I reject

I reject
empire I reject
an empire can be good I reject
the idea of this nation
this good nation this beacon
as defensibly indispensable I reject
the false divisions it sits on
sitting behind its walls its guns
pointing out in every direction I reject
its standards of living no matter how
now diminished They're still inflated
at the purchase of the blood
of our dispossessed
at the purchase of the blood
of innocents abroad
at the purchase of the clearest
blues and the deepest greens despoiled
at the purchase of a future
counted by too few breaths
I reject all it takes to make itself
feel proud It takes all I can bear
not to tell it how much
I reject it

Power needs our concessions

“Power concedes nothing...“

a nothing we’ve taken when we give
it the power to demand
more from us. But what if
we refused it? What if

not a few of us, but all of us,
refused its demands, unmoved
by its roar,
or its thunder, not afraid

of its ocean or its rain?

No water, no matter
how violent,
can command the sand. It can
only displace a tiny fraction.

Hey meek, your inheritance is waiting (and the anonymity will suit you)

What can you write when a bloodless rock and its bloodied people writhe pained by the squeeze of men like snakes no less than snakes less than worms not fit to be early or late-bird plucked from the rain-soaked ground but it’s not the ground soaked or parched they sit upon it’s an airy perch from which they spy us and it’s not that they’re not seeing the squirms and it’s not that they’re not making out the wriggles and it is that they’re giggling at the blurriness of the faces from so high and it’s then you write that it’s time and it’s then that you write of those times to come when we’ll take this anonymity to our advantage.

Politics today

Do you
sir, agree
sir, with the clap
trap yapped by your
ill esteemed
colleague
on the right?

No, sir
you see, sir
I’m to his left.
I agree
completely.

A few default responses

If they can’t raise the roof on this
high-priced rental,
it’s ain’t all
bad, brother.

You see, sister,
we can stop

Paying remote control soldiers to pretend
lives in Yemen,
Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan
are worth less than video game victims

Paying Somali proxies to torture
questionable answers
out of top secret prisoners

Paying our own guards to harass
and embarrass
a man whose only crime was
showing us
the lies they still want us
to glassy-eyed believe.

---

It's not one of my most artistic efforts, but it's something I wanted to get off my chest.

Rendering fat unto Ceasar

it may or may not be fading the glory but the gory red white and blue meat of it was charred to a cinder while you neglected to handle the griddle and its blackening pool of fatty answers that spits and pops greasy drops wanting to fly to a wheel any wheel left that’s not attached to axles attached to chassis attached to roofs attached to sirens hurtling bodies bloodied by joyless sticks their attacking thumbs with no prints just a serial number and a pension that causes them to intentionally twitch these deaths a world away throw that world away and turn your eyes to see reach your arms to hold and probe their discarded limbs feel their loss a loss repeated to a scream you couldn’t hear what good is your akimbo pose posing as if you had questions or doubts even when the questions ran out so long ago so long in fact that the meat you’re cooking was no longer fresh when you tossed it in that pan of foul smelling fat you thought was clear but it’s flecked with bits of sour alibis and singed hairs that float and lie to you they’re licorice coated floss

---

At the suggestion of a friend, I tried writing a poem with "no structure." I combined this exercise with the wordle prompt over at The Sunday Whirl. What emerged is much freer and, probably because of my current state of mind, much more overtly political than what I usually write. I'm sure not everyone will appreciate it, but that comes with the territory of experimentation and speaking one's mind.

I take a secret pleasure in being disabused of my fonder illusions

It was
put a bow on it pretty,
our democracy
with its polka-dot accountability
and its tissue-paper truths.

The discount-bin card arrived
separately, postage due,
and with a punctilious script
it promised us
a curlicued freedom from
antiquated forms of expression.

Our very love was
ceremoniously given,
but was it
ever right-
fully ours?

Let’s render up the flattering
notion of own,
as it's grown so fatty
lipped it wears a perpetual pout.

The gift was merely Caesar’s
grandiloquent concession
tagged liberally,
“To: Us,
a meekly over-entertained many
whose we, drained of meaning,
poses no coherent threat.”

Not yet.

Too much information running through our Web?

I take time out from endeavors of the creative kind, to issue a brief rant....

