The Untouchables of Truth

Often people who stand for truth and justice are outcasts. They don’t fit into popular culture. They are the ones that pass out Jesus tracts, who serve up meals to the hungry, who protest against rulers and power brokers that make their fortunes on the backs of the needy. Even among them there are usually some who don’t quite fit in but don’t care anyway and inject themselves into a protest or other group with off-script grievances, because they have something inside that won’t let them keep still. It rumbles within and moves them out on the streets to stir people up. Truth is like a volcano, building up pressure until it explodes. First it begins to simmer deep within, then pressure and momentum builds, eventually giving way to an explosion.

9/11 Truthers, anti-new-world-order folks and Jesus people are outcasts. While most want to fit into the world system and don’t mind being cogs in a wheel as long as they can derive benefit from their cog-hood, there are others who don’t mind their own quirkiness because it gives meaning to their lives in what has become an insane, dysfunctional and often brutal world. Some will hold the front lines for religious groups that trend toward cultism and serve as pawns to fill the pockets of their conspicuously consuming leaders. A friend of mine, for example, complained to me about the Jehovah’s Witnesses the other day, how she disliked their manipulative tactics and I understood the revulsion she felt when even thinking about them. They are indeed a strange bunch, saying we’re all the minions of a devil system but don’t they have a right to say what they think? Surely they do. It’s still a free country. Religious fanatics tend to gain ground because there is usually an element of truth to what they are saying. It is therefore important that even fanatics retain their rights to free speech as long as they aren’t infringing upon other’s rights or crossing over into violence.

Movements develop because of dissatisfaction with what is and a longing for what isn’t and it has always been that way. These days we are confronted with new incarnations of injustice and inhumanity and the battle lines are slowly being drawn yet again. The brutality of Hitler, Stalin and the pre-Attaturk murderers of the Armenian holocausts have been more or less seared into our consciousness. Still clear in their minds, their fears aroused, revolutionaries and reformers seek to uncover and confront what is plainly evil out of moral conviction and to prevent what is perhaps unpreventable. Now to most of us, we live in a well-ordered, highly principled society, and see ourselves in a good light, doing great things in the pursuit of happiness but there also appears along side of the desire for material prosperity a gnawing perception that won’t cease in its desire to express itself. When the W.T.C. towers fell, everyone everywhere was reeling in shock at the immense horror of seeing three huge buildings collapse into their foundations but it wasn’t long before people grew weary of watching the repetitive coverage of it on the TV news. A few of them however, began to feel a sense that they weren’t being told the whole story as it was covered by big media since much of the account didn’t quite ring true for them. There was a palpable anti-climactic feel to the story as the months passed and wreckage was cleared from the sites and certain individuals, including some of the 9/11 families began speaking out about the holes in the official story, questioning the plausibility of the events as they were said to have happened. They began writing books, doing talk-radio shows, writing blogs and creating conspiracy websites and though six years have passed since September 11, 2001, it seems harder than ever for the powers that be to knock them down through intimidation. The ‘wacko fringe’ outwardly might look rather weak and shabby when compared to the appearance of those with power and money but I doubt whether society could find balance between oppression and justice without them since in many respects they are the ones in sackcloth standing before their rulers, prophesying against them, demanding that the peoples’ voice be heard. They’re the ones who don’t really care about going along to get along and don’t at all mind stirring up the soup.

After 2 years of college, I took a break, got a job and eventually moved in with one of the more colorful people in the town where I went to school. He called himself, Brother John, an old Russian man of limited means and a long beard who sold hand carved tasseled canes with ‘peace’ signs emblazoned on top. He would show up at anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in town and though his English was not the best, he was able to get his point across when talking and was genuinely fond of the kids and the kids felt likewise. John used to call them the “Children of God” in reference to the parable in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and although he wasn’t held in high regard by most people in his general age category (he did a few stretches at the Connecticut Valley Mental Hospital due to paranoid schizophrenia) he did manage however to gain quite a sizable following among the young people that used to hang around downtown. He also used to write many hundred page letters in Russian to Brezhnev and Nixon about how they were followers of the Devil and that the young people who were protesting the war were actually the ones on God’s side who would bring an era of peace to the earth and although he never received replies from his addressees, it never deterred him from writing long into the night. Once in awhile he would go on drinking binges which preceded his hospitalizations but when I think back on those days I realize that he had, even with his disability, somehow imprinted us kids with some glimmer of spiritual truth and although the vessel that brought the gift had a tarnished, rough, shepherd-like appearance, it was one that gave the town enough of a spiritual spark to help bring about an end to the War.

