Monthly Report
December, 2002
As I continue in my shift from reporting to problem solving as my primary focus, things in the world feel surreal to me, like watching everyone fiddling while Rome is burning. With the preponderance of intelligence telling us that invading Iraq will start World War III, and that we'll be waking a sleeping giant who will give us back what he'd never initiate against us, everyday life seems unaffected. Although there are huge numbers of us who oppose what our government is doing, it almost feels like a soap opera to listen to echoes of protest that make wisps of noise. As issues of the day have gone from startling new events and revelations to sputters of outrage at continuing quagmires and abuses, even the eloquence of some of the critics of our march to Armageddon have become less of a grab for me than have thoughts I've characterized as coming from what's "farthest out" and "farthest in," where we might find some solutions.
I don't fool myself into expecting to be able to move the world, but that doesn't stop me from trying. And I have something nobody else who is trying has, and that's my knowledge about crop circles. I toy with how to run with that baton.
I've sent some preliminary communications to a few people who think about how to make radical change, to see what I can do to initiate a serious consideration of this topic. Here's what I've been saying.
CROP CIRCLE INQUIRY
This is an invitation to try to envision an explanation for what cannot be explained.
As World War III looms, as a smallpox epidemic is a possibility, as a nuclear detonation might occur, and as we are guaranteed that it's a matter of time before something worse than the Twin Towers happens, I want to call attention to a ray of hope that is outside the parameters of our helplessness. It is the crop circle phenomenon, where a readily perceivable intelligence has been penetrating our reality for many years, using surfaces on Earth to make artworks. The predominant canvas has been crop fields -- some 2,000 occurrences on farms worldwide since 1989, when an escalation occurred in the number of incidents and in their complexity.
Realizing we're being visited by another intelligence would make everyone consider what is beyond the reality in which we are so threatened. However, as Indians didn't see Spanish frigates that invaded the New World, humanity has no category for perceiving crop circles. There's a leap required for people to open their eyes to the fact that we are receiving communications from an unknown source.
Crop circles are not accidental. They are full of intent, which comes from mind. The evidence for them not being natural and not being human-made is overwhelming. For instance, the latest discovery is a crystalline structure in surface soil that oonly is present in geologic sediments way down deep, that have been exposed to heat from Earth's core and pressure from the top for millions of years. Even if, as gets proposed, there is some secret technology that we may be testing or employing, that wouldn't account for the crop circles that were happening way before there was advanced technology. As the great geometer, John Martineau, says, "Even if there is oonly oone real formation -- that should be enough! It's like John Michell said in the early days -- when the writing appears on the wall you can jump up and down and say 'do it again,' you can denounce it as a hoax, or you can read what it says."
Here are a few questions to puzzle over:
What auspice could have the keen sense of aesthetics with which to make such beautiful designs?
How do the circlemakers know about events on Earth, like eclipses, or practices on Earth that use symbols?
How do you account for geometry that's more advanced than ours?
What accounts for formations being carefully placed in the landscape -- what they point to and what they tangent, their relationship to tractor tracks and to due north, that tails of scorpions and "thought bubbles" trail down steepish hills, that related patterns miles apart form isosceles triangles, and much more in their placement that indicates mind and intent?
How can there be a response to human thought, like meditations producing the pattern being meditated on?
How do crops get woven and plaited, and plants as stiff as celery get bent into right angles without breaking?
What can beam formations into fields leaving no muddy footprints after stormy arrivals, with plants unbroken by trampling, where whole formations or elements in some of them occur where there is no means of access, and much more that mitigates against human stomping?
What is the reason that cameras break, batteries drain, cell phones don't work and compasses spin in and above formations?
Why do the ratios of elements in many crop circles correspond to the diatonic scale?
How come hilly ground gets formations that are perfectly symmetrical from the air?
Why do plants from seeds taken from formations grow as much as five times faster than control plants?
All these things, and many more, do not fit in conventional reality. Can you speculate about what sort of unconventional reality we could be dealing with?
"A great power has arisen, directing thoughts and perception in a certain direction, towards a more complete and satisfactory view of reality than the modern conventions of materialism have previously allowed. Gently, subtly,with no disturbance or panic, we are being guided across a watershed, from oone world view to another. And this is in no way arbitrary, but a purposeful process, in accordance with the interests of eternal nature and the necessities of the present. We can now see something of what the ancients meant when they spoke of revelation."
-John Michell-
Next, I want to put in another encouragement to become familiar with the work of Brian Swimme. By my lights, it's the post-materialism "new story" we are looking for. Brian's cosmology, about where we came from and what we're doing here, ennobles this human adventure. It is compelling enough so that oonce you see with Brian's eyes, your world has a new context -- tuning into his body of thought is transformative. Here are excerpts from emails from Yvonne Garcia (bluewaters@peoplepc.com), a new listmember, which echo my feelings about the importance of this work (the connecting dots are hers):
I have Brian Swimme's "Canticles to the Cosmos" tapes, and am on my second listening. I am convinced there is no more important work than his and Thomas Berry's [Berry is Brian's mentor] -- they put it together for us and give us the information and the "story." It has created a shift in me where I don't think I can ever put my head in the sand again.
