me to cook or meditate or whatever. So, here I am wandering around this morning straightening up the house, when I hear from Trish, "Mark won't listen to me, but the National Guard is in New Orleans because people are getting murdered down there". Mark is in New Orleans this week because he HAS to travel there for work. That remark sent me closer to a panic attack than I have been in months. I just went into my bedroom, closed the door and waited for her to leave for work. I think if I had replied at all it would have hurt here feelings and I am trying to follow the precept of mindful speech.
Trish is aware of the fact that I have been on medications and go to therapy for anxiety. I have made lots of changes in my life so that anxiety is not a daily occurrence. I encourage people around me to be positive and have asked most of the people around me to not to convey to me negative ideas, thoughts, energy, news, etc. I am even careful as to what I expose myself to in the newspaper so as not to cause any anxiety. I have specifically explained to Trish all of this!! I am at a loss as to what to do. I don't want to make a big deal about it because, guess what, that makes me anxious. I can't continue to be exposed to negative thoughts, ideas and energy. Any thoughts please let me know.
Trish is aware of the fact that I have been on medications and go to therapy for anxiety. I have made lots of changes in my life so that anxiety is not a daily occurrence. I encourage people around me to be positive and have asked most of the people around me to not to convey to me negative ideas, thoughts, energy, news, etc. I am even careful as to what I expose myself to in the newspaper so as not to cause any anxiety. I have specifically explained to Trish all of this!! I am at a loss as to what to do. I don't want to make a big deal about it because, guess what, that makes me anxious. I can't continue to be exposed to negative thoughts, ideas and energy. Any thoughts please let me know.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Windfarms and Rich Senators
So heres what I am up on my soapbox about today. It seems that the application process for all new wind farms has been stopped because a few wealthy Senator's, surprisingly including Sen. Edward Kennedy & Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., are upset that a proposed wind farm in the channel between Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard would upset their multi-million dollar view. Senator John Warner, R-Virginia, had tried to stop the proposed wind farm several times and in 2002 wrote a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers saying that he visits Cape Cod often. The project moved forward until Sen. Warner slipped an amendment into a military spending bill that contained a one sentence congressional order directing the Defense Department to study whether wind towers could mask the radar signals of small aircraft. At the Defense Departments behest the FAA is blocking any new wind turbines within the scope of radar systems that are used by the military. Previously the FAA and the Air Force had both signed off on the project which would be built within miles of a missle defense radar system. I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that Sen. Warner is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
This moratorium has led to stop-work orders being sent out to at least 15 wind farm proposals in the Midwest, including one outside Bloomington, Ill that would generate enough electricity to power 120,000 homes in Chicago.
So why am I up on my soapbox about this? I find it ridiculous that one Senator is putting on hold sources of clean, renewable power so he does not have to look at wind turbines on his vacation to Martha's Vineyard. Maybe instead he would like to have a beautiful oil refinery built in his back-yard or a oil drilling platform off the coast of his vacation home! It is obvious that this Senator puts his pleasure in front of the needs to the People of the United States of America.
I encourage anyone who reads this to write their Senators, Representative and the President. We the people do have the power to make a difference! We just have to pay attention to what is going on and let those in power know that we know what they are doing and we do not like it!
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Who's 40 and why is my car not shaped like a penis?
On June 9, 2006 yours truly turned 40 years old. I thought it might cause me to become very sad, maybe have a mid-life crisis, go buy a penis shaped car or any number of other things. Well, I do think it did cause something. I think it made me happy. I get to open a new chapter in my life. Maybe a chapter dedicated to doing things that will make a difference in my life and maybe make a difference in the lives of others. As I come up with things that interest me, things that I would like to do, places I can go to make a difference, etc. I will be adding them to my web-page and/or my blog. There is a link to my web-page over to the left. I'm new to putting up a web-page so don't expect too much, please! If anything interests you on it and you would like to add the link to your web-page or blog please do so.
So believe it or not I found a cool article in USA Today (Rupert must have been on vacation and no I do not take USA Today, Mark brings it home from when he is on the road)about eating locally. It seems that a couple in Vancouver, British Columbia (those nice Canadian people!) committed to eating a diet only made up of products they could find within 100 miles of their home. Which I found to be very interesting since I am trying to be more environmentally conscious. Anyway, these nice Canadian people put their info on a web-site named www.100milediet.org. I plan on going to it and seeing how I can get started.
I need to eat healthier anyway as I am now 40! BTW, for those of you interested I gave up smoking for the 100th time the day after my birthday. Please send your prayers, meditations, etc. to me as I need all the help I can get to break this horrible addiction for good! And if you feel like it write a nasty letter to Joe Camel and let him know what a bad camel he is!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, HAPPY BIRTHDAY WIERD GAY, BUDDHIST, PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!
Sunday, June 04, 2006
I'm Back!
Hi All,
So its been a long time since I had anything to blog about; mostly by my choice. For a long time now I've been fighting severe anxiety and panic attacks. After untold thousands of dollars for therapy, hundreds of hours in meditation and a decision to ignore what is going on in the world around me, I think I may be getting a little bit better. I'm not saying that I have left the woods and will be standing in the bright sunlight of mental health forever, but I have made a few steps into the light. On occassion I still have the urge to retreat into my safe little cave at the top of my stairs, usually known as my office, but I can mostly fight the desire off now.
