Well, really, you have to be completely nuts, to take a righteous stand in today's world. You have to risk everything to follow the truth. Why is it that we call assassins "heroes", and put peacemakers in jail? Being against killing, being against poverty, being against exploitation is a crime. Being for human rights, being for an end to violence, being for a sane ecological future is criminal.
The elephant in the room when discussing US History is that we have not changed from our attitudes about slavery, from our Indian Holocaust, from our Manifest Destiny. We have just taken our very consistent actions further afield. Except now we US citizens have openly become victims of US foreign policy. (example: drone surveillance inside our boarders) and many get arrested or beaten up if they want to expose or change this.
Watching the Iraq and Afghanistan vets throw away their metals was very encouraging to me. The veterans who go through the torment and inner awakening that changes them from warriors to peacemakers is one of the most profound spiritual events of our time. It is a difficult act to recognize that you were wrong or criminal in your action, admit it publicly, try to make amends, change the course of your life. These people are heroes to me. They have pulled from deep within themselves their truth.
I think that Bradley Manning is a hero. He helped expose a devastatingly corrupt foreign policy that is daily hurting countless people all over the globe. I suppose that most people haven't read many of the Wikileaks. Even random pages are worth perusing.
I don't think that we Americans have easy lives. It seems to me that the amount of anxiety, discontent, addictions, depression and so on that we suffer has to be connected to our collective karma. So the people who find community, find transformation, find, hope, share love and food and funny stories are my heroes. It doesn't matter to me whether your redemption is in Iraq Vets for Peace, or AA, or a CSA, or a local church, or in Darmasala with the Dalai Lama. I admire it all. It is the business of our times and it can't help but change the planet for the better.
I have been hearing about the big bad world from my teenage years , first with the Guru when those much older (it seemed anyway when you are 13,14,15 and they are in their 20's) talked about the evils of the worl and the fight against the monkey mind. I was into it for a while, then I started delving into being a teenager in the 70's and the wave of the 60's and we all know what that entails.
ReplyDeleteIt gave me a good spiritual base and I had some astounding spiritual experiences in meditation (without psychadelics I might add. With a firm belief that war and killing was bad goes without saying, but what about the violences we commit and are subject to in our young lives. Of course some of us are and some of us are not. The world I was exposed to is so different that the world today. There are those that are more compassionate and are more awake to what is happening in the world and then they are those who like to build their protective bubble and ignore what is happening in the greater world beyond our borders, and the oceans that separate us from them.
The image that Americans are taught is that we are the heros, the champions, the saviors, the do gooders that we are just. From the countries beginnings however, were quite to the contrary. And isn't it still true? We are told the premise for the Iraq war is a threat, of a connection to the 911 tragedy, and WMD's did not exist and was a blatant lie.
Once the war began and we destroyed the cities, were innocent the victims our 'shock and awe.' campaign. The media like to portray our position there as saving them Saddam Hussein and installing democracy. Was it our business to inflict this? Or was it the Bush family settling old debts and creating the war machine for profit for the 1%.
I divert, but what could we do in our little protected lives ? I was so disappointed, so devasted by the horror and the killing. And horrified by people who drove around beeping horns waving flags at our victory, how gross. Oh well my new motto is "dance, dig, and be nice"
For something more we can do, in addition to ranting or adopting "dance,dig, and be nice," go to http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-reckoning-with-torture/ Thank you.
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