Today there is a new and growing anti-war, anti-globalist tide of discontent similar to what occurred in the late 60’s and it’s slowly gaining in strength and poise. Although the message is still ridiculed and marginalized in the major media and its speakers still ranked as untouchables, they are nevertheless having a perceptible and effective ‘push back’ effect against those who seek unlimited power. This new breed of radicals loves to get in the face of those ranking high in the system, pointing out their lies and hypocrisy and alerting people to what could actually happen as a result of reduced civil liberties and increased political repression that could lead to a possible American (and World) dictatorship. It is no longer a left wing or right wing fight either since many are starting to understand that the bipolar paradigm they’ve been spoon-fed is just a manufactured illusion to keep them off track. This movement is actually quite conservative in its desire to see the nation return to the constitutional principles of individual rights, limited government, with just enough liberalism mixed in to allow for a just society and stands a much greater chance of gaining a voice than did the communist-leaning big-government radicals of the former era.

Whatever one believes, there is a very deep despair and skepticism in the direction our politicians and corporations are taking us. Something deep within is waking folks up and putting those in the system on notice that they won’t have their bestial way with them the next time around. People are starting to examine media spin and are beginning to realize that they are being propagandized to look the other way and not question authority and that they are likely being herded into the slaughterhouse of a Third World War. This new awareness is leading many out of the delusional dream world and is starting to bring the elites to their knees, and with that said, there’s a very good chance, I think, that truth in all its manifestations will not only survive but will continue to thrive regardless of its external appearance.

War and State Religion

Very few religions are true to their Founder's teachings about peaceful coexistence and in spite of scriptural admonitions to seek peace there are other passages in their writings that actually encourage and condone bloodshed. I would speculate that the rationale for this is that there are times in history when God is interpreted by clerics that violence must be used to fulfill some purpose that the Deity has omnisciently condoned.

The God of Torah and Israel - "The One True God", the "I AM"

There have been many instances that Moses or the Prophets made it incumbent upon the children of Israel to destroy men, women and children of those pagan nations that God was displeased with, usually for worshipping idols, sexual deviancy or rituals of human sacrifice, but also because the land of these pagans (such as Canaan) were given to the Jews to rule by the writers of the Torah through commandment of God as a promised inheritance. Arguably today, most Jews don't condone aggression against sovereign countries except in self defense and tend to see faith in benign terms, and view themselves as having been the objects of persecutions, since the fall of Jerusalem by the Babylonians through the last two millenia. Of course the Jews of modern-day Israel have more than adequately developed their defense systems to prevent most aggressive acts by their hostile neighbors.

The God of Jesus and his followers, the Christians:

The adherents of the many flavors of Christianity have suffered many relatively recent persecutions many of them being of the sect-on-sect variety, in contrast to the Jews' long experience with it. Once the Roman Empire became reconstituted under the symbol of the Cross, the persecuted became the persecutors under the bishops and Constantine's military then proceeded to successfully stamp out non-orthodox belief. From the Middle Ages onward, widening divisions brought on by theological and political differences led to wars and purges that pitted brother against Christian brother.

The Rise of Islam, Allah and Mohammed:

Mohammed in the Qu'ran appropriated much of its teachings from Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity and in its early history united Arabic peoples under the banner of the crescent moon, offering mercy to those who converted but death to those who rebelled against the prophet and his followers. The battles to decide which God would rule, the One of the east or the One of the west, reached its height during the crusades and victories were won and lost many times over in the former lands of the Roman Empire. Later under the unifying control of Ottomans, tolerance grew, attracting many exiles, especially Jews from Christian Europe, Spain and Portugal during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Islamic art and culture grew to great heights as a result of the "brain drain from these countries." Eventually like all empires the Ottomans lost influence and most of their lands were re-conquered by the West.

Present Day:

I think that history today has again come full-circle with millions of disaffected Muslims seeking violent redress through Jihad against the Jews and Christian "crusaders" by re-conquering what they perceive to be originally Muslim lands. Since Islamic nations and ultra-fundamentalist groups haven't the where-with-all to create a modern war machine and to develop their own high-tech weapons, to even the odds, the resourceful jihadists are doing everything in their might, from buying the latest weapons from developed countries to the use of suicide offensives to demoralize the West thereby weakening support for Middle- East wars. This they are doing with great success.

