Archive for the ‘History’ Category

“Where the rubber meets the road” is an expression used to make the point that whatever is being referred to constitutes a moment of truth.  I suggest, along that same line of thought, 2012 is where reality meets spirituality. At least it’s where these two aspects of ourselves must meet if we are to survive and prosper beyond where we are now.

We have made advances in science and technology that were thought to be inconceivable 50 years ago, with greater advances yet on the horizon. But in our blindness, or our arrogance, we refuse to acknowledge that other cultures, other civilizations came before us leaving remnants of their own inconceivable technological advances as well and yet, they vanished in totality from the face of the Earth.

The most important lesson we should take from their disappearance is that it isn’t enough to be scientifically or technologically advanced. It is also necessary, in fact critical, that our spirituality…our humanity…be equally developed and advanced. Without common, life affirming values and core ethical principles to act as a framework to contain our creations we will find ourselves also relegated to the dust bin of history.

Which is why the 2012 Presidential election is so important.

It may seem almost ludicrous to write about concepts so daunting and then tie them to something so charged with corruption and greed as politics.  But the import about the 2012 election isn’t about the process or even the candidate.

It’s about you.

This next election is when each of us must step up and take responsibility for what we do with the right to vote. We must look for a candidate to support who stands for those life-affirming values and core ethical principles upon which our future rests. We must not follow the pack or allow someone else to do our thinking, and our concluding, for us. Each of us must realize the crucial transition we, as a species, are passing through and the pitfalls inherent within.

2012 is when the rubber meets the road. Now is the moment each of us must go within and reconnect with our spiritual Selves, allowing that light to illuminate our way forward.

Take this election very seriously. It’s way past the time for complaining about corruption, greed and victimization. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Do that and we may just find our way out of this fire swamp.

 

I’m certain that I’m not telling you anything you don’t know… but I am most likely reminding you of something you are trying to forget.

We are in a mess.

In some of us it’s manifesting as uncertainty and fear.  In others, it’s aggression and violence. For yet others…denial and escapism via alcohol, gambling or sex. Whatever the method of choice, each is a diversion from accepting personal responsibility for how we got here.

We’re here because we have been self-absorbed, greedy and lacking in compassion. We have denied our connection to one another and to all sentient beings. Our priorities have been wrong. Our values have been lacking. Our goals have been materially focused. We have ignored our spiritual Selves. We have been unconscious in our choices, believing that irresponsible choices bear no consequences.

I am astonished at how many people are still trying to avoid the reality of what is occurring. How many people are “continuing to dance in the ballroom” so to speak, as if the Titanic is not sinking? Too many.

We need to awaken now, on the eve of 2012, and accept that we are Consciousness Itself, experiencing Itself in physical form. And as such, Consciousness creates what it thinks about. We have spent much time and energy worshipping false idols…from politicians to movie stars to the Dow Jones Industrial Average at the expense of the down trodden, the children and the elderly.

We have been here before. This is a do-over. But only if we get it right this time. If not, I feel fairly certain that Consciousness will conclude that It’s experiment in trusting that humanity would awaken to Its Own Awareness of Who We Really Are was an error in thought and, in an effort to start again, will simply stop supporting the idea.

When Consciousness ceases to intend our existence any longer, humanity will cease to exist in that very instant.

Let’s us make a global New Year’s Resolution that we commit to keeping. Let us resolve to awaken to our Oneness, our Divinity and our commitment to use Free Will to choose, in every situation, the Highest Good for All Concerned.

Consciousness has been watching, and patiently awaiting, our arrival at Awareness. Time is a construct of Consciousness in matter. As Consciousness experiences us repeatedly choosing to remain unconscious…we are running out of time.

Quite literally.

The answer to why Newt Gingrich is leading in the polls is simple. It’s also dangerously short-sighted. Gingrich’s popularity is born of the frustration and impotence felt by so many Americans over the direction of this country in the past 3 years and the crony capitalism that has mushroomed out of control. People want someone to “take the hit” for our current situation and they mistakenly believe they will feel better if they watch Newt Gingrich debate Barack Obama. It’s that simple.