The title of the following article from February's Wired may seem counter-intuitive, but that's exactly why it's such an interesting read:

Clive Thompson on How More Info Leads to Less Knowledge
... After years of celebrating the information revolution, we need to focus on the countervailing force: The disinformation revolution. The ur-example of what [Stanford Historian Robert] Proctor calls an agnotological campaign is the funding of bogus studies by cigarette companies trying to link lung cancer to baldness, viruses—anything but their product. ...

Click the title to read the whole piece; it's worth it. It's also a concept I've been talking up to my friends for several months now: giving people easy access to wrong information is just as harmful as blocking their access to the real kind.

There's been a tremendous proliferation of sites and e-mail blasts dedicated to spreading rumor, innuendo and out-right lies in order to attack the innovative ideas that threaten the profits and outdated worldview of the status quo.

There's more of a need than ever for a healthy public skepticism, and the ability to filter authoritative news sources from manipulative ones. Without that, we may find ourselves retreating into a new Dark Age. Speaking of which, I'm overdue for another of my philosophical posts.

The neighborhood newspaper biz

This post is a bit out of character, as I don't like to delve too deeply into my non-creative activities on this site, but I also don't want to sit idly by and allow someone to mischaracterize what I do either.

For those who don't know, my friends and I started a new community-based newspaper. It's meant to open up the channels of communication in a diverse neighborhood where information doesn't always flow freely. It's a publication with a distinctly progressive voice, which will become apparent when you see this week's lead story on Naomi Klein's discussion of the financial bailout.

The paper is called The Urban Coaster, and it's beginning to get some attention. CommonDreams.Org just featured the Klein story on its national site and brought us a huge influx of new readers. Unfortunately, with the good always comes some bad. There are those in the community who don't want to see a publication succeed that gives voice to alternative views.

Ours is a strange little neighborhood, where a group of very vocal folks try to shout down anyone who disagrees with their self-aggrandizing agenda. They do this to compensate for the fact that their opinions only resonate with a small minority. Some have blogs that they use to bully others into silence, and they often do so in the most reprehensible ways. Actually, I guess that really isn't much different than the tactics of certain Fox News "personalities."

I don't want to dwell on their negativity too much, and I think the vast majority of people in the community will respond to our positive message much more than their vituperative posts. It's just a shame that some feel the need to resort to the most petty of personal attacks in order to promote their views. I'm not going to stoop to their level.

Questioning people's motives

This is the second in my series of "thinking out loud" posts loosely grouped under the banner of Toward a 21st Century Ethos. The ideas are laid down here with broad brush strokes, and the devil will most certainly be hidden in the details.

Never one to take small bites when chewing on a subject, today I try to tackle the question of what motivates people and the need to build a social economy not centered around profit and greed. To discuss economics might seem off-topic, but I would argue that how a society functions at its most fundamental level and the behavior it encourages cannot be compartmentalized from the ethics we preach in church or at home.

In our capitalistic society, no ideal is enshrined as highly or protected as thoroughly as the right to private property and profit. Our legal system was constructed to preserve it. Our myths and metaphors revolve around it.

Our cultural icons are rugged individuals who thrive on self-reliance to achieve great material success. They disdain weakness and collective action. Yes there are many exceptions, but the general storyline still runs through most of our pop-culture mythology. These are ideas that arose from and suited the needs of industrial capitalism.

Some may try to argue that as a "Christian" nation, our ethics are actually informed by the New Testament. And on an individual level that may be true, but it's not the behavior that is expected or rewarded by the prevailing social order. In fact, I would argue, that the lessons taught by Christ are often in direct opposition to those encouraged by our society.

Despite the fact that Jesus repeatedly assailed greed as a motivating force (see Matthew 19:23-24, as just one example), many Christians seem to wall-off their religious beliefs as separate from their economic ones. This is usually rationalized with Christ's own words "render unto Caesar." The meaning of those words is ambiguous, but many take it as an implicit endorsement of maintaining a split personality in our secular and spiritual lives. It may be that he was renouncing participation in the economy at any level, but I'm not here to argue his intention.

I'm also not here to argue against the separation of Church and State, which I completely agree is a vital component of our democracy. What I am here to do is argue for better aligning our social behavior with our ethical beliefs, and there are plenty of common moral principles that span the plethora of our different spiritual traditions.

Here are just a few that I think most of us can agree on: ensuring an equality of opportunity for all to contribute; serving the greater good; rewarding honesty and accountability. Our current system fails at those things in most instances. Naomi Klein, who I saw speak just last night and who is the author of The Shock Doctine, does a better job of documenting specific examples of that than I ever could.

