Politics, Leaders, and Followers

Politics is larger than life. Our relationships to leaders are reduced to those of children looking upon a distant parent. We tend to demonize or sanctify them! Reality is distorted. If you are a leader you sign up for being “the reason” why things appear to be working or failing. Leaders cannot be leaders without followers. Look to the quality of followers to understand the quality and power of the leaders.  (+)

Former President Barack Obama honors Sen. John McCain

Originally posted by Americ on 9/8/2016 We are in unprecedented times. We look at a world on the brink of chaos. It is crucial to vote by Nov. 3rd. Make your voice heard. Bring light to the darkness. 

The power is yours. 

Civilization, Terror, and Real Security

Today, the biggest "temples" are skyscrapers devoted to office work; no cathedrals at the center of town devoted to worship of a Higher Power. The true religion of world civilization is money. The attack upon of the World Trade Center in New York City was not just an "attack upon America" but an attack upon the current modes of world civilization. Terrorism challenges civilization, just like street crime challenges a local community. Crime is a symptom of a social sickness; terrorism is the surface symptom of systemic disorder in civilization.

What's wrong with civilization now? We must ask and dig into this question. This question has been asked since the beginning of the industrial revolution. And, needs to be asked even more now. The terrorism that we suffer now is happening as a tension between the oil producing and oil consuming parts of our civilized modern world. I have no answers, but ask that we just look at this tension in all its dimensions.

Modern global civilization depends on freeways, cheap petroleum, making lots of stuff, shipping stuff here and there, extensive personal and business travel, telecommunications and computer networks. These are the wonders, and potential downfalls, of our age.

Our money-oil based global civilization undermines the Earth itself. Without Life on earth, the notion of "economy" is meaningless. Our governments, businesses, and households assume "growth" as the prime measure of a healthy economy. Earth has finite resources. Humans are now hitting Earth's walls. It's time to renew our models of economic health to include the health of all life on the planet -- not just humans. Economic grow alone is very dangerous at this time.

Commuting in private cars to work is not an acceptable form of civilization. Freeways are the backbone of modern urban civilization. They encourage sprawl - commuting from one city to another. Freeways, in the morning are clogged with cars in both directions -- going to work where you do not live sometimes one or two hours away. Pedestrian communities need to become the norm. Work, live and play within walking distance of your bedroom.

The consumer economy with its advertising and marketing system, encourages spiritual bankruptcy to increase the making, selling and buying of "goods" to create satisfaction that never stays. So we must go on to consuming more.

Security will come from little actions. Little actions change the world. Save a bit of a tree by NOT using the wood coffee stir stick to mix the half-and-half in. You know that the cream will swirl around by itself. Drive a little less, walk more. You'll be healthier and have cleaner air. Don't just air travel on a whim, even if you can afford it. Stay near home; become a tourist in your neighborhood. Find work near home. Life will become more relaxed. Share cars. Go for "growth in value", not growth in consumption. A new kind of consumerism is needed: a consumerism of knowledge and wisdom rather than things. Place more value on time with friends and family rather than exchanging gifts. Remember that you buy your money with the time in your life -- time that you could have used for real relationship with friends and family instead of buying things and experiences.

This post-consumer world will not be so wealthy in material, but will be much wealthier in spirit -- we'll have more time for being and creativity. This could become the basis of a real security, of a world that does not breed terrorism. A world where the tension between oil production and oil consumption is not the fuel of politics, religious wars and hate campaigns.

Civilization as we know it now will either collapse or transform. I vote for transformation; for the gradual changing of our ways of life until we get to a life positive form of civilization. This post-consumer world will also be a world without terror as we know it now. It will be a kinder place.

Published in Berkeley Daily Planet, July 3, 2007.

Image from Eagle Rock Trading Post.

Become Peace

Spiritual consciousness looks inward to the “self” for the causes of problems. It offers no solutions to social problems, but the radical root of a sound foundation for good religious and political action.

Religious consciousness works with inter-personal relationships as the causes and resolutions of problems. Religious consciousness without a strong link to the spirit easily takes over behaviors of groups – so that we have the “letter but not the spirit of the law.”

Political consciousness is “world” centered. Politics is just a step beyond religious consciousness. The same feelings that are religious interchange with religious patterns of behavior and thinking. Religious groups often try to take control of politics; or, politics tries to control religion. The founders of the American Constitution insisted on the separation of church and state for these reasons.

Some years ago, a friend of mine took me to task on my political activism, pointing out that “first we must change ourselves, before we can change the world.” Eventually, I understood his wisdom.

I admit it – I want a peaceful world, where people live in harmony. Not a very exciting vision. Peace is a precondition for happiness. To get there, I need to stay with the first step – which is to learn to be peaceful myself. Than learn to share that state with others around me.

In other words: be the peace that I want to see in the world.

Political Chaos

Power

Chris Matthews Says Trump Can't Fire Mueller

Naomi Klein: How to Resist Trump's Shock Doctrine

Pulled Over ...

Pulled Over in Short Hills, NJ, 8:00 AM

Related Poem Content Details

BY ROSS GAY

It’s the shivering. When rage grows

hot as an army of red ants and forces

the mind to quiet the body, the quakes

emerge, sometimes just the knees,

but, at worst, through the hips, chest, neck

until, like a virus, slipping inside the lungs

and pulse, every ounce of strength tapped

to squeeze words from my taut lips,

his eyes scanning my car’s insides, my eyes,

my license, and as I answer the questions

3, 4, 5 times, my jaw tight as a vice,

his hand massaging the gun butt, I

imagine things I don’t want to

and inside beg this to end

before the shiver catches my

hands, and he sees,

and something happens. 

 

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Copyright details:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/92118#poem

Governor Andrew Cuomo Calls on New Yorkers to Unite in the Fight for Tolerance and Justice

Economist August 1st Cover

http://www.economist.com/printedition/covers/2016-07-28/e-eu-la-me-na-uk

Politics

Bernie Sanders 'put a bird on it' at Portland rally

Could not resist publishing this photo from the 2016 presidential races.

Walt Whitman ~ This is what you shall do

"This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."

"This is what you shall do..." by Walt Whitman, from the preface of Leaves of Grass. Public domain.

New American OccuPie 1

Clyde Leland's brilliant musical social political commentary inspired by the original Occupy Movement. Clyde's "New American OccupPie 1" transcends the Occupy Movement, deserving a place within mainstream social-political-entertainment culture. This is music and song for sparking dialogue among friends and critics.

Political “Idiots”

"Our word 'idiot' comes from the Greek idiotes which was the term to describe someone who lived an entirely private existence and took no part in the public life of the city. Most of us today are idiots, then, inasmuch as we fail to exercise our political intelligence." – David Miller, Professor of Political Theory, Oxford University*

* David Miller. Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2003. page 48.

Obama Meets With Dangerous World Leader Without Preconditions

Obama Meets With Dangerous World Leader Without Preconditions