It seems to me in observing the dynamics of the East vs. West conflict that religion has been the key ingredient in the crazy-glue of ideas that galvanizes Muslims (and Judeao-Christians) to support the fight that will lead one of them to victory over the infidels (and heretics.) Governments are very adept nowadays at using mainstream media propaganda machines to manipulate or at least direct public opinion to achieve the desired results in persuading their citizens that their positions are the ones that God has approved and has therefore blessed. Since adherents of many religions, be they Hindu, Muslim, Jewish or Christian have references in their holy books that can easily be interpreted to condone holy wars, I believe we must work to re-evaluate the relevance and usefulness of these passages and seek to minimize their importance for the sake of world peace.

If humans are to co-exist, I believe that our leaders must avoid the use of religion as an excuse to wage war and look to other less violent examples within their own spiritual traditions and glean from them the best examples of those who used their faith to affect the spiritual and material healing of world systems.

Make peace! That IS true religion.

Exploring the 'Dark City'

Entry for February 23, 2007

In the late 90's a movie called 'Dark City' came out which tells of the existence of an artificial world with no sun, created in space by a dying race of nasty, ugly aliens in which humans are manipulated by putting them to sleep and then wakening them with new memories in an experiment to find out what it was about our species that could possibly help them to survive. The protagonist John Murdoch wakes up in the Dark City during one of these scheduled sleep cycles and eventually discovers his real memories which in time ruins their experiment. This results in Murdoch learning to use the machinery of this virtual world through the power of thought to turn it from a black and white netherworld into a sunlit, earthlike place.

This movie, like the Matrix Trilogy is imaginatively metaphoric in how elites work to manipulate senses, emotions and opinions to gain and keep control. Eventually brave souls motivated more by the 'light' than the fear of the 'dark' learn to use similar levels of power over the mind-control machinery the elites have put into place to restore the foundations that we must have to survive as a nation. As irresistible truth spreads and people wake up, it becomes an unstoppable force and those who seek unlimited dictatorial authority are eventually exposed.

We are at a point where light is actively engaging darkness on an individual, national and planetary level. The fight for freedom has continued since the dawn of civilization and has always been a constant in human history but the ante is much higher now than it has ever been. Power brokers envision total control over every aspect of our lives but what they are not actively counting on is that some unintended event or variable could stop its machinery cold, that their high-stakes game could spiral out of their control into a planetary firestorm of war. Yes, the elites do love war. It's what keeps their wallets full but they arrogantly think they can control its spread. Average, decent people can be likened to Murdoch in 'Dark City' because they have been awakened and in turn wake others up spiritually and politically to counter the elite's plans for world domination before the unthinkable can happen. They prevail against the system because they know how to confront it. Everyone has a role to play in defending human rights and everyone can do their small part to help reconstruct the memories lost in the fog of fear and to mitigate the effect of the propaganda machine.

Dark City dist. by New Line Cinema

“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts and scourge you...and you will even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say. For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you." Matt. 10:16-20

Thugism and the War

Granted, I'm kinda old and not really up with what's goin' on except for the dash of this and that I get from my 22 year old daughter, but I do try to understand her and her friends even though sometimes they totally weird me out. So for lack of a meaningful way to spend dead moments I try to get some of my nagging thoughts typed out to calm my traumatized middle-aged nerves so maybe some of them can help me out. Just what's all this thuggin', skankin' and pimpin's all about? Is it a reflection of or a reaction to what you kids see in what we boomers have done to your world? I know when I was in my 20's I couldn't stand the hypocrisy of what I saw in the attitude of my parents' generation - all those decency advocates like Spiro Agnew and Nixon who hid there criminality behind a facade of morality. So we showed our honest disdain for it by doing some really good things (mobilizing against the Vietnam War, 'greening' the planet, and promoting civil rights, etc.) We did some pretty quasi-suicidal things too like screwing up our lungs and brains with street drugs and ciggies and not protecting ourselves from STD's with all those free-lust serial partners we had. Actually my serial partners were rather few and far between, I’m afraid. Well, we didn't really give a shit back then one way or the other. I mean, we didn't see many positive outcomes with the threat of a nuclear holocaust hanging over our heads and the seemingly endless War. Anyway, we had the music which made up for our many indiscretions.

So I don't really find it surprising that kids today find urban vernacular all the rage. Just trying to learn MySpace I found its use everywhere but I also understand it's just a cool way to say something which previously was called something else though the exact meaning of the words still eludes me. I'm beginning to get the general idea though. There's also a secondary gain from all the foul language that goes along with being hip - you get to drive your parents away from your private lives while at the same time driving them freakin’ bug-nuts.

No, the kids don't bother me at all. What bothers me are the gangstas in nice suits that pass for decent people while all along they are the most diabolical of manipulators. They were kids too. Kids many of whom were idealistic and angry at what their parents and leaders had done with their never-ending wars. Unfortunately though, many of them eventually got bought off with the idea that idealism wouldn’t get you a very good career and that it was better just to go along to get along and not make waves. S'ok if it's someone else's kid who stood proud enough to fight the battle for freedom over in the Mideast as long as there was no draft and your kid wasn't in danger of dying there. Smart, those pampered politicos are to not make nice overseas in order to steal and control Arab oil and do it without conscripting any middle class kids.

So if you want to see who the real thugs and pimps are, just check 'em out on the TV. I'm sure you'll find at least 5 at any given night on the evening news. Why call them that? Because they lie and prey upon the majority of Americans who are basically good hearted, well meaning people. Check out the deception of the government and media on the lead up to the war, the unanswered questions of 9/11, and the lack of any conscience to challenge Bush and Cheney solely so they can go to elegant parties and cavort with others rich and powerful. You wouldn't think they have the nasties by the way they dress and look. They don't look like hoodlums but neither did the masses of Germans think those of the Nazi party were either. We are paying dearly for our security from the 'terrrorists' for as long as we have our anxiety-dissipating creature comforts today, there's not much motivation to dig into what's really goin' on. Conditions are ripe for a big thug win but I’m betting on the new generation (and some from the older one) to take the country back. It takes one to know one, I guess.

Please Note: The American Revolution Will Go On As Planned!

No, I'm not talking about slogans to sell Chevys though anything that can pull GM or Ford out of the doldrums certainly wouldn't hurt, I’m sure. What's been on the top of my mostly amorphous idea pile the last few days has been the sense of urgency that seems to be coming to the surface since the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report went head-on into an almost impervious wall of disdain for other ideas besides those of the ‘deciders and residers’ at the White House. Not that the Study Group had an earth-shaking impact on anybody. There really was very little bargaining room even between the left and right ON the right. In the media however there seemed to be a small glimmer of hope even within the highly scripted offerings from the major outlets that the beginnings of an international consensus could develop to bring the world back from the abyss of endless war.

Very little has changed in the human condition in that people seem to be custom built to outmaneuver other people, just as one carmaker tries to outdo the other in presenting their brand as superior in as many ways possible to capture the maximum number of potential buyers. From our beginnings Americans have been natural overachievers and believers, a trait that shows itself brilliantly attractive to the average person irrespective of the culture into which he or she was born. It's like growing up Irish, Jewish, or Italian. Everybody knows something about the person you are merely by looking at you and you, being of a particular upbringing don't have to ponder very long on what's hanging onto your soul and won't let go. Being American is a lot like being of an identifiable ethnic heritage. I may not know the constitution by heart or may not know it even a little, but I do remember the basics that were cherishingly taught to us in grade school - that our rights come from God and/or by natural law and those rights are inviolable by any political entity and that awareness gives us a collective pinch when we know the country is slipping and sliding to where it ought not go. We knew it back in the '60's when we were deep in 'The Big Muddy' and when there were serious riots in the cities. We knew we were in trouble when we got hit with Watergate in the '70, in the '80's with El Salvador and Nicaragua and now with the Mutha of all Shitpiles, a possible Middle East war which could explode into WWIII if one of the countries in the nuclear club decided to vaporize one or two of the others' cities.

I've got a feeling that 2007 is going to be a big year, hopefully a good year and that the ‘big’ will come to mean that we as members of the human family finally start to come to our senses and throw out those crazy hostile thoughts that pop into our empty little heads because we are bored, angry or partially nuts. I think too that finally some plain common sense will win out over suspicion and arrogance in our unceasing rush to crush and conquer and that Tom Paine did really have it right. The greatness of America is not having a huge military and being able to throw our weight around wherever we want. What we have is what everyone knows and wants – the right to live their lives the way they want to in peace and security. What we show the world now about ourselves will in large part determine the future of the planet. ‘To whom much is given, much shall be required’ and we have been given so much. It’s time to stop our leaders from trashing the rights of people in wars that trample dignity under foot and return the country to what its best at by restoring faith in what we are deep down in our guts. That is the real essence and meaning of the revolution. America can re-root itself and become even stronger and wiser than before. It’s not about imposing its will on others. It's about letting people live out their own dreams even if they’re different than our own.