What I would like to do in this essay is provoke people to begin to question whether the social system built up around profit and private property still suits us in a day and age when advances in technology are rendering their pursuit not only obsolete but damaging to our further growth.

There is no argument that as a social system, capitalism served some very well. I firmly believe, however, the beneficiaries of its largesse are a rapidly shrinking minority. I'm also convinced that the corrosive influence of profit-seeking as the prime motivator in our society is undermining the integrity of all our essential institutions: medicine, education, government, and beyond.

There is also a very dark cynicism to the ethos of capitalism. It feeds a myth that human beings are essentially lazy and corrupt, and that they can only be motivated by the promise of fulfilling their most selfish material desires. My experience, and I'm guessing yours too, is that most people are on the whole good-hearted and giving. They are motivated by a desire to contribute to their communities and better the situation of their families. They want a purpose in life, and to belong to something greater than themselves.

What could arise in place of a profit-based economy? I think the glimpse of an answer was provided in Pekka Himanen's book The Hacker's Ethic. It describes a culture where people are motivated by respect and recognition among their peers. These hackers (the term did not originally hold its current pejorative sense) collaborated on open source projects, not to win great riches, but to establish their reputations. Because of the collective work of so many talented indivduals, they also created much stronger products than their proprietary competitors.

How much more successfully could a society function that did not limit how its members could contribute their talents, and that did not impose false rationing of resources in order to preserve an opportunity for the few to profit at the expense of the many? It's a matter of giving up our allegiance to old and outdated ideologies, and of looking at the world with the fresh eyes of a newborn. We do have the ability to make radical changes in the way we live, but we still lack the political will.

The trends of automation, digital communications, and open-source software and hardware (check out this interesting Wired article) are pushing the cost of manufactured goods further and further down. They're reducing the possibility of profit through any but the most artificial of means. This may seem like a scary proposition, but it's also a tremendous opportunity. It offers us a chance to remake ourselves and our society. But first we need to acknowledge the moment for real change that stands so clearly before us.

Eye on the future

My friend JD left a very thoughtful comment in response to the post on my recent feeling of disequilibrium. He rightly challenged me on something that I should have never done: portray a personal opinion provoked by individual circumstance as a universal truth.

Contrary to what my statements may have implied, I am not opposed to spirituality. It's a trait that I believe lies at the core of who we are. I do have serious objections to organized religion, which I feel uses our innate inclination toward spirituality to control rather than free us. Most major religions were created under much different social circumstances than we have now. They have, in my opinion, become so intertwined with the status quo that they can't help but oppose any movement toward legitimate social change.

Of course religions aren't the only entities standing in the way of our progress. Corrupt governments, greedy corporations, and unaccountable financial institutions have also proven quite capable of making out very well while keeping us running in place. We're facing a worldwide economic meltdown, while these various mis-leaders play Nero and fiddle on amid the destruction.

I suggested to JD, half-seriously, that it might be interesting to have a dialogue to find common ground between my penchant for chaos theory and his belief that there is an organizing force in the universe. Going even further, I'd actually like to begin that conversation with a series of posts on the question: How do we arrive at an ethos for the 21st century? I'd also love to broaden it out to as many of you as would like to participate.

People around the web have been discussing the Law of Attraction for some time now. It's usually done within the context of attracting a mate or making money. I like the concept, but not the customary application. What if, however, we used the same method (listing out the characteristics we're attracted to) to conjure the future we want for our society?

I've long been an advocate of the idea that we get the future we imagine, and I hope this series of posts will be a small first step toward conjuring the future I want for the world. The ideas I'm going to discuss are in no way original. They are the synthesis of years of reading and conversing, and I'll borrow heavily from sources to which my memory can't manage the proper credit. If you know of a book or website that goes into much more details on these subjects, please do leave a comment.

This is of course very ambitious of me, and I'm not delusional enough to believe that I have a monopoly on the truth. It would help greatly if people fill in the gaps where needed, especially those with expertise in the areas discussed. In an ideal world, I hope there's even occasion for all of us to meet up face-to-face and have a more robust conversation. I know that things will only change with a groundswell of activity at the grass-roots, and the first step toward that could be finding a way for people from around the world to get together and talk about what we need.