Brian's work has helped me to "re-educate" myself to the genetic code that has to be awakened...and Brian speaks of the cultural code that most people live by...that it has stifled and silenced the genetic code, but the genetic code is there and has been from the beginning...maybe it was Berry that says this, but anyway...cheez...there is so much. So glad you emailed me, I feel like I might have blown up not being able to share some of this with someone who is really listening.
I feel as Brian has stated so often...we need a NEW story. The zillion isolated things that I have done through out my life NEVER included the "whole" story from the beginning...our evolution...the fireball...up until now. I am literally made of the same stuff as everyone...every entity...well...I have "believed" this before, but NEVER have understood to such a depth. That empirical info Brian talks about is very important...WORLD VIEW operates all the time no matter what we think we believe or path we try to follow. World view has to change and everything else follows. Today I went to a tai chi class. The teacher is very much aware of what Brian speaks of because of her shamanic and tai chi background. She said, as we stood in a chi gong position, that the earth is always giving energy, that we are rooted to the earth and that we need not do anything to make it happen. Well, this is stuff I have heard before, but now all of sudden the earth was giving me energy and my whole body started vibrating. I know that if people could just see and hear the story and be open to the it...goodness, we come from the same fireball...the same bacteria...the same worm...the same fish...etc., etc. It is a totally different world view from, "I am one with the Divine," and, "I am this or that." I listen to Brian's tapes every day as a form of voluntary brainwashing to wash the old world view OUT of my brain.
I have found that metaphysical friends think they understand, but they are still caught, as I still am partially, in the Newtonian world view...seeing ourselves sitting "outside" of the universe, although saying "we are oone" It's a profound gift that Brian has given us, for nowhere have I found the story told in a manner that can reach anyone, no matter what their orientation. There's more about Brian Swimme on my WebRadio page. Please read, or listen to me read "The Universe is a Green Dragon."
Lastly, I felt lucky this week happening to catch Dr. Charles Grob on the radio. You can listen here. Charley is the director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. He's probably the most prominent person in the medical establishment to preach the value of hallucinogens, for which he has grant money for studies. He was on fairly mainstream local Los Angeles radio (albeit the highbrow end -- a station that carries NPR) for an hour. Larry Mantle, the interviewer, was very cogent in treating this like the important topic it is. Mantle introduced the subject by saying how hallucinogens early on were studied by intellectuals, and talking about there being an interest in what hallucinogens might offer in the way of consciousness raising. Charley's new edited collection of articles is "Hallucinogens: A Reader" -- it has all five star reviews at Amazon. When I emailed Charley to tell him how good he was, this is what he said back:
I'm never quite sure what will happen when I talk to the press, but I feel it's an important enough issue that lately I'm more willing to take the chance. I agree with you that our world appears to be in perilous shape these days, and that we need to speak up. I also believe that these substances, particularly the plants, are communicating with us, and that their message is that we (human-kind) are on the verge of destroying the planet and that we must take action before it's too late (and hopefully it's not yet too late).
While new things since the beginning of October have been sent to people who are on a list for Updates, they haven't been archived in their proper slots anywhere yet. The only things that have been archived are the Monthly Reports and the Updates that have gone out to listmembers. Anyone new to the site can read recent entries in these two categories for a skeletal catch-up on how we are Making Sense of These Times.
November, 2002
Welcome to The Conversation. It is a playing field for me and for Mighty Companions to rabble rouse for a better world.
The outrage many are expressing is starting to be heard. The New York Times reported the October 26 protest in Washington as disappointing, with attendance "in the thousands" -- typical of what the mainstream media has been doing in ignoring or downplaying any protests that have gone on. But then, I got this in email : "NEW YORK TIMES DOES ABOUT-FACE ON OCTOBER 26 ANTI-WAR COVERAGE: Outraged people across the country demanded a truthful and unbiased news story." The about-face story said the march had been a beyond expectation success: "The rally was like a huge gust of wind into the sails of the antiwar movement," said Brian Becker, an organizer of the Washington protest. "Our goal was not simply to have a big demonstration, but to give the movement confidence that it could prevail. The massive turnout [between 100,000 and 200,000] showed it's legitimate, and it's big."
The media being a mirror for what's going on with watchers, it's interesting to note one telling reflection of this amped up time of challenge. Last year, on the TV show, "24," they were dealing with a potential assassination of a presidential candidate. It was replete with threats to him and to his family, and with danger to those trying to thwart the plot. This season, there is a nuclear bomb under Los Angeles, with 24 hours to defuse. There's a hot fire under everybody this time, around a clock that will stretch out for half a year. As we watch, and consider the possible outcome, it feels to me not so unlike how it is off TV. We sit in a tinderbox. Will we burn? When will it happen? What can we do?
This "Making Sense of These Times" website is for sharing stories and perceptions, so people who think along progressive lines can experience a linkage that can help flip the understanding that our culture is stuck in, where might makes right. We look together here for how to transcend our current reality to bring about peace. How can we acquire the collective mind that moves us from separation to a oneness that concerns itself with the good of all? We need to understand the negative, and to look for how to transcend its pull. And this isn't preaching, but the demands of pure necessity.
Along with my penchant for alliance, comes my passion to engender a broad awareness of the fact that humanity isn't the only high intelligence in play. That realization will dawn if people merely pay attention to the crop circle phenomenon. We are in an expanded reality with another life form that is able to think and to design and to act in ways that are even superior to what we can do, and that realization has to change who we are. In that larger band of possibility, fascination can outweigh the aggression that we can ill afford in a world where our smarts about science have so outstripped our wisdom about spirit.
Note: This site is still under conversion to a blog format, and before that's up the only thing that is changing here is this Monthly Report. New things that are going into the blog aren't available to be seen in that format yet, but there are new entries all the time that are being sent to the members of our list. If you would like to be on the list, email me: suzanne@mightycompanions.org.
October, 2002
The worse it gets in an America we hardly recognize, the more agitated we become. The powerlessness of people of vision -- the likes of all of us who've made "Stupid White Men" a bestseller -- is a driving force catalyzing new efforts to make that vision manifest. I am energized now to move out ahead of my train, which isn't going fast enough in my little microcosmic corner of the world. In addition to maintaining the website, what I am jumping into is a format where conversation leads and the smart things being said in the world press are its fodder.
The genius of Web sites for accommodating multiple points of view is nowhere better illustrated than in the recent on-line craze for public diaries, or "blogs." The term is a shortening of Weblog -- and also the name of the easy-tuse technology available at www.blogger.com: "Push-Button Publishing for the People."...Blogs are sites maintained by individuals. Bloggers post a running diary of their thoughts and activities, and usually respond to e-mail from readers. There are thought to be as many as a million bloggers, most of them ranting and fuming on a decidedly local level. But some -- like New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan's excoriating Daily Dish, and Steve MacLaughlin's business and technology newsletter Saltire -- have become legitimate sources of news and information in their own rights.
- to the awareness of a divine nature that needs to dawn for individuals on the inner plane
- to the awareness of the contact being made with us by intelligence from beyond this planet
Am off and blogging. Anybody hip to this new technology, give a yell -- beam me up, bloggers...
September, 2002
Welcome to The Conversation. It is a playing field for me and for Mighty Companions to rabble rouse for a better world.
Boy, it sure doesn't feel good these days. All the stories I'm posting are about our country in incompetent hands. No provisions for things going well are being made. But sail on we do, the administration never grappling with what it would take to turn the world around. This may be the most foolhardy time in human history, with the powers that be refusing to change our course even though everyone can see the iceberg ahead.
With many smart social critics out there, still there is no mobilization to alter the course we are on. But, there is a mounting pressure. I take great heart from the five star piece of Howard Zinn's, "Break-In for Peace," about an acquittal for people who broke into a Federal Building to destroy draft records after several other incidents where people were convicted for doing the same thing. Zinn, who testified at the trial of the Camden 28, explains:
Most importantly, the year of the trial was 1973. By now the majority of the American people had turned against the [Viet Nam] war. They had seen the images of the burning villages, the napalmed children, and had begun to see through the deceptions of the nation's political leaders. As today we watch with some alarm a nation mobilized for war, the politicians of both parties in cowardly acquiescence, the media going timorously along, it is good to keep in mind that things do change. People learn, little by little. Lies are exposed. Wars once popular gradually come under suspicion. That happens when enough people speak and act in accord with their conscience, appealing to the American jury with the power of truth.
Even though there is value in our efforts, it feels like that tipping point is farther ahead than we can get to without serious damage along the way. How can anyone get cozy facing reality now?
What are my contributions to a different intelligence? Well, one comes from seeing the big picture, in which mutual interest becomes as important as self-interest; they need to be inseparable. I hardly believed my eyes when I read something that's so far out in support of this idea that it seemed impossible to be coming from someone in Congress. I bow at the feet of Dennis Kucinich, who just might get to be President. Would that change everything! And why not? We know the trouble we're in, and he would in fact bring us full circle to what the Founding Fathers were tuned into. Here's what he recently said:
Spirit merges with matter to sanctify the universe. Matter transcends to return to spirit. The interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self. The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: One with the universe. Whole and holy. From one source, endless creative energy, bursting forth, kinetic, elemental. We, the earth, air, water and fire-source of nearly fifteen billion years of cosmic spiraling...As we aspire to universal brotherhood and sisterhood, we hearken to the cry from the heart of the world and respond affirmatively to address through thought, word and deed conditions which give rise to conflict: Economic exploitation, empire building, political oppression, religious intolerance, poverty, disease, famine, homelessness, struggles over control of water, land, minerals, and oil.
