Idealism

"You are all already Buddhas. You need to achieve nothing. Open your eyes."
-Shakyamuni Buddha
As far as I've ever been able to discern, the two most distinct types of people are those who believe in what this quote says, and those who are incapable of holding such high opinions of humanity.

Threshold Theory

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history." That brilliant quote comes from that most profound of Philosophers, Hegel, and within it lies the fundamental paradox of modern history. We are now at a faze in which everything is carefully documented and preserved for the benefit of future generations. There's only one small problem with this, collectively we consistently prove incapable of doing so. It is universally accepted that it is impossible for people to write history until at least 25 years after an event occurs. This is primarily explained on the basis of the unavoidable nature of bias when one is closely linked to the times in which one lives. This is probably true, but I prefer the explanation given by the Threshold Theory. It rather simply states that the vast majority of people will choose not to accept a fact if it causes their brains to reanalyze to many previously accepted concepts, and thus no matter how valid the observation they are confronted with is, they will necessarily disregard it and/or switch into apathy mode as a subconcious defence mechanism. This is most commonly expressed through the expression: "I'm not ready to accept that". A lie readily accepted is often very difficult to discard. For example, most westerners still believe in the concept of Western Civilization as positive, or at the very least necessary, force upon the world. This is something that western culture has accepted as a fact since the time of the Renaissance. Well, despite all our achievements in the realm of science and art we refuse to admit that the only thing we really have ever had on the rest of the world is an indisputable ability to visit organized violence en masse upon peoples. But accepting this would go against years of schooling and generations of arrogance; and thus most people can't acknowledge this rather glaring fact that uneducated people in the so called Third World are completely ready to accept as fact. Another good example of this is how we call our essentially Imperialist and racist behavior as 'peace keeping'. Once again claiming a sort of moral and logical superiority to the people we are bringing our 'peace' to, even though we have sometimes ostensibly rejected these notions (e.g. today's Europe). We are getting to the point in which we starting to regard some of our assumptions as mistaken, but only in part, the broader underlying thesis is still maintained and preserved as indispensable. Although you might 'not be ready to accept this', you better damn well believe the people who call themselves your leaders do, and furthermore, sustain their authority through it. By heaping more and more lies onto the mountain of previously accepted lies, they are ensuring that most people will never be able to move beyond these notions in their lifetime. Don't think for a second that I think myself above this cruel aspect of the human psyche, or even that I'm saying something original by pointing it out. I merely like to discuss such things as a process of self awareness in which I hope to encourage in myself and others the idea that accepting anything as a 'truth' is just going to lead to your mind getting attached to it and basing a lot of subsequent 'truths' on it. We aren't born with these notions, and I'm fairly confident we don't get to keep them when we die, so why take them so horribly serious in between and play into self-serving leaders hands?

SCREAM

Monkeys and monkeys and monkeys called men

reveling in cacophony and sin

call it corrupt, call it madness

no matter how much you see there's something you miss

It sorta makes sense

crazy and random and oh so intense

keeps you paying attention to the charade

don't cry be scarred or even complain, enjoy the parade

My attempt at veracity

It isn't always easy to be honest with others, but it's a far more difficult thing to be honest with oneself. Some days however, you get just the right brain chemistry going to be able to accept it all. Such is today for me. I am looking back on my previous posts realizing how much I have been pontificating and how little I have actually been expressing of who I am. What incites me to make my assertions of truth is to see people in recent history making the same mistakes over and over again, all the while claiming to have progressed so far. "To be rational is so glorious a thing, that two-legged creatures generally content themselves with the title.". John Locke said that, and I feel that it pretty much sums up the arrogance of western thought. I can't help but believe that most people are pretty decent, and if they're not then it's usually easy to see why that is too. Perhaps I'm just a fool for hoping that some day we are going to reach a point when rationalism or altruism trumps such emotions as fear, selfishness and greed as the primary motivation for peoples actions. Maybe I should just accept the verdict of the great Buddha that suffering is inevitable as long as there is desire. It all just seems completely self imposed through stupidity and ignorance. It's hard for me to watch so many people resort to drugs and alcohol to get them through each day. There is nothing wrong with drugs as a recreational tool, but when we need them every day just to keep going, that's something different. What are we coming to when the only reason we voluntarily socialize anymore is just to get intoxicated? Am I such a ridiculous idealist in thinking that humans should be capable of more? I'm sorry, rhetorical questions are about as useful as pontificating. All I'm trying to say here is that I think we could be so very happy if only we had the ability to discipline our collective behavior. I don't like the sort of top down authoritarian way that the communists tried to do it, it must be organic to my thinking to have any chance of success. But once again, I must concede that such high minded hopes for our world are just my way of coping with this rambling symphony of sadness we call a country.