Here's a short list of posts that came directly to mind, which I'll try to tackle over the next few weeks:

• Seeking to resolve not exploit contradictions
• A respect-based economy: removing the corrupting influence of the profit-motive
• Divesting ourselves of unnecessary things
  
• Openness, transparency and collaboration
  
• Grass-roots, direct democracy
• A non-anthropocentric universe
• One mind: piecing together the mosaic

These are meant to be wide-ranging philosophical essays, as you can tell. I'm sure that the posts will take the form of me thinking out loud, and I expect to be challenged often when I stray too far from other people's experience.

Before I dive into it, I might just take a stab at the "law of attraction" game on a much more personal level and try to solicit your help in identifying my ideal new occupation. Oh, and there will still be the weekly poems and drawings to keep us amused and distracted.

The song running through my head

Songs often run through my head unprovoked, but as Christmas wraps up for another year I have a particular tune that predictably resurfaces within my synapses for the occasion. It's John Lennon's "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" and it's a song that I wish more people would associate with the holiday.

If you truly honor the religious teachings of the man who lends his name to this holiday — a man who is also known as the "prince of peace" — you should do everything in your power to foster the golden rule that he preached surpassed all of the ten commandments: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

I dedicate this video to the incoming Obama administration, and I pray that they'll heed John Lennon's and Yoko Ono's words ... "War is over, if you want it." It's time for us to wage peace, not war.

Clowning around with a governor

This is my perhaps sophomoric attempt to portray my state's now famously clownish Governor. I contributed the cartoon to The Urban Coaster newspaper, which on this week's front page will urge the state legislature to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against Mr. Blagojevich.

We'll return to our regular programming after this brief political message ...

I'm just back from my trip to help Barack Obama carry Ohio (which he did, in case you didn't see the news), and I wanted to very briefly share a few thoughts on the experience.

Four of my friends and I traveled from the electorally secure city of Chicago to Cleveland, a toss-up territory on the shores of lake Erie. There we met our good friend Katy, who had been helping to organize the campaign in the area for five weeks. A rough-around-the-edges group of guys dubbed the Chicago Boys and the Chicago Crew, we were welcomed enthusiastically and immediately put to work out in the neighborhoods.

It began with a methodical canvassing of suburban Parma to tip the minds of those who hadn't yet decided and to motivate those who had. It ended, in the last few hours before the polls closed, with a mad dash through the streets of an impoverished area of Cleveland to make sure that everyone there had exercised their right to vote.

There are many stories to tell (and I'll gladly share them with anyone who asks me over the next days, weeks, months and years), but no amount of words can adequately capture the whole experience. Most memorable was that shared moment as the large group of local volunteers and staff nervously watched the returns around TVs and computer screens on Tuesday night. First came the news that Pennsylvania had gone to Obama, and shortly after that the giddy announcement that Ohio was also projected in our column. 

As more states were called with the closing of polls in the Midwest, we all began to realize what we had accomplished. I'll never forget the tear-streaked faces mixed in among the smiles as Obama secured the needed 270 electoral votes. Handshakes, hugs and kisses abounded as a tremendous wave of emotion washed over all of us in that office -- a scene that I'm sure was played out in countless places across the nation. 

There was a tinge of sadness that we Chicago Six couldn't be home for the big celebration in Grant Park, but it was more than compensated for with the sheer joy of watching Obama's acceptance speech at a local bar surrounded by a group of committed community organizers (and yes, after much serious dismissing of that occupation at the Republican Convention, there was some vindication here). 

Although Obama's victory is a very big, progressive step for our country and the world, it is in many ways just the first foot forward on our long and very challenging journey together. Amid the many positive memories we bring back with us from Ohio, there are also the bracing ones of naked racism discovered in some homes whose doors were opened to us. It is a reminder that there are still minds stuck in the rut of antiquated ideas, and we need to reach out and pull them into the future.

That said, this election proves that most Americans are tired of the empty ideological debates and the childish name calling. They're sick of the politics of a past where race and religion were used to divide and distract us from the tasks at hand. Beyond its already well-documented historical significance, Obama's victory is the triumph of a politics of pragmatism. We have much to do, and we can no longer afford to shunt those responsibilities onto future generations.

Individually, we need to do the hard work of organizing the communities where we live. Members of a thriving democracy don't wash their hands of their responsibilities after visiting the voting booth every four years. They dirty those hands digging in to make sure that the people we've elected are keeping the promises made to uphold the constitution and protect the public interests. Let's use this moment to come together as a nation to guarantee that this truly is the fulfilment of that long-sought and hard-fought dream of a society where we're all judged based on the content of our character.