I still have numerous questions that plague my everyday life and hope that some day I can come to some answers. Maybe some of you can help me along, after all some of you probably know me better than I know myself. Do I stay in the suburbs in a big, nice new home with my 2 dogs, a cat and lots of space to roam around, a garden to play in, a big kitchen to cook in or do I move back into the city into a smaller condo, but with no hour commute, proximity to my friends and family, walking distance to most things I like to do and more time to pursue reading and meditation? I don't know. Living in Dallas how do I combat the constant bombardment to be cosmetically perfect, drive the perfect car, have the perfect clothing, etc? I don't know. Spiritually I no longer know how to move forward. I know that meditation is of great help to me, the ritual of Tibetan Buddhism appeals to me, the truth of Vedantic Hinduism makes sense to me, the familiarity of Christianity appeals to me. I don't know how to pick a path and travel up the mountain without ending up standing at the bottom of the mountain starting up a new path every few weeks. Any ideas?
So I guess what got me off my butt and made me decide to blog was a movie Mark and I went to see on Friday, An Inconvenient Truth, if you would like to be motivated to be aware of what is going on around you while you worry about what to have for dinner I suggest you see this movie and get as many of your friends as you can to see this movie. Yes, it is a story moderated by Al Gore, but you will leave the theatre with a different perspective on this man. This movie humanizes him, shows us what he really cares about and really shows us the difference between him and other retired politicians. If this movie had been made before the election that he won, he would probably be the President of the United States now! While we as Americans try to figure out how we can consume more the earth is figuring out how to rid itself of the parasites known as humankind. No, gobal warming is not a theory. The arctic glaciers are melting at a huge rate, great glacial plates in the Antartic are falling into the ocean, the glaciers of Greenland are breaking up. No, it will not take 50 - 100 years for us to have a problem. Scientists predicted that the glacier in the Antartic that melted would not break up for 50 years, it broke up and slid into the ocean last year, it is completly gone. It seems that as glaciers melt they let water seep all the way through them to the bedrock on which they rest, this lubricates the glacier and it slides into the ocean and melts. If just half the glaciers in Antartica and Greenland melt the sea will rise 40 feet. Florida will be gone, most of India will be gone, lower Manhatten will be gone, land that supports 400 million people in China will be gone. The world as we know it will not exist for us and for the generations to come! Great news, huh? So what can we do? www.climatecrisis.net Follow this link for ideas and make sure the politicians that represent you know that the survival of the Earth is more important to you than whether a couple of women adopt a baby or whether we eat French fries or freedom fries. Let them know that you are tired of spending billions of dollars fighting a war to protect our oil interests when that money could be spent coming up with alternative energy sources. Let them know that opening up the oil fields in Alaska will not make much difference because Alaska has warmed up so much that roads that used to be frozen for 250 days a year, allowing trucks to travel on them, are now frozen only 78 days per year and are impassable mud pits the rest of the time.
I need your help, if you know of places on the web or just places you can call where you can buy locally made, unpackaged, organic goods that will actually help the people that make them, let me know. I am tired of spending my money at places who care nothing for their employees, nothing for the Earth and are only looking to enrich a few shareholders who already have so much money they could never spend it. We live in a new age of robber barrons, but the don't even have the decency to build a few libraries or a music hall or two. We all have to change the way we buy and live, if we do it our leaders will start to listen to us and quit listening to the guys that take them on golfing trips to expensive resorts!
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Living Under Fascism
Hi all,
For those of you interested in the current political state of the union please read the sermon by Davidson Loehr at the Frist UU Church of Austin. When you are finished reading it ask yourself these questions:
What will we tell the next generation when they ask us how we allowed this to happen?
Which ones of my friends will disappear one day?
Do I have the courage to let go of my capitalist induced haze and focus my energy on making the world and this country a better place for all beings?
I don't really know how to make a difference myself, but I plan on finding out and doing something. If you have any suggestions please post them.
We should all remember that in the 1920's Berlin was one of the most free and liberal places in the world. People had no fear of joining groups that were later considered subversive and it is those membership lists that the Nazi's used to round people up.
Please feel free to link to, copy and forward or anything else you can think of to get this message out.
Living Under Fascism
Davidson Loehr
7 November 2004
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
SERMON: Living Under Fascism
You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word “fascism” in a serious discussion of where America is today. It sounds like cheap name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to a slew of old war movies. But I am serious. I don’t mean it as name-calling at all. I mean to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying. That’s what I am about here. And even if I don’t persuade you, I hope to raise the level of your thinking about who and where we are now, to add some nuance and perhaps some useful insights.
The word comes from the Latin word “Fasces,” denoting a bundle of sticks tied together. The individual sticks represented citizens, and the bundle represented the state. The message of this metaphor was that it was the bundle that was significant, not the individual sticks. If it sounds un-American, it’s worth knowing that the Roman Fasces appear on the wall behind the Speaker’s podium in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.
Still, it’s an unlikely word. When most people hear the word "fascism" they may think of the racism and anti-Semitism of Mussolini and Hitler. It is true that the use of force and the scapegoating of fringe groups are part of every fascism. But there was also an economic dimension of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and '30s as "corporatism," which was an essential ingredient of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s tyrannies. So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a model by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago (in “The Corporation Will Eat Your Soul”), Fortune magazine ran a cover story on Mussolini in 1934, praising his fascism for its ability to break worker unions, disempower workers and transfer huge sums of money to those who controlled the money rather than those who earned it. Few Americans are aware of or can recall how so many Americans and Europeans viewed economic fascism as the wave of the future during the 1930s. Yet reviewing our past may help shed light on our present, and point the way to a better future. So I want to begin by looking back to the last time fascism posed a serious threat to America.
In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy — those concerned with individual rights and freedoms — as anti-American. That was 69 years ago.
One of the most outspoken American fascists from the 1930s was economist Lawrence Dennis. In his 1936 book, The Coming American Fascism — a coming which he anticipated and cheered — Dennis declared that defenders of “18th-century Americanism” were sure to become "the laughing stock of their own countrymen." The big stumbling block to the development of economic fascism, Dennis bemoaned, was "liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights." So it is important for us to recognize that, as an economic system, fascism was widely accepted in the 1920s and '30s, and nearly worshiped by some powerful American industrialists. And fascism has always, and explicitly, been opposed to liberalism of all kinds.