We humans rarely take responsibility for the world we create. We have wallowed in a victim mentality for millennia. So, when things get bad, or challenging, we look to blame someone else for our plight.

Most of us sense what a critical moment we have arrived at . Many of us think that the current President represents an impediment to moving beyond the crisis. Those who feel this way want him defeated in 2012. However, on the way to that defeat, we would like to see him no longer able to avoid being held accountable for the decisions he’s made.

It’s in that last sentence that Newt Gingrich’s popularity is rooted and so easily understood.

Gingrich is a brilliant historian and a remarkable debater. It’s almost safe to say he’s unequaled, among public figures, in being able to articulate and discuss history, government and the political process. To the contrary, Barack Obama, other than when in cheerleader mode on the campaign trail, seems unable to articulate much of anything absent detailed preparation and the assistance of a teleprompter. He is almost unintelligible at thinking on his feet.

So, in our haste to hold Barack Obama accountable, we fail to realize that we are doing business with the devil, so to speak. Substantively and policy-wise, Newt Gingrich is a Progressive just as Barack Obama is, regardless of their party affiliations. Both men believe in big government and both believe that government knows best.  In addition, Gingrich’s ethics and moral character, as exemplified by his past private and public behavior, are sorely lacking at best.

It was shortsightedness, instant gratification and a disregard for personal responsibility that got us into the current mess. Nominating Newt Gingrich would be the result of our continuing that pattern of behavior.

We must trade the thrill of seeing this President intellectually and verbally pummeled for a longer range view of things. Yes, Barack Obama needs to go. But in that process, we need to step up, decide where we want to go when he’s gone, and choose the Republican candidate who is most likely to honor our choice and lead us there. Admittedly this approach will require much more work on each of our parts than just nominating Gingrich because he’s quick on his feet. But remember, to do nothing is to choose.

I can guarantee you won’t like the end result should inaction wind up being your choice.

 

You’d think we were wiser, or at least smarter, than to believe that everything is fine just because Thanksgiving sales were up and the DOW Jones reacted positively to that fact. You’d think.

It astonishes me how many people remain asleep…unconscious…unaware. And how many others are living in a world of denial. I understand the tendency to bury one’s head in the sand, so to speak, in the face of so much bad news and uncertainty. Admittedly, these are trying times.

But denial never gets you anything other than delayed truth. It doesn’t obliterate it.

Here’s my latest take on fear. It’s been the tool of choice for controlling the majority of people on earth for, at least, the last 5000 years. I think it’s time we stopped buying into the illusion that energy is scarce and costly, that remedies for illness are limited to choices predetermined by a few and sanctioned by government, that politicians need be corrupt and we need to accept this as a given, and that corporations and banks need to be insatiable entities satisfying their endless hunger for money and control at the expense of those who reply upon their services and trust in their good intentions.

Energy is free. It’s in the air…the “space” all around us and extracting it has gotten everyone discredited who ever proved that to be true. Buddhism, and even physics, assert that out of “no-thing-ness,” or the void, came everything. Well, if there is nothing in the void, then it’s devoid of light, also. So light is not the Source of all that is… darkness is. And darkness is not a bad thing. Its no-thing and holds the potential from which every-thing manifests.

For these past 5000 plus years we have been living under the fear-based illusion that to break the rules gets you cast into hell (the abyss), or prison, or just plain outcast from mainstream society. As if the abyss is bad. I would ask you consider that the very thing we have been told to fear… the dark, the unknown, the “other”… is, in fact, the Source of true power. And those who have known this truth, in both religions and governments worldwide, have used that illusion to manipulate us with fear-based thinking for most of human history.

Wake up! Now! Fear is a tool to control you. That’s why there is so much “bad” news. That’s why economies are collapsing. The insatiable individuals and companies that have run our reality by fear are panicked. They are desperate and the only way they can hang on to their power is to make certain you are more frightened than you’ve ever been in your entire life.