Gone electioneering

I'll be neglecting this blog for a few days as I depart early in the morning to get out the vote for Obama in Cleveland. Having embarked on my first out-of-state canvassing trip to the Buckeye state earlier this summer, it makes for a tidy ending that my personal 2008 political voyage winds up back in Ohio.

To put us all in a Cleveland state of mind, I'm posting this video of Randy Newman's tribute to the city on the Cuyahoga. There won't be any burning rivers this week, but it could be quite the shining moment in US history nonetheless. We volunteers certainly plan to be "all on fire."

Never Follow: Losing faith in leaders

There's been a strange negativity in the air lately, at least in the bubble of activity that surrounds me. Maybe it's following me around, infecting those around me like a spreading virus, contaminating each of us with a tense vibe, injecting hostility in the meekest among us. I'm overtaken with the compulsion to challenge every opinion, every thought, every single word thrust at me.

It could be the holiday season, which is already in full swing propagandizing the need for continual conspicuous consumption. It could be the impending election year, which is being forced upon us before the calendar even flips to 2008. Whatever the cause, I have an overwhelming urge to unleash a Edvard Munch-like scream (as depicted in the artist's painting on the left) .

I won't deny the fact that I've always felt an outsider in this society. As a child I imagined myself from another world, dropped on this Earth to observe the strange behavior of the locals before being airlifted out to report back my findings. The fact that the values and ideals held up to me as models for personal behavior never jived with the operating principles of the government and businesses that control our lives certainly contributed to that alienation.

I've been searching my whole life for someone to trust. I want to give myself to a cause or an organization that will put me to work for real change, but I inevitably find myself forced to choose between corruption and marginalization. This system of ours has an indefatigable capacity to absorb and transform all resistance to serve its own purposes.

I'm stupid and stubborn enough to keep butting my head up against society's well fortified walls. One day, the collective impacts may weaken them enough to cause it all to come tumbling down on me. Until then, I'll remain an isolated voice shouting into the gale-force winds, cupping my ears to catch the faintest peep of a response, hoping to find those equally lost in the maelstrom who also refuse to go along just to get along.

Never Follow
by Naked Raygun

Follow me
I'll take you there
You needn't think
You needn't care
On the way
We'll find some others
Baptize with lies
And make them brothers

No I will never follow
I will never follow
Your truth diseased and hollow
No I will never follow

Forget your thoughts
Forget your will
Tell that voice inside
To just keep still
If it gets to be too much
Just turn your eyes away
The free individual
Is from a bygone day

No I will never follow
I will never follow
Your truth diseased and hollow
No I will never follow
I'll be your destroyer
Your world's great annoyer
I'll be your destroyer
No worn propaganda for me

Follow me
I'll take you there
You needn't think
You needn't care
We all go gentle
Into that good night
There'll be no more raging
Against the dying of the light

No I will never follow
I will never follow
Your truth diseased and hollow
No I will never follow
I'll be your destroyer
Your world's great annoyer
I'll be your destroyer
No guns, knives nor lawyers
No I will never follow
You can't take my will away
My dreams will never say die

Praying for rain and other idol pursuits

In a brilliant demonstration of true political leadership, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue cast aside all pretense at worldly solutions to the state's water crisis and threw himself down before God in hopes of divine intervention (see Georgia governor leads prayer for rain from the Los Angeles Times for the details of his plea). Adding to the irony of the strange event is the fact that the rain-seeking pol's first name is Sonny.

I'm sure his folks named him for either a happy disposition or childlike nature, not his ability to shed light. The causes of Georgia's drought are no doubt complex, and the desperate situation may incline the locals toward miracle solutions, but our elected officials should be addressing policy changes not supernatural entities. Georgia's, and the rest of America's, shameful misuse of resources might well deserve penance and the invocation of God's mercy, but the first step to forgiveness is always amended behavior.

For far too long we Americans have engaged in the profligate burning of fossil fuels; not caring about the repercussions of our selfish actions. The reckless disregard of our land, air and water is finally catching up to us. Decades of blackening the sky with our filth is disrupting weather patterns so that some get flooding while others get drought.