The Fear

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once."
-Shakespeare (Julius Caesar Act II, scene 2)
I recently went to an event put on by a group of intellectuals who attempt to tell the truth where the media tells lies, a noble endeavor. This particular one was about the fallacies that were told about 9/11. Well anyway, before it began a man jumped up onto the stage and began to shout about how these intellectuals will only tell you the temperature of the water but not how to dry off. He proceeded to expound that all the talking in the world accomplishes nothing and that if we really cared about what our leaders were doing we would start a general strike that would bring our government to its knees. This man was of course booed and physically forced to leave after about 30 seconds. I might have been the only one in the audience who truly felt for this poor guy who actually thought that people really want to stick their necks out to precipitate change. Marx once wrote that "the workers have nothing to loose but their chains", which was true at one point. Now the workers of bourgeois America have a life of unparalleled extravagance and ease. This is the primary reason, even if they deny it unto the grave, that such intellectuals content themselves to just talking a lot and patting themselves on the back for how well they talk. They would never dream of sacrificing such a luxurious life for the great unknown of revolt, no matter how many foreigners or poor peoples lives our government destroys. They are simply afraid of a life in which everything they have known would simply vanish and they would have to learn how to survive without television, SUVs, cell phones and all the other consumer distractions. How have we grown so weak and servile? Our founding fathers had a lot to loose by rebelling against England, and many of them lost it all in the struggle, but they did it anyway.

Terra Incognita

When people call me anti-American, it makes me feel as though what I'm saying is on the right track. The petty myopia of nationalism, race, religion and class is the grand tragedy of mankind throughout the ages. Now the dialectic progression of history has brought us to the US, or perhaps more accurately, Capitalist, domination of the earth that we see today. People generally are afraid to question things upon which rests their entire reality and way of life. So be it. I recently came across something written by Thomas Carlyle (18th century Scottish historian) that more eloquently than I could ever hope to, states how I feel about this current paradigm and where it is bound to lead: "Your Society, your Household, practical and spiritual Arrangement, is untrue, unjust, offensive to the eye of God and man. Nevertheless its hearth is warm, its larder well replenished: the innumerable Swiss of Heaven, with a kind of natural loyalty, gather round it; will prove, by pampleteering, musketeering, that it is truth; or if not an unmixed (unearthly, impossible) Truth, then better, a wholesomely attempted one , and works well. Changed outlook, however, when the purse and larder grow empty! Was your Arrangement so true, so accordant to Nature's ways, then how, in the name of wonder, has Nature, with her infinite bounty, come to leave it famishing there? To all men, to all women and all children, it is not indubitable that your Arrangement was false. Honour to Bankruptcy; ever righteous on the grand scale, though in deatail it is so cruel! Under all Falsehoods it works, unweariedly mining. No Falsehood, did it rise heaven high and cover the world, but bankruptcy, one day, will sweep it down, and make us free of it."
Now here we are, as a society, very close to the bankrupcy that Carlyle spoke of. Rather than travel the well beaten path of decadence, decline and anarchy we are arriving at a point in time which might allow for a more deliberate and sustainable existence, if we have the collective courage to change this edifice before it all comes crashing down. But, as always, 'you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'. So be it.

human history in 8 lines

people don't know how to think
as their lifetime passes by
they only know how to blink
then unceremoniously die

couldn't see beyond the self
can't really be to blame
thinking only of their health
because we're all the same

Foreign Policy in S.W. Asia

One consistent complaint of the establishment these days in response to criticism about its foreign policy in South West Asia is, 'well I don't see you having any better ideas'. I can totally understand that statement because Democrats content themselves with just being critical, never actually offering up any alternative ideas except throwing up their hands in confusion. Now I am pretty much completely off the political map, but regardless of that, I would like to offer up my idea of how to win the 'War on Terror'. It's really quite simple. The main cause of such rabid anti-Americanism among Muslims is a feeling that the Islamic world has been perpetually getting abused and used since it was divided into arbitrary nations at the end of WWI, and to a large extent, they are right. It is this deeply ingrained sense of betrayal that is the fuel to the terrorist's fire. So what I propose is a very simple stratagem that I think would solve western civilization's conflict with the Muslim world. First off, there would have to be a very public and sincere apology by western heads of state for The Crusades, 20th and 21st century Imperialism, Zionism, and our general insensitivity towards Muslim culture; followed by a pledge to never let that happen again. We would also have to have the intention of actually living up to this statement and start doing so immediately. After this was done the US would have to announce its intention to support the unification of the Arab world and a general plebiscite to decide its political future thereafter. Not only would this totally take the wind out militant Muslim groups sails, but it would also cause pandemonium among the Arab despots who currently run all the countries in the region. Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Iraqis, and the peoples who inhabit the Arabian peninsula would all of a sudden have the support of the US government to create a pan Arab state that could once again make them proud. The complete opposition of their tyrants can be counted on, and to my thinking, this is a good thing. For it would necessitate that the masses themselves would need to make a concerted effort to overthrow those regimes and start working together to create an Arab nation that could satisfy the peoples needs. The Arab world has never undergone a true social revolution, and if they are ever going to get organized it must occur. No matter how it all turned out, one thing would be relatively certain, Muslims would no longer have a reason to blame the US for their pitiful political situation. And even if they did, would be far to busy to act on it. This is the best hope for the US to actually help create a stable South West Asia in the long term. We have been arrogant and foolhardy long enough and it has only gotten us to kill and be killed. Why not try something new?