Mussolini, who helped create modern fascism, viewed liberal ideas as the enemy. "The Fascist conception of life," he wrote, "stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual." (In 1932 Mussolini wrote, with the help of Giovanni Gentile, an entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism. You can read the whole entry at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.html) Mussolini thought it was unnatural for a government to protect individual rights: The essence of fascism, he believed, is that government should be the master, not the servant, of the people.
Still, fascism is a word that is completely foreign to most of us. We need to know what it is, and how we can know it when we see it. In an essay coyly titled “Fascism Anyone?,” Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, identifies social and political agendas common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 “identifying characteristics of fascism.” (The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2. Read it at: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm)
See how familiar they sound.
1. Powerful and Continuing NationalismFascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human RightsBecause of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying CauseThe people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the MilitaryEven when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant SexismThe governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
6. Controlled Mass MediaSometimes the media are directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media are indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National SecurityFear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are IntertwinedGovernments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is ProtectedThe industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is SuppressedBecause the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the ArtsFascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
12. Obsession with Crime and PunishmentUnder fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations
13. Rampant Cronyism and CorruptionFascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent ElectionsSometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
This list will be familiar to students of political science. But it should be familiar to students of religion as well, for much of it mirrors the social and political agenda of religious fundamentalisms worldwide. It is both accurate and helpful for us to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. They both come from very primitive parts of us that have always been the default setting of our species: amity toward our in-group, enmity toward out-groups, hierarchical deference to alpha male figures, a powerful identification with our territory, and so forth. It is that brutal default setting that all civilizations have tried to raise us above, but it is always a fragile thing, civilization, and has to be achieved over and over and over again.
But, again, this is not America’s first encounter with fascism.
In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, “write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?” Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. See how much you think his statements apply to our society today. “The really dangerous American fascist,” Wallace wrote, “… is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.” In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism he saw rising in America, Wallace added, “They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.” By these standards, a few of today’s weapons for keeping the common people in eternal subjection include NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, union-busting, cutting worker benefits while increasing CEO pay, elimination of worker benefits, security and pensions, rapacious credit card interest, and outsourcing of jobs — not to mention the largest prison system in the world.
The Perfect Storm
Our current descent into fascism came about through a kind of “Perfect Storm,” a confluence of three unrelated but mutually supportive schools of thought.
1. The first stream of thought was the imperialistic dream of the Project for the New American Century. I don’t believe anyone can understand the past four years without reading the Project for the New American Century, published in September 2000 and authored by many who have been prominent players in the Bush administrations, including Cheney, Rumsfleid, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Kagan to name only a few. This report saw the fall of Communism as a call for America to become the military rulers of the world, to establish a new worldwide empire. They spelled out the military enhancements we would need, then noted, sadly, that these wonderful plans would take a long time, unless there could be a catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor that would let the leaders turn America into a military and militarist country. There was no clear interest in religion in this report, and no clear concern with local economic policies.
2. A second powerful stream must be credited to Pat Robertson and his Christian Reconstructionists, or Dominionists. Long dismissed by most of us as a screwball, the Dominionist style of Christianity which he has been preaching since the early 1980s is now the most powerful religious voice in the Bush administration. Katherine Yurica, who transcribed over 1300 pages of interviews from Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” shows in the 1980s, has shown how Robertson and his chosen guests consistently, openly and passionately argued that America must become a theocracy under the control of Christian Dominionists. Robertson is on record saying democracy is a terrible form of government unless it is run by his kind of Christians. He also rails constantly against taxing the rich, against public education, social programs and welfare — and prefers Deuteronomy 28 over the teachings of Jesus. He is clear that women must remain homebound as obedient servants of men, and that abortions, like homosexuals, should not be allowed. Robertson has also been clear that other kinds of Christians, including Episcopalians and Presbyterians, are enemies of Christ. (The Yurica Report. Search under this name, or for “Despoiling America” by Katherine Yurica on the internet.)
3. The third major component of this Perfect Storm has been the desire of very wealthy Americans and corporate CEOs for a plutocracy that will favor profits by the very rich and disempowerment of the vast majority of American workers, the destruction of workers’ unions, and the alliance of government to help achieve these greedy goals. It is a condition some have called socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor, and which others recognize as a reincarnation of Social Darwinism. This strain of thought has been present throughout American history. Seventy years ago, they tried to finance a military coup to replace Franklin Delano Roosevelt and establish General Smedley Butler as a fascist dictator in 1934. Fortunately, the picked a general who really was a patriot; he refused, reported the scheme, and spoke and wrote about it. As Canadian law professor Joel Bakan wrote in the book and movie “The Corporation,” they have now achieved their coup without firing a shot. Our plutocrats have had no particular interest in religion. Their global interests are with an imperialist empire, and their domestic goals are in undoing all the New Deal reforms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that enabled the rise of America’s middle class after WWII.
Another ill wind in this Perfect Storm is more important than its crudity might suggest: it was President Clinton’s sleazy sex with a young but eager intern in the White House. This incident, and Clinton’s equally sleazy lying about it, focused the certainties of conservatives on the fact that “liberals” had neither moral compass nor moral concern, and therefore represented a dangerous threat to the moral fiber of America. While the effects of this may be hard to quantify, I think they were profound.
These “storm” components have no necessary connection, and come from different groups of thinkers, many of whom wouldn’t even like one another. But together, they form a nearly complete web of command and control, which has finally gained control of America and, they hope, of the world.
What’s coming
When all fascisms exhibit the same social and political agendas (the 14 points listed by Britt), then it is not hard to predict where a new fascist uprising will lead. And it is not hard. The actions of fascists and the social and political effects of fascism and fundamentalism are clear and sobering. Here is some of what’s coming, what will be happening in our country in the next few years: The theft of all social security funds, to be transferred to those who control money, and the increasing destitution of all those dependent on social security and social welfare programs. Rising numbers of uninsured people in this country that already has the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance in the developed world. Increased loss of funding for public education combined with increased support for vouchers, urging Americans to entrust their children’s education to Christian schools. More restrictions on civil liberties as America is turned into the police state necessary for fascism to work. Withdrawal of virtually all funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System. At their best, these media sometimes encourage critical questioning, so they are correctly seen as enemies of the state’s official stories. The reinstatement of a draft, from which the children of privileged parents will again be mostly exempt, leaving our poorest children to fight and die in wars of imperialism and greed that could never benefit them anyway. (That was my one-sentence Veterans’ Day sermon for this year.)More imperialistic invasions: of Iran and others, and the construction of a huge permanent embassy in Iraq. More restrictions on speech, under the flag of national security. Control of the internet to remove or cripple it as an instrument of free communication that is exempt from government control. This will be presented as a necessary anti-terrorist measure. Efforts to remove the tax-exempt status of churches like this one, and to characterize them as anti-American.Tighter control of the editorial bias of almost all media, and demonization of the few media they are unable to control – the New York Times, for instance. Continued outsourcing of jobs, including more white-collar jobs, to produce greater profits for those who control the money and direct the society, while simultaneously reducing America’s workers to a more desperate and powerless status. Moves in the banking industry to make it impossible for an increasing number of Americans to own their homes. As they did in the 1930s, those who control the money know that it is to their advantage and profit to keep others renting rather than owning. Criminalization of those who protest, as un-American, with arrests, detentions and harassment increasing. We already have a higher percentage of our citizens in prison than any other country in the world. That percentage will increase. In the near future, it will be illegal or at least dangerous to say the things I have said here this morning. In the fascist story, these things are un-American. In the real history of a democratic America, they were seen as profoundly patriotic, as the kind of critical questions that kept the American spirit alive — the kind of questions, incidentally, that our media were supposed to be pressing. Can these schemes work? I don’t think so. I think they are murderous, rapacious and insane. But I don’t know. Maybe they can. Similar schemes have worked in countries like Chile, where a democracy in which over 90% voted has been reduced to one in which only about 20% vote because they say, as Americans are learning to say, that it no longer matters who you vote for.
Hope
In the meantime, is there any hope, or do we just band together like lemmings and dive off a cliff? Yes, there is always hope, though at times it is more hidden, as it is now. As some critics are now saying, and as I have been preaching and writing for almost twenty years, America’s liberals need to grow beyond political liberalism, with its often self-absorbed focus on individual rights to the exclusion of individual responsibilities to the larger society. Liberals will have to construct a more complete vision with moral and religious grounding. That does not mean confessional Christianity. It means the legitimate heir to Christianity. Such a legitimate heir need not be a religion, though it must have clear moral power, and be able to attract the minds and hearts of a voting majority of Americans. And the new liberal vision must be larger than that of the conservative religious vision that will be appointing judges, writing laws and bending the cultural norms toward hatred and exclusion for the foreseeable future. The conservatives deserve a lot of admiration. They have spent the last thirty years studying American politics, forming their vision and learning how to gain control in the political system. And it worked; they have won. Even if liberals can develop a bigger vision, they still have all that time-consuming work to do. It won’t be fast. It isn’t even clear that liberals will be willing to do it; they may instead prefer to go down with the ship they’re used to. One man who has been tireless in his investigations and critiques of America’s slide into fascism is Michael C. Ruppert, whose postings usually read as though he is wound way too tight. But he offers four pieces of advice about what we can do now, and they seem reality-based enough to pass on to you. This is America; they’re all about money:First, he says you should get out of debt. Second is to spend your money and time on things that give you energy and provide you with useful information. Third is to stop spending a penny with major banks, news media and corporations that feed you lies and leave you angry and exhausted. And fourth is to learn how money works and use it like a (political) weapon — as he predicts the rest of the world will be doing against us. (from http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110504_snap_out.shtml) That’s advice written this week. Another bit of advice comes from sixty years ago, from Roosevelt’s Vice President, Henry Wallace. Wallace said, “Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels.” Still another way to understand fascism is as a kind of colonization. A simple definition of “colonization” is that it takes people’s stories away, and assigns them supportive roles in stories that empower others at their expense. When you are taxed to support a government that uses you as a means to serve the ends of others, you are — ironically — in a state of taxation without representation. That’s where this country started, and it’s where we are now. I don’t know the next step. I’m not a political activist; I’m only a preacher. But whatever you do, whatever we do, I hope that we can remember some very basic things that I think of as eternally true. One is that the vast majority of people are good decent people who mean and do as well as they know how. Very few people are evil, though some are. But we all live in families where some of our blood relatives support things we hate. I believe they mean well, and the way to rebuild broken bridges is through greater understanding, compassion, and a reality-based story that is more inclusive and empowering for the vast majority of us. Those who want to live in a reality-based story rather than as serfs in an ideology designed to transfer power, possibility and hope to a small ruling elite have much long and hard work to do, individually and collectively. It will not be either easy or quick. But we will do it. We will go forward in hope and in courage. Let us seek that better path, and find the courage to take it — step, by step, by step.
For those of you interested in the current political state of the union please read the sermon by Davidson Loehr at the Frist UU Church of Austin. When you are finished reading it ask yourself these questions:
What will we tell the next generation when they ask us how we allowed this to happen?
Which ones of my friends will disappear one day?
Do I have the courage to let go of my capitalist induced haze and focus my energy on making the world and this country a better place for all beings?
I don't really know how to make a difference myself, but I plan on finding out and doing something. If you have any suggestions please post them.
We should all remember that in the 1920's Berlin was one of the most free and liberal places in the world. People had no fear of joining groups that were later considered subversive and it is those membership lists that the Nazi's used to round people up.
Please feel free to link to, copy and forward or anything else you can think of to get this message out.
Living Under Fascism
Davidson Loehr
7 November 2004
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
SERMON: Living Under Fascism
You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word “fascism” in a serious discussion of where America is today. It sounds like cheap name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to a slew of old war movies. But I am serious. I don’t mean it as name-calling at all. I mean to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying. That’s what I am about here. And even if I don’t persuade you, I hope to raise the level of your thinking about who and where we are now, to add some nuance and perhaps some useful insights.
The word comes from the Latin word “Fasces,” denoting a bundle of sticks tied together. The individual sticks represented citizens, and the bundle represented the state. The message of this metaphor was that it was the bundle that was significant, not the individual sticks. If it sounds un-American, it’s worth knowing that the Roman Fasces appear on the wall behind the Speaker’s podium in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.
Still, it’s an unlikely word. When most people hear the word "fascism" they may think of the racism and anti-Semitism of Mussolini and Hitler. It is true that the use of force and the scapegoating of fringe groups are part of every fascism. But there was also an economic dimension of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and '30s as "corporatism," which was an essential ingredient of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s tyrannies. So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a model by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago (in “The Corporation Will Eat Your Soul”), Fortune magazine ran a cover story on Mussolini in 1934, praising his fascism for its ability to break worker unions, disempower workers and transfer huge sums of money to those who controlled the money rather than those who earned it. Few Americans are aware of or can recall how so many Americans and Europeans viewed economic fascism as the wave of the future during the 1930s. Yet reviewing our past may help shed light on our present, and point the way to a better future. So I want to begin by looking back to the last time fascism posed a serious threat to America.
In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy — those concerned with individual rights and freedoms — as anti-American. That was 69 years ago.
One of the most outspoken American fascists from the 1930s was economist Lawrence Dennis. In his 1936 book, The Coming American Fascism — a coming which he anticipated and cheered — Dennis declared that defenders of “18th-century Americanism” were sure to become "the laughing stock of their own countrymen." The big stumbling block to the development of economic fascism, Dennis bemoaned, was "liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights." So it is important for us to recognize that, as an economic system, fascism was widely accepted in the 1920s and '30s, and nearly worshiped by some powerful American industrialists. And fascism has always, and explicitly, been opposed to liberalism of all kinds.
Mussolini, who helped create modern fascism, viewed liberal ideas as the enemy. "The Fascist conception of life," he wrote, "stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual." (In 1932 Mussolini wrote, with the help of Giovanni Gentile, an entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism. You can read the whole entry at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.html) Mussolini thought it was unnatural for a government to protect individual rights: The essence of fascism, he believed, is that government should be the master, not the servant, of the people.
Still, fascism is a word that is completely foreign to most of us. We need to know what it is, and how we can know it when we see it. In an essay coyly titled “Fascism Anyone?,” Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, identifies social and political agendas common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 “identifying characteristics of fascism.” (The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2. Read it at: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm)
See how familiar they sound.
1. Powerful and Continuing NationalismFascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human RightsBecause of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying CauseThe people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the MilitaryEven when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant SexismThe governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
6. Controlled Mass MediaSometimes the media are directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media are indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National SecurityFear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are IntertwinedGovernments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is ProtectedThe industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is SuppressedBecause the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the ArtsFascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
12. Obsession with Crime and PunishmentUnder fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations
13. Rampant Cronyism and CorruptionFascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent ElectionsSometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
This list will be familiar to students of political science. But it should be familiar to students of religion as well, for much of it mirrors the social and political agenda of religious fundamentalisms worldwide. It is both accurate and helpful for us to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. They both come from very primitive parts of us that have always been the default setting of our species: amity toward our in-group, enmity toward out-groups, hierarchical deference to alpha male figures, a powerful identification with our territory, and so forth. It is that brutal default setting that all civilizations have tried to raise us above, but it is always a fragile thing, civilization, and has to be achieved over and over and over again.
But, again, this is not America’s first encounter with fascism.
In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, “write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?” Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. See how much you think his statements apply to our society today. “The really dangerous American fascist,” Wallace wrote, “… is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.” In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism he saw rising in America, Wallace added, “They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.” By these standards, a few of today’s weapons for keeping the common people in eternal subjection include NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, union-busting, cutting worker benefits while increasing CEO pay, elimination of worker benefits, security and pensions, rapacious credit card interest, and outsourcing of jobs — not to mention the largest prison system in the world.
The Perfect Storm
Our current descent into fascism came about through a kind of “Perfect Storm,” a confluence of three unrelated but mutually supportive schools of thought.
1. The first stream of thought was the imperialistic dream of the Project for the New American Century. I don’t believe anyone can understand the past four years without reading the Project for the New American Century, published in September 2000 and authored by many who have been prominent players in the Bush administrations, including Cheney, Rumsfleid, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Kagan to name only a few. This report saw the fall of Communism as a call for America to become the military rulers of the world, to establish a new worldwide empire. They spelled out the military enhancements we would need, then noted, sadly, that these wonderful plans would take a long time, unless there could be a catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor that would let the leaders turn America into a military and militarist country. There was no clear interest in religion in this report, and no clear concern with local economic policies.
2. A second powerful stream must be credited to Pat Robertson and his Christian Reconstructionists, or Dominionists. Long dismissed by most of us as a screwball, the Dominionist style of Christianity which he has been preaching since the early 1980s is now the most powerful religious voice in the Bush administration. Katherine Yurica, who transcribed over 1300 pages of interviews from Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” shows in the 1980s, has shown how Robertson and his chosen guests consistently, openly and passionately argued that America must become a theocracy under the control of Christian Dominionists. Robertson is on record saying democracy is a terrible form of government unless it is run by his kind of Christians. He also rails constantly against taxing the rich, against public education, social programs and welfare — and prefers Deuteronomy 28 over the teachings of Jesus. He is clear that women must remain homebound as obedient servants of men, and that abortions, like homosexuals, should not be allowed. Robertson has also been clear that other kinds of Christians, including Episcopalians and Presbyterians, are enemies of Christ. (The Yurica Report. Search under this name, or for “Despoiling America” by Katherine Yurica on the internet.)
3. The third major component of this Perfect Storm has been the desire of very wealthy Americans and corporate CEOs for a plutocracy that will favor profits by the very rich and disempowerment of the vast majority of American workers, the destruction of workers’ unions, and the alliance of government to help achieve these greedy goals. It is a condition some have called socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor, and which others recognize as a reincarnation of Social Darwinism. This strain of thought has been present throughout American history. Seventy years ago, they tried to finance a military coup to replace Franklin Delano Roosevelt and establish General Smedley Butler as a fascist dictator in 1934. Fortunately, the picked a general who really was a patriot; he refused, reported the scheme, and spoke and wrote about it. As Canadian law professor Joel Bakan wrote in the book and movie “The Corporation,” they have now achieved their coup without firing a shot. Our plutocrats have had no particular interest in religion. Their global interests are with an imperialist empire, and their domestic goals are in undoing all the New Deal reforms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that enabled the rise of America’s middle class after WWII.
Another ill wind in this Perfect Storm is more important than its crudity might suggest: it was President Clinton’s sleazy sex with a young but eager intern in the White House. This incident, and Clinton’s equally sleazy lying about it, focused the certainties of conservatives on the fact that “liberals” had neither moral compass nor moral concern, and therefore represented a dangerous threat to the moral fiber of America. While the effects of this may be hard to quantify, I think they were profound.
These “storm” components have no necessary connection, and come from different groups of thinkers, many of whom wouldn’t even like one another. But together, they form a nearly complete web of command and control, which has finally gained control of America and, they hope, of the world.
What’s coming
When all fascisms exhibit the same social and political agendas (the 14 points listed by Britt), then it is not hard to predict where a new fascist uprising will lead. And it is not hard. The actions of fascists and the social and political effects of fascism and fundamentalism are clear and sobering. Here is some of what’s coming, what will be happening in our country in the next few years: The theft of all social security funds, to be transferred to those who control money, and the increasing destitution of all those dependent on social security and social welfare programs. Rising numbers of uninsured people in this country that already has the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance in the developed world. Increased loss of funding for public education combined with increased support for vouchers, urging Americans to entrust their children’s education to Christian schools. More restrictions on civil liberties as America is turned into the police state necessary for fascism to work. Withdrawal of virtually all funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System. At their best, these media sometimes encourage critical questioning, so they are correctly seen as enemies of the state’s official stories. The reinstatement of a draft, from which the children of privileged parents will again be mostly exempt, leaving our poorest children to fight and die in wars of imperialism and greed that could never benefit them anyway. (That was my one-sentence Veterans’ Day sermon for this year.)More imperialistic invasions: of Iran and others, and the construction of a huge permanent embassy in Iraq. More restrictions on speech, under the flag of national security. Control of the internet to remove or cripple it as an instrument of free communication that is exempt from government control. This will be presented as a necessary anti-terrorist measure. Efforts to remove the tax-exempt status of churches like this one, and to characterize them as anti-American.Tighter control of the editorial bias of almost all media, and demonization of the few media they are unable to control – the New York Times, for instance. Continued outsourcing of jobs, including more white-collar jobs, to produce greater profits for those who control the money and direct the society, while simultaneously reducing America’s workers to a more desperate and powerless status. Moves in the banking industry to make it impossible for an increasing number of Americans to own their homes. As they did in the 1930s, those who control the money know that it is to their advantage and profit to keep others renting rather than owning. Criminalization of those who protest, as un-American, with arrests, detentions and harassment increasing. We already have a higher percentage of our citizens in prison than any other country in the world. That percentage will increase. In the near future, it will be illegal or at least dangerous to say the things I have said here this morning. In the fascist story, these things are un-American. In the real history of a democratic America, they were seen as profoundly patriotic, as the kind of critical questions that kept the American spirit alive — the kind of questions, incidentally, that our media were supposed to be pressing. Can these schemes work? I don’t think so. I think they are murderous, rapacious and insane. But I don’t know. Maybe they can. Similar schemes have worked in countries like Chile, where a democracy in which over 90% voted has been reduced to one in which only about 20% vote because they say, as Americans are learning to say, that it no longer matters who you vote for.