Casting economic development in the image of our true savior, we've built sprawling suburbs that replace filtering wetlands with impervious blacktop. As monuments to our vanity, preferring the semblance of a neatly ordered world, we've topped the earth with insatiably thirsty, well-manicured lawns. Bowing down before their new gilded idols, our politicians have sacrificed we constituents to the ravenous appetites of corporations and granted them as tribute the right to dump waste and toxins into our fresh water supplies.

Georgia is a good demonstration of the false pride of our old ways. What good is it to have big houses, fancy cars and booming digital TVs if we don't have fresh water to drink, or clean air to breathe. Governor Perdue may think he can fool us with a deathbed conversion to conservation, but we'll need to see more action and less self-flagellation.

I've always found it interesting that some people view prayer as a way to curry favor with God. There's a wonderful naiveté in the bargaining that takes place. These supplicants usually say they believe in an omnipotent and omniscient God, yet they think they can mouth a few flowery words and make an idle promise or two to trick their supreme being into granting a reprieve.

I'm not a religious man, but I do believe in a spiritual universe. The best way to praise the divine is through inspired, compassionate action not empty words. The first step is to rededicate ourselves to respect the creation that we've abused for so long. Then we can stop perpetuating our own selfish comforts at the cost of the world's suffering.

It reminds me of an old Randy Newman song, and although I don't completely agree with the singer's biting attack on the religiously minded, there's much truth in his criticism of those foolishly looking for change to come from above rather than from within.

God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)
by Randy Newman

Cain slew Abel, Seth knew not why
For if the children of Israel were to multiply
Why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:

Man means nothing he means less to me
Than the lowliest cactus flower
Or the humblest Yucca tree
He chases round this desert
Cause he thinks that's where I'll be
That's why I love mankind

I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
From the squalor, and the filth, and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That's why I love mankind

The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said "Lord a plague is on the world
Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Won't you please please let us be?"
And the Lord said
And the Lord said

I burn down your cities — how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why I love mankind
You really need me
That's why I love mankind

Image: Praying Hands (Betende Hände) by Albrecht Dürer.

Veterans Day: Recalling heroes of war and peace

Thoughts straddling the boundary between the actual and observed Veterans Day, I chose to use the time to meditate on the subjects of war, peace and heroism. The service proffered by my father, grandfather, uncle and several close friends comes to mind on the occasion, and I hope my words honor them in some way.

Until 1954, November 11th was known as Armistice Day in the U.S. and marked the end of World War I on that date in 1918. For the past 50 odd years it's been re-christened and re-purposed here. Speechifying politicians use the day more to promote militarism than commemorate peace, especially in times of war such as our own. Most of these orators won't have ever served in any hostilities.

None of the veterans I've known can discuss their times in combat with anything better than mixed emotions. Warfare is a deeply scarring experience. Mythologist Joseph Campbell discussed soldiers in the context of "the hero's journey," and he emphasized that no matter how we judge the political motives of a war, those who fight it do so from the belief they are sacrificing themselves for a greater cause.

It's because of that very nobility of spirit we should hold up to close scrutiny the politicians who send our loved ones off to fight their battles. To take advantage of the heroism of these young men and women for selfish political or economic ends would rank among the most shameful acts. For the press and voters to blindly acquiesce to a leader's call for war without asking hard and penetrating questions is equally inexcusable. I leave it to the reader to decide if either applies to events present and past.

Besides the soldiers who wage war, I'd also like to remember the martyrs who sacrificed themselves for peace. Sometimes our misleaders' stubborn refusal to admit a mistake can only be overcome through persistent protest on the home front. As with those sent overseas, these veterans of the anti-war movement fought for their ideals and often put themselves at risk.

Coincidentally, November 12th is favorite musician Neil Young's 62nd birthday, and he penned a moving tribute to just such heroes for peace: the four victims of the Kent State Massacre.

Ohio
by Neil Young

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Note: Image from New York Times photo with caption "Thousands gather at the Subtreasury Building on Wall Street during Armistice Day, 1918."

Afraid to over-react: Is the Sky Falling in?

Honestly, it's not in my nature to over-react. I tend to be cautious in most things. I want everything to work out for the best. I try to be patient and let events resolve themselves before jumping to conclusions, but these are trying times.

It's hard not to feel a bit panicked by the clouds that are gathering on the country's horizons (see Fed Chief Warns of Worse Times in the Economy from the New York Times). The dollar is plummeting as foreign investors seek the safe harbor of more stable currencies. The housing market's overblown bubble is in full burst, and mortgage lenders have a hand out to the Federal government in hopes of a bailout of their improperly hedged bets.