It’s a game. Its not real. Refuse to play. Step outside the box. Follow your own inner guidance. Link up with like-minded people and stay the course. We are on the threshold of a brave new world and it’s not one ruled by one world government. It’s a world imagined by billions of individual, creative, compassionate souls who have awakened to say:

Enough.

 

The euro is crashing. Pakistan is irate at the West and it has nuclear weapons. Inflation is on the rise. Iran has threatened to attack Israel and NATO bases in Turkey if its nuclear facilities are attacked.

These are just today’s headlines.But this post isn’t about the headlines. It’s about the effects of those headlines and many others.

Until recently, there was much uncertainty around. Now, the uncertainty is turning to fear. Fear is not an emotion a world in transition can afford to ignore…or indulge. We must be vigilant and aware that in the absence of leadership, much destruction and evil can gain a foothold as we reorganize and reprioritize our world.

Whether in the public or private sector, events have confirmed that our “leaders” are either incompetent or corrupt.  We are, in fact, seemingly without guidance or direction.

This is an illusion.

Guidance and direction are located within each of us. No one will come to the rescue this time. No single individual has all the answers…but every single individual holds a piece of the finished puzzle within themselves. The first order of business is to recognize this fact. The second, to go within and access it. The third, to bring it forth with courage and conviction.

What is in your heart and what are you willing to do about it?

What unexpressed truth are you harboring?

What do you know needs to be done?

You are the leader the world is waiting for and only you can exhibit that fact in your daily life. Begin there. Live the ethics and morality you know are lacking in the world. Demand truth and integrity from yourself.  Don’t await any external solution because the answer is eternal and only available within.

Gandhi said it best: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

And so it will be.

 

I remember the first time I was in Rome.  As I stood in front of the Senate, where Brutus stabbed Caesar, I was struck by the contrast between the facts that 1) Romans drive to and from work every day past 2000 years of history and 2) Philadelphians drive to and from work every day past 250 years of history. Which may explain the cultural differences and, for lack of a better word, maturity levels. My experience was that Europeans are more adult than Americans. They prioritize their lives differently…which led me to think about growing up.

In many ways we, in the United States, suffer from adolescence.  We want what we want, when we want it. We have short-range vision. We act with disregard for the consequences. We  often abdicate personal responsibility for what we say and do. We think we can disregard the rules of civility and the laws Nature. We crave not only the latest android…we want the biggest house, the most expensive car, and the clothing that shows its label on the outside. We live beyond our means and expect someone else, mainly the government, to rescue us from ourselves. Ironically, even government needs rescuing from its own irresponsible behavior.

We have behaved very much like adolescents.

So, as each of us comes to realize that our lives are not working and all of the indulgences have not gotten us the peace and satisfaction we seek, perhaps its just plain time to grow up. The place to start is to take a look at your own life, how you’re living it, what you value, where you turn a blind eye to responsibility, and decide to do something about it.

Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” He was talking to each of us…individually. The only way we will succeed at moving beyond this moment is to accept what it means to be an adult, with ethical boundaries and personal responsibility, and then live that acceptance. Otherwise, sooner or later, the teen who refuses to stop pushing the boundaries and ignoring the rules ends up watching Life pass them by.

In our case, it will be the future of a great nation that will have been expendable.

 

Adbusters, a Public Relations firm located in British, Columbia, is a company with a website of interest to me. It should also be of interest to you…if you want to understand the manipulation and money fueling the “Occupy” protestors nationally.  Adbusters is financed in part by the Tides Foundation, a George Soros organization. Soros, you may or may not know, makes sport of manipulating global currencies and politics. Which means manipulating you.

On their website today, Adbusters is advising and directing the protestors as follows:

“We’re living through a magical moment … OCCUPYWALLSTREET has catalyzed into an international insurgency for democracy … the mood at our assemblies is electric … people who go there are drawn into a Gandhian spirit of camaraderie and hope for a new kind of future. Across the globe the 99% are marching! You have inspired more than you know. People are digging into Act One of the long Spring.”

A few observations:

1.  Democracy is not an American aspiration. Democracy is mob rule. We live in a Constitutional Republic by deliberate design of the men and women who were sufficiently educated and enlightened to know the difference.

2.  Gandhi never advocated defecating on police cars, carried signs that said “Eat The Rich” or espoused getting “all the Jews out of the country.” Gandhi was abut peaceful, unwavering commitment to the dignity of individuals and national self-determination.

3.  It’s apparent that “digging into Act One of the long Spring” is a planned strategy intended to unfold over time while making unequivocal demands accompanied by continued disruption and unrest.

If there was ever a time for individuals to think for themselves, rather than as a monolithic herd, it’s now. Group think will get us mob rule. Just look at the photos of the rebels who found Ghadaffi. While I have no love of the deceased dictator, rational and civil people who think for themselves don’t pull and pick at a body as animals over a carcass might do.  And that’s giving short shrift to the animals, since they do it for the sole purpose of obtaining nourishment.

Let’s be conscious and aware that whether it’s Vice President Biden giving out false statistics on crime rates in Flint, Michigan in order to scare us into passing President Obama’s jobs bill… or a Canadian P.R. firm doing the bidding of its financial backer by cleverly manipulating public opinion and passions…it’s up to each of us individually to discern truth from fiction and have the courage to act upon our findings.

Unless you are willing to do that, you’re in for more Hope and Change. By the way, how has that worked out for you thus far?

Today, 1027 Palestinian prisoners, some having been convicted of suicide bombings, were released by the State of Israel in exchange for one Israeli soldier, 24-year-old Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped and held incommunicado by Hamas for over five years.

The Palestinians were bussed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to a prearranged exchange point. There was no fanfare. No media coverage. No interviews. No political exploitation.

At least on the Israeli side of the equation.

The Egyptians and Hamas (a designated terrorist organization) went beyond the pale in exploiting the moment.  A female Egyptian anchor did a TV interview of Gilad Shalit while he was in Egypt and not yet transferred to Israeli authority and protection. Shalit was clearly suffering from malnourishment and lack of exposure to sunlight, having been kept in a dungeon for the entire 5 years of his captivity and denied visitation even by the International Red Cross.  The anchor brazenly posed politically loaded questions to a young man who had obvious difficulty breathing, speaking and collecting his thoughts.  All the while, a masked Hamas terrorist stood behind Shalit’s back with a loaded weapon.

It was a disgrace.

But for anyone with eyes to see or ears to hear, it was the most poignant and unequivocal statement of the total disregard for human life, decency and compassion that is Hamas.

As I watched the fiasco unfold, and sensed the confusion, caution and fear Shalit must have been experiencing, I wondered how we will ever negotiate a peaceful resolution with a people who heap rewards and accolades upon an organization so devoid of humanity.  If you have the answer I’d love to hear it. As of this writing, I remain at a loss for one that satisfies.

And “yes” if you wonder if the ratio… 1:1027… was worth it.

Yes.

Definitely yes.

 

This is about why Texas Governor Rick Perry should not be the Republican Party’s Presidential nominee in 2012. We have come to the end of the line in our ability to knowingly close our eyes to the character of those we elect to public office. It’s no longer acceptable that we decry, after the fact, having gotten exactly what is was we willfully refused to see before the fact.

When then candidate Perry was running for Governor of Texas he was interviewed by a local television reporter who asked the candidate, if elected, would he serve out his term?  Governor Perry answered “Yes.” When the reporter pressed him to confirm that he would not then run for the office of President, the now Governor said he would “not” and reiterated he would serve out his term as Governor of Texas.  If Governor Perry is the 2012 nominee, and is elected, he will not serve out his term as Governor of Texas despite having given his word to the contrary.

Strike one.

In the recent Tea Party Debate, Governors Romney and Perry got in a verbal back and forth over the legality of Social Security.  Governor Romney said that calling it a “Ponzi” scheme, as Governor Perry had, was frightful to seniors. Governor Perry countered that in Governor Romney’s book, he too called the Social Security System“criminal”… as is a Ponzi scheme. However, in his book, No Apology: Believe In America, Governor Romney called the actions of Congress in taking money from  Social Security an act that, in the private sector, would be deemed criminal.

Strike  two.

When Barack Obama was running for the Presidency, I read a book by Shelby Steele titled A Bound Man. It is the reason I did not vote for Mr. Obama. After reading it, I believed that I understood something about Obama and I thought that what I understood presented a danger to the nation.  Very few others must have read that book.  In fact, very few others did any kind of inquiry into who he was, what he stood for, or his level of integrity. We got what we refused to see.

When Rickard Nixon ran for President, he already had the nickname “Tricky Dick.” We got what we refused to see.

I’m not waiting for strike three from Governor Perry. He has shown himself, to me, to be a man upon whose word I cannot rely. While I have also eliminated a few of the other Republican contenders, I feel it important to address Governor Perry directly and outwardly as the press, and some polls, see him as the “frontrunner” or “the one to beat” and I think the flaw is glaring… as I did with Obama.

Regardless of his or her policies, we must have a leader with integrity on whose word and in whose judgment the American people can rely. We are all out of time to delay or err. This next President will determine a lot more than fiscal or foreign policy. This one will determine who we are as a People and what we value. Who we elect as our next President will tell us much more about who we are than who they are.

Paul Krugman is an American economist, Princeton University professor and Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics recipient. Charles Krauthammer is a Pulitizer prize-winning syndicated columnist, political commentator, and physician. Two very bright men. One of them wrote a factually researched, well-substantiated, thought provoking column on the tenth year anniversary of the terrorist attacks perpetrated on September 11, 2001. The other threw a schoolyard bully’s punch and then left the playground before anyone else could respond.

The former was Charles Krauthammer.  The latter, Paul Krugman, tempts me to give his “column” no time at all. However, in Mr. Krugman’s judgmental name calling and accusations, he teaches us much about what’s wrong with the world and why we have found ourselves so far from who we want to be.

Mr. Krauthammer’s column in the National Review On-line recaps the U.S. response and successes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He also factually disproves allegations that the War on Terror is the basis for our current financial difficulties and places the blame where it belongs.  Finally, he gives us pride in our national determination and endurance in the face of adversity.

As for Mr. Krugman… he used his bully pulpit to bully. He accused former President George W. Bush and former New York Mayor Rudy Guilaini of “cash[ing] in on the horror” and unnamed others of “hijacking [of] the atrocity.” He actually goes so far as to call the memory of 9/11 “an occasion of shame.” Mr. Krugman’s opinion piece is a lesson in turning the victim into the perpetrator… in deflecting responsibility from where it rightfully belongs. He offers no facts, piously judges others, and tries to make us feel badly about ourselves as a nation. Let’s learn from his mistakes.

1. Conclusions should be based upon facts, not conjecture.

2. Judgment belongs to Our Creator and when exercised by humankind separates and alienates us from ourselves and one another.

3. Giving others confidence and hope, not criticism and despair, is the answer to both personal and collective growth.

Mr. Krauthammer’s column allows for posting comments. Mr. Krugman’s does not. Deliberately so. He noted that he was not permitting comments “for obvious reasons.” What is obvious to me may be different from what he intended. I post here the email I sent him following a read of his column:

“If you are going to make the kind of judgments and bold statements made in the NY Times Opinion piece ‘The Years of Shame,’ have the courage to allow those who see the world differently from you the courtesy of access to reply.  Free speech, I presume, is one of the founding principles upon which we can agree. What follows that principle in a free society is the battlefield of ideas.

The only thing that is ‘obvious’ about why you would have precluded responses to the piece is your need to strike while insulating yourself from the counter-punch. This was not a courageous act. Being able to take the heat, not just give it, is the sign of a confident individual committed to, above all, the truth.”