These are in Previous Comments posted in PILGER FILM, “Palestine is Still the Issue,” VINDICATED BY INDEPENDENT TELEVISION COMMISSION
From: Yvonne Garcia [yvonneg@tampabay.rr.com]
Media Lens is wonderful…thank you…I subscribed.
I read an article on their site, HAPPINESS IS DISSENT – THE TRUTH ABOUT 'LOOKING AFTER NUMBER 1,' and here are two paragraphs that grabbed me:
Unrestrained hedonism, relentless consumption, “greed is good”, “the 'me' culture” – all of it has failed, horribly. It doesn't necessarily feel like it has failed. Facts and figures, and even personal misery aside, it is in the nature of greed that it blinds us to the negative consequences of our selfishness – the advertisers and political servants of corporate society are forever on hand to give any doubters a persuasive leg-up.
We can choose to continue to be deceived if we like, but it won't make any difference – we will not find happiness in self-obsession. Meanwhile we will continue generating the global environmental conditions that will quickly increase our suffering to a point where denial will no longer be possible. The choice is ours: we can either begin seriously experimenting with the benefits of working for the well being of others, or continue trudging the neon-lit boulevard to personal and global disaster. It looks pretty, but as buddhists also tell us, it is merely “honey on the razor's edge”.
You know, Suzanne, so much of my life I always put the needs of others before mine, and I had come to believe after years of therapy and all kinds of consciousness paths I have taken that I was just not loving myself. I think this is true, but that impulse I have had since very young was not wrong — and, when I look back, no matter how difficult it might have been or even if I got “burnt,” I was happiest when following that impulse. Now, I think I have come to love myself as well, and have mercy on myself as well, and so I found this article very good.
Suzanne to Yvonne:
The world has become so threatening that any instincts toward hedonism seem infantile now, and those of us who always have been serving hardly have to wrestle with issues about whether we're corrupt in so doing. But also we have to lead the examined life, and to understand what makes us tick, so that we earn our comfort with ourselves. I went to college near where W.H. Auden used to live, and on his old residence there was a couplet of his carved in stone on a plaque. It has remained meaningful to me:
“If equal affection cannot be,Let the more loving one be me.”
From: David Edwards [editor@medialens.org] [David is one of the co-editors of Media Lens]
Thanks so much for your positive response to our Media Alerts and for posting them on to other people – it's very encouraging. Keep going!
Suzanne to David
Seeing as you've written a Buddhist book, look at these pieces on my old site:
A Public Talk by Thich Nhat Hanh at the Riverside Church, New York, New Holy War Against Evil? by David R. Loy, What I Would Say to Osama bin Laden — Interview with Thich Nhat Hanh by Anne A. Simpkinson
Where are you?
David to Suzanne
I'm based in Bournemouth (UK) and my co-editor Dave Cromwell is up the road at Southampton University. Where are you? How many people do you reach?
Suzanne to David
I have about 250 people on my list. I want it to be personal and only solicit people I'm interested in, so that good people get on the same page. I think a collective focus for thought-shapers can change the world, a la the famous Margaret Mead quote. Here's a piece of feedback today, as much for you as for me:
“Just dropping you a note to say that your Conversation page is now my designated “receiving place” that I check in on every day for food for thought. Your insightful comments on selections that you have chosen to include have illuminated me about how tilted and biased the mainstream media has been, especially over the past few months. It's clear that it has chosen to remain obsequious to our tyrannical administration. Thank goodness for the alternative press that sees through whatever rubbish the media throws out at us.”
I'm in Los Angeles. You know, I've spent a lot of time in England, in crop circles. That's the big story that will rock the world — the only thing I can see that would shift consciousness and conceivably get us out of the mess we are in. Could we keep shooting at one another once we knew we were under observation? I don't think so. It's as amazing that it is being ignored as it is that it is happening. We aren't making the outstanding formations, so what is? There is mind at work. Where is it housed? Are you hip to the phenomenon, or just as blasé as most English people are?
David to Suzanne
I'm afraid I probably fall into your 'blasé' category – I've never paid much attention to the crop circles issue and was happy with the 'people with planks and string' explanation. But our concerns are probably not that different. I believe that excessive concern for the self is the cause of most of our problems, and that increased concern for others is the solution. Keep going with the great work…
Suzanne to David
Comments? Click hereYou've nailed it re concern for the self rather than for each other as the fundamental problem. However, I would love to enroll you in at least having crop circle curiosity, given how dire things are for humanity and what a hope they hold for a consciousness shift. Even cursory attention brings you to the understanding that we cannot be making them. See the latest “challenge” piece I've written.
COMMENTS
Oh my goodness, are you hitting with this quote!! I was just in my bathroom using my fancy magnetic water floss, and wondering what it would be like to not have this luxury? How would care for my teeth? And then I flashed on the images of Iraqi people we have seen of mother holding child and the like, and I felt a deep sense of awareness of just how LITTLE most Americans understand on a feeling level the suffering of these countries. How can we, without deep reflection, since most, even low income people, have it so good by comparison? And then I checked my email and there was this quote.
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