Over-extended homeowners have little expectation of any help from Uncle Sam. The threat of inflation is mounting as the daily cost of basic services continues to climb, and the oil based economy feels the ripples of record breaking petroleum prices. State and local budgets are in perpetual crisis as federal monies are drained by an all-consuming war.

Most Americans don't offer more than a glimpse at the business page, but that's where all of the action is these days as the Federal Reserve Bank pours millions into the market to try to soothe the overheated minds of skittish money changers. The hard-pressed Chairman is doing everything he can to prop up an economy teetering on a foundation of self-deception.

We can't look for leadership from Washington, as our politicians have outfitted themselves in the rosy habit of Pollyanna; preferring to ignore the looming dark omens rather than suffer the fate of Cassandra (the image above is from a painting of the ignored Trojan seer by Evelyn De Morgan).

As we're abandoned by the top-down leaders who cast off their social responsibilities in favor of a threadbare government nakedly in service to their corporate masters, we'll need to build a new foundation from below. Before we can do that, we'll have to overcome the conceptual gaps keeping us from connecting with each other. It's time to trade in our aloofness and cynicism for compassion and hope.

Where I End and You Begin
(The Sky is Falling in.)
by Radiohead

There's a gap in between
There's a gap where we meet
Where I end & you begin
And I'm sorry for us
The dinosaurs roam the earth
The sky turns green
Where I end & you begin
I am up in the clouds
I am up in the clouds
And I can't
& I can't come down
I can watch but
Not take part
Where I end & where you start
Where you you left me alone
You left me alone.
X will mark the place
Like a parting of the waves
Like a house falling into the
sea

I will eat you all alive

And there'll be no more lies

Peace, a meditation in 4 parts: Four, Defying Doubters

Those of us who cling to hope in cynical times often face the mockery of a world filled with doubters. Peace is seen by these naysayers as a foolish dream, always doomed to be undermined by what they glibly describe as humanity's combative nature.

Even if they're right, and I don't believe they are, which is the more noble endeavor: to endlessly strive like Sisyphus against impossible odds; or to never aspire to greatness and meekly accept defeat?

We certainly have a steep hill to climb to get to Peace, but recent technological developments should create optimism that the rock is rolling in the right direction. The envisioned path to victory is still taking shape, but the vague outlines of our destination grow crisper each day.

With the improvements in communications, old barriers are collapsing and people are connecting as never before across the crumbling walls. It's becoming harder for those in power to filter our view of others through the warped lens of prejudice.

For those with the curiosity to seek it, a vast amount of information is more freely available than ever before. Given access to an encyclopedic array of resources, we can see, hear and experience the complexity of the world as never before; but we're also interacting with that world more creatively.

The new web-based media tools give us the ability to not only passively absorb other perspectives, but to project our essential selves out into the universe and engage it in a lively conversation. This mixing of varied experiences, in combination with a new capacity to tinker, will help unlock previously unimagined possibilities for progress.

Increased familiarity with other points of view will breed new loyalties, and a contempt for those authorities who continue to perpetuate false divisions. Power dynamics will shift, and old parties will see their influence fade if they don't adjust to these realities. It will be a moment of great opportunity, but also of great danger as the defenders of an inevitably failing status quo will do what they can to hold on to their advantages.

Our best hope lies in staying true to our cause. The moment we put the service of an ideology or political theory ahead of the best interests of humanity and the Earth, we've lost the battle. Our goal is to achieve a peaceful, sustainable existence, not prove the supremacy of a particular viewpoint. If our leaders make demands of us that jeopardize that outcome, we need to find new ones.

Can we win world peace? Changing a question into an exclamation is as simple as altering the inflection of our voice. Rather than asking the cynics what's wrong with wanting peace, love and understanding, we need to insist that nothing is.

(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?
by Elvis Costello

As I walk through, this wicked world
Searching for light in the darkness of insanity
I ask myself, is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred and misery?
And each time I feel like this inside
There's one thing I want to know
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding?
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding?

As I walk on, through troubled times
My spirit gets so downhearted, sometimes
So, where are the strong?
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony? ... Sweet harmony!
'Cause each time I feel it slip away,
Just makes me want to cry ...
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding?
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding?

So, where are the strong?
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony? ... Sweet harmony!
'Cause each time I feel it slip away,
Just makes me want to cry ...
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding?
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding?
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding!