Category: Philosophy

In order to grok the future, it is necessary to understand the present and remember the past.  In order to influence the future, strategies must be emplaced. This is my attempt to bring the docudharma nation to concensus of understanding.

feline wrote

Apparently, something is more important to members of Congress

Submitted by feline on July 17, 2008 – 9:57am.

than public opinion; more important than the U.S. Constitution, the treaties of the Geneva Conventions, and the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal; more important than truth, justice, accountability, restoration of the rule of law. It’s something so terribly important that the opinions of the United Nations, the International Red Cross, retired generals, veterans and enlisted military personnel, the intelligence community, imbedded journalists, victims’ families, judges, constitutional and international legal scholars, psychiatrists, etc. are basically obsolete. Something is more important than our civil liberties, real national security, a stable domestic infrastructure, and diplomatic foreign policy.

Providing immunity to violators of the law and perpetrators of obstruction is more important than any of our opinions.

I have here three clips from a wonderful little film called My Dinner with Andre, wherein the main characters discuss the breakdown of human society.

“Don’t talk to Strangers.”



Mom & Dad

The dark car rolls up and the window slides down…

“Hey kid! Want some candy.” You like puppies, right?”

“All I need is your name, address, phone number and you’ll need to initial… right here, and sign here…Aah, don’t bother reading it, I’m a good guy. Trust me.”

There are so many ills tainting our world.  People’s inhumanity towards one another expresses itself in so many different ways.

Pick one.  Work on it.  Make it your Cause.  Commit the rest of your life to it.  Commit to bring it to an end.  Do anything you can to advance that issue, including working on other issues…so that maybe when the time comes someone might have learned enough about you and your issues that they might actually care about them as well as their own.

What?  What was that last part?  Work on other people’s issues?  Why would anyone ever do that?  Isn’t that, like, a colossal waste of time and effort?

Actually, no.  It’s how something…anything…gets accomplished.

Down here at the bottom of the issue food chain, the only way anyone is going to notice us is if we push other people forward, people who are and issues which are obscuring our existence.

Objective observation of the current politics and populace tells us that here in 21st century America, there are two ideas that take precedence above all else. Both are myths. Both are ideas apparently more important than any facts, logic, proof, evidence, or demonstrable reality.

The first is that America, no matter what it does, how many crimes are committed in its name, by its duly elected officials, is the good guy, the cowboy in the White Hat.

America lied its way into a illegal and immoral war of aggression for no reason other than the greed and lust for power of its political and economic leaders. The majority of the American populace went along for the ride. America tortures. America exploits migrant workers while condemning them and punishing them for our reliance on them. The list goes on and on.

And the whole of the list of American wrongs that are not wrong because they are our wrongs, exists for one purpose above all others, to bolster and enable the second myth. (Which of course makes them ultimately the same myth.)

The myth that the Christian God created America to serve ‘his’ purpose, and selected white Christian males to work ‘his’ will on earth. Thus can they do no wrong. Thus are their wrongs….not wrong.

This myth is so woven into the fabric of American culture and belief that it is invisible to most. It is not spoken of, except in rare slips of the tongue such as this exchange between O’Rielly and McCain from last year:

O’REILLY: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have.

The most destructive consequence of this myth is America’s surety that they are entitled to this God-given American lifestyle. This is what ensures than even in the face of facts, logic, proof, evidence, and demonstrable reality that the ‘American lifestyle’ is destroying the planets atmosphere and, ultimately, the “lifestyle” of every living thing on earth, their violent denial will continue.

When it comes right down to it, that is the myth that prevents any REAL change in America. How on God’s Green Earth do we fight that?

Each day I can watch him trudging home from wherever he has been.  Fortunately it is downhill from the bus stop to where he lives.  He never smiles, eyes focused on the ground a few feet in front of his pace.

Beaten down.

The world so heavy that he can’t even look up.

Shoulders sagging under the weight of the last straw, and the last straw before that… and the one before that.  A succession of so many minor beatings to the ego that he flinches reflexively at anything, everything, expecting the worst

Back bent from too many sorrows.

And you want him to rise up?

Why?  Is his life going to be better?  Tomorrow, when he rolls out of bed, is anything he interacts with going to be better than it was?  Is it worth his effort?  Does he have any effort to give?

I’ve been there, a time or two…or ten, when all one worried about was where the next bottle, or toke, or hit was coming from, anything to reach numb.  Anything more than numb was a bonus.

Sometimes other people disappoint us.  Sometimes people we don’t even personally know let us down and cause us pain.  At those times we have a choice to make:  reach out to the offending party in peace to keep open the lines of communication or declare all-out war and severe any hope of connection.

Perhaps we can take a lesson from the creative response of one injured individual.  He used Craigs List to reach out, offering connection, vulnerably sharing his pain while holding firm to his principles.  Here is exemplary letter, courtesy of Best of Craigs List.

This may look long, but the subtlety is mostly in the details.  I assure you every word contributes to the whole.

It dawned on me the other night where it all went wrong.  At least from one perspective.

Here I was thinking the Buy-Centennial Sell-Abration was only supposed to last for one year.  1976, if anyone is keeping track.  Apparently I misunderstood.  Apparently it was intended to last much longer.

At least it seems to have lasted that way.

Did you know you can purchase a white chocolate (i.e. cocoa butter) replica of the Capitol building?  What could be more patriotic than eating that?  And you can also get a dark chocolate (i.e. chocolate) replica of the Washington Monument.  What could be more phallic than that?

I mean, don’t get me wrong.  I’m glad so many other people have finally noticed this.  But it’s not like it is news.  And pardon those of us who have understood this for as long as we can remember and have trouble working up a good hysteria.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.