Another contribution to help tune us into a next intelligence is the vision statement of Lex Hixon's that he wrote for a Mighty Companions group we were in [The Herringbone Project]:
A coalition already exists in spirit. It is coming together now in the social context by the attraction of its unconventional intelligence and compassionate form of high-mindedness. This natural coalition is drawn together by the recognition that the elevation of consciousness is our fundamental life work. This is a genuinely democratic, self-organizing force, flowing through persons of all descriptions. This force does not flourish as any highly structured form. It is not an institution or a foundation or a non-profit company or anything conventionally named. This coalition is a living organism – natural, wild, free. It is made up of individuals devoted to serving the world and developing themselves as finely-tuned instruments of service. They learn to gather in the energy of will-tgood, from which authentic goodwill flows out subtly to the entire world.
And another thing to keep us thinking along the lines of what's possible is Brian Swimme's cosmology about a new story we could see ourselves in. Brian says:
At key times in history, consciousness advances in spurts. In Athens, the foundations for western civilization were laid. At the School at Chartes Cathedral, the vision of the Middle Ages was given form. In the Florentine Academy, Renaissance humanism was brought forth. We are in the midst of such a spurt. Human creativity today gives birth to a new vision of reality, a new cosmology, one that will guide us out of the terrors of the late twentieth century. The creation of a new planetary mythology is an organic process requiring the intelligent participation of millions of minds.
You can track my best bet for how we might be spurred to change in our Crop Circle Diary. With the release of "Signs," so much that the government has been ridiculing is getting a new listening. Crop circles are signals to us by an intelligence that understands us. The phenomenon is the most intriguing and exciting thing going on on this planet. How breathtakingly beautiful the formations are, and how uplifted all would be in receiving the gifts from such an extraordinarily artful source.
You're welcome to participate in an edited conversation about how we can get from where we are to where we're going. The one that's featured now, with Walter Starck, is my idea of how we can think our way there.
July/August, 2002
Welcome to our Making Sense Of These Times website. It is a work on behalf of Mighty Companions, Inc, a non-profit that serves the alignment of self-aware warriors for a better world. We are closely aligned with the Human Being Society, an artful expression of our common cause for action in the awareness of humanity's oneness.
The spirit of Mighty Companions also was expressed by a great being, whose departure marked the crossover from holding hands in our living room to weaving this web in cyberspace. In the mid-90s, Lex Hixon wrote this:
"A coalition already exists in spirit. It is coming together now in the social context by the attraction of its unconventional intelligence and compassionate form of high-mindedness.
"This natural coalition is drawn together by the recognition that the elevation of consciousness is our fundamental life work. This is a genuinely democratic, self-organizing force, flowing through persons of all descriptions. This force does not flourish as any highly structured form. It is not an institution or a foundation or a non-profit company or anything conventionally named.
"This coalition is a living organism – natural, wild, free. It is made up of individuals devoted to serving the world and developing themselves as finely-tuned instruments of service. They learn to gather in the energy of will-tgood, from which authentic goodwill flows out subtly to the entire world."
Maybe not so subtly now – the times have changed.
With Lex, we were looking to create Celebrations of the Human Spirit – the Promise Keepers filled stadiums and we figured we could, too. Now, when saving our lives and not celebrating them seems paramount, here we are on the Net. It's the campfire of our native ancestors, about which Brian Swimme, another inspiration to me, has something to say:
"At key times in history, consciousness advances in spurts. In Athens, the foundations for western civilization were laid. At the School at Chartes Cathedral, the vision of the Middle Ages was given form. In the Florentine Academy, Renaissance humanism was brought forth. We are in the midst of such a spurt. Human creativity today gives birth to a new vision of reality, a new cosmology, one that will guide us out of the terrors of the late twentieth century. The creation of a new planetary mythology is an organic process requiring the intelligent participation of millions of minds...If we were attempting to create a new cosmology a hundred thousand years ago, we would meet in a cave, at night, and tell our stories in the flickering lights of the fire. In just such a setting, the most advanced hominid forms gave birth to the first true humans. I think there is something to be said for this tradition. My suggestion is that you gather as a group and reflect together, in the night. If these flickering images and words evoke some of the deeply rooted creativity that is necessary for our advance, this series would have served its purpose." (From his tape series, Canticle