Hope
In the meantime, is there any hope, or do we just band together like lemmings and dive off a cliff? Yes, there is always hope, though at times it is more hidden, as it is now. As some critics are now saying, and as I have been preaching and writing for almost twenty years, America’s liberals need to grow beyond political liberalism, with its often self-absorbed focus on individual rights to the exclusion of individual responsibilities to the larger society. Liberals will have to construct a more complete vision with moral and religious grounding. That does not mean confessional Christianity. It means the legitimate heir to Christianity. Such a legitimate heir need not be a religion, though it must have clear moral power, and be able to attract the minds and hearts of a voting majority of Americans. And the new liberal vision must be larger than that of the conservative religious vision that will be appointing judges, writing laws and bending the cultural norms toward hatred and exclusion for the foreseeable future. The conservatives deserve a lot of admiration. They have spent the last thirty years studying American politics, forming their vision and learning how to gain control in the political system. And it worked; they have won. Even if liberals can develop a bigger vision, they still have all that time-consuming work to do. It won’t be fast. It isn’t even clear that liberals will be willing to do it; they may instead prefer to go down with the ship they’re used to. One man who has been tireless in his investigations and critiques of America’s slide into fascism is Michael C. Ruppert, whose postings usually read as though he is wound way too tight. But he offers four pieces of advice about what we can do now, and they seem reality-based enough to pass on to you. This is America; they’re all about money:First, he says you should get out of debt. Second is to spend your money and time on things that give you energy and provide you with useful information. Third is to stop spending a penny with major banks, news media and corporations that feed you lies and leave you angry and exhausted. And fourth is to learn how money works and use it like a (political) weapon — as he predicts the rest of the world will be doing against us. (from http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110504_snap_out.shtml) That’s advice written this week. Another bit of advice comes from sixty years ago, from Roosevelt’s Vice President, Henry Wallace. Wallace said, “Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels.” Still another way to understand fascism is as a kind of colonization. A simple definition of “colonization” is that it takes people’s stories away, and assigns them supportive roles in stories that empower others at their expense. When you are taxed to support a government that uses you as a means to serve the ends of others, you are — ironically — in a state of taxation without representation. That’s where this country started, and it’s where we are now. I don’t know the next step. I’m not a political activist; I’m only a preacher. But whatever you do, whatever we do, I hope that we can remember some very basic things that I think of as eternally true. One is that the vast majority of people are good decent people who mean and do as well as they know how. Very few people are evil, though some are. But we all live in families where some of our blood relatives support things we hate. I believe they mean well, and the way to rebuild broken bridges is through greater understanding, compassion, and a reality-based story that is more inclusive and empowering for the vast majority of us. Those who want to live in a reality-based story rather than as serfs in an ideology designed to transfer power, possibility and hope to a small ruling elite have much long and hard work to do, individually and collectively. It will not be either easy or quick. But we will do it. We will go forward in hope and in courage. Let us seek that better path, and find the courage to take it — step, by step, by step.
Friday, December 16, 2005
My Favorite Meditation
I meditate. In the school of meditation I practice there are 21 different meditations that are practiced in a cycle that build upon each other. The initial contemplations, to attain our point of single minded focus, go from pretty simple "If we use our human life to accomplish spiritual realizations, it becomes immensely meaningful" to rather complex "My body is empty of true, or inherent, existence because, when I search for it, it disappears like a mirage".
My favorite meditation and the one that helps me the most in my day to day life is a meditation on increasing affectionate love for all. This meditation has taken a lot of the anger out of my life and replaced it with compassion. As you may or may not know most men express depression through anger, so really this meditation has taken most of the depression out of my life. That is the reason I would like to share it.
Settle in a comfortable position and bring your awareness to your body. Scan through your body and find any points of tension and let them go. Gather all your worries together in a bag and place them outside the door. Focus your attention on your breath single pointedly. With each in breath believe that it is your first breath. As you focus on your breath imagine that as you breath out all your worries, tensions, problems, anger and depression are released in the form of dark smoke that drifts off. When you feel ready, imagine that as you breath in you breath in positive energy in the form of bright white light. Fill you mind and body with this light. Then bring to your mind someone who you have great affectionate love for, for many this would be your Mother. Send that loving energy to your Mother and learn what it feels like to release that love. Then widen the circle a bit and include other family members, friends. Then widen the circle a bit and include acquaintances or people you just have seen and feel neutral about. Then, when you are able, widen the circle to include the people you don't particuarly like, then the people you really don't like. At some point widen the circle to include all living beings. When you are able to get to this point, just stay there. When you are done dedicate your meditation to the realization of peace and love for all those living beings.
Do this meditation for a while and the love you imagine will actually start to happen.
May everyone be happy,
May everyone be free from misery,
May no one ever be seperated from their happiness,
May everyone have equanimity, free from hatred and attachment.
My favorite prayer. It is called "Generating the four immeasurables". It is my wish for the world.
Peace
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Arnold the Truffle Pig
I came across one of those silly websites about all the horrible attributes of the French and I have decided I want to be French. Exactly the opposite of the author's intention I suppose. I want to sit in cafes and sip appertifs. I want to smoke stinky cigarettes and talk bad about Americans, with their oversized cars and conspicuous consumption. I want to take my Standard Poodle Sage with me when I go out to eat or to the market. I would actually like to be able to go to the market instead of the Wal-Mart Supercenter (Grand Marche?). I want to be able to eat chocolate croissants for breakfast, have a 4 course lunch and a delightful dinner with family and friends all in the haze of fabulous red wine and stay skinny. I want to go looking for truffles with my pig, I would name him arnold. I want to go on vacation for the whole month of August just because it is too damn hot in the city. I am jealous that Joie de Vivre has no direct english translation, but I am pretty sure it is about living life to the fullest and not worrying to much about what will happen tomorrow.
And best of all- If the politicians get out of hand off with their heads!
Heres to the French and all their no going to war with Iraq sensibilities!
Monday, December 12, 2005
Guess the Author
I've been away for way too long now. Kind of been going through a down period and did not have much of a life to share, but things seem to be looking better these days. I'm trying to get in touch with my inner Buddha and seem to be making some progress, more on that in later blogs. I came across this quote the other day and found it quite disturbing.
"We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief. At the same time that our Constitution prohibits state establishment of religion, it protects the free exercise of all religions. And walking this fine line requires government to be strictly neutral."
Sounded like a centrist Democrat to me, but this is a actually a quote by Ronald Reagan, the grand poo-bah of all right wing Republicans. Its amazing how far right our Country has swung in the last few decades and even scarier to think where we may be, if things keep going the way they are, in a few more decades.
"We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief. At the same time that our Constitution prohibits state establishment of religion, it protects the free exercise of all religions. And walking this fine line requires government to be strictly neutral."
Sounded like a centrist Democrat to me, but this is a actually a quote by Ronald Reagan, the grand poo-bah of all right wing Republicans. Its amazing how far right our Country has swung in the last few decades and even scarier to think where we may be, if things keep going the way they are, in a few more decades.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Makes ya go Om.....
In my never ending quest to find out why I am here I came across the following Hindu myth, which was so stunning to me, I have to share it.
Markandeya was not born in our world. He was actually born in the last world cycle, Hindu's believe that the world has begun and ended many times.
One day Markandeya noticed his parents were extremely upset. When he asked what was wrong, his father tearfully admitted that when Markandeya was born, the village astrologer predicted the boy would die on this sixteenth birthday.
Well that very day was his sixteenth birthday. Rather upset, Markandeya ran to the temple and threw his arms around the image of the god Shiva, begging him for protection.
At that very moment the god of death entered the temple, ready to slip the noose around Markandeya's neck and drag him out of his body. But just as Death reached for the young boy, Shiva materialized in front of them, furious that Death would dare approach a devotee while he was worshipping him. Death was so terrified he ran away and never dared approach Markandeya again.
That was fine for the time being, but after a few billion years, it go to be a problem. The sun eventually flickered out of existence, the Earth passed away, and Markandeya floated around in empty space for eons. Finally the Earth reshaped itself back into existence, and Markandea was able to walk on terra firma once more. He reported what he'd experienced between worlds to anyone who asked.
What happens when the solar system dies, he explained, is that the Sun slowly turns red and expands to many times its present size. The surface of the earth eventually becomes so hot, no living thing can survive, and the planet becomes as bare as a turtle's back. The Sun explodes, emitting a burning wind that blasts the planets to ashes.
This extremely old Hindu myth describes the end of the world exactly as astrophysicists predict it will in fact occur. Carl Sagan once noted that the parallels between Hindu teachings and new scientific findings about the evolution of the universe are "astonishing coincidences". I agree.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Maybe Oblivious would be a good thing.
For some reason I've been either blessed or cursed, depending on the situation, with the ability to pick up on people's moods. I can tell as soon as someone walks into my house or office if they are happy, sad, mad, angry, you name it I can tell. The problem is sometimes it gets on me. I can be in a happy, bluebird singing, not a care in the world mood and someone can bring in the angry, put upon, dirge chanting mood and it crawls across the floor, drags itself up my leg and gets right in my head. I've tried telling myself that its not my mood so they can keep it. I've tried telling myself that I have the invisible forcefield and the cone of silence and it can't get in. I've tried telling myself that some people like to miserable and so I should be happy that they are miserable. It's a lot harder to go about your happy mood than you think.
Some people are oblivious to other peoples moods and it makes the angry people mad at them. Of course, that doesn't matter either because they are oblivious to the fact that the angry people are mad at them for not picking up on their mood and begging them to give the bad mood to them. I'm jealous of those people! Of course it does get them in trouble from time to time. The passive-aggressives think you are ignoring them or don't understand them. Others think you have no sympathy for their pain as the oblivious go through their life singing and smiling. I wish I was oblivious too. I wish when someone came around me in a bad mood, my good mood would bounce across the floor and jump on their head. That rarely happens, but I'm going to work on making it happen more. Who ever said that someone's anger was more important than my happiness? If someone did say it I'm sure it was an angry person and I hope someone's happiness bounced upside their head until they shut up.
Some people are oblivious to other peoples moods and it makes the angry people mad at them. Of course, that doesn't matter either because they are oblivious to the fact that the angry people are mad at them for not picking up on their mood and begging them to give the bad mood to them. I'm jealous of those people! Of course it does get them in trouble from time to time. The passive-aggressives think you are ignoring them or don't understand them. Others think you have no sympathy for their pain as the oblivious go through their life singing and smiling. I wish I was oblivious too. I wish when someone came around me in a bad mood, my good mood would bounce across the floor and jump on their head. That rarely happens, but I'm going to work on making it happen more. Who ever said that someone's anger was more important than my happiness? If someone did say it I'm sure it was an angry person and I hope someone's happiness bounced upside their head until they shut up.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
When did shopping become so important?
So, the other day my partner and I were out shopping and I thought to myself; David why are you always shopping? Then I realized, we've all been tricked. We thought "1984" and "Brave New World" were just crazy projections about what could happen to us, but the thing is it DID happen, just in a different way. We spend our lives going to work so we can go to the mall and buy stuff and then our neighbor goes to work more than we do, so we have to go to work more so we can buy the same stuff they buy. The whole time we are busy looking at new sheets that are 5,000,000 count or hot tubs that have a built in tv, dvd player and surround sound, we have soldiers around the world killing and torturing so the U.S. can have all the oil. We don't just want some of the oil, we want it all. We do not want to think about the day that all the oil is gone and our Hot Tub with tv, dvd player and surround sound is now our wash tub and we have to go drag our 5,000,000 count sheets to it once a week to keep them clean. We don't want to think about where our food comes from because what will we do without strawberries in the dead of winter. We don't want to think about all the crap we dump in our lakes and streams, but we will when water is not in nice clean plastic bottles at the Kroger. The thing is we don't want to think about any of that and we don't have to! Someone else is doing all the thinking for you. All you need to do is go to work and go to the mall and watch some reality tv. But don't think about reality, I mean the real reality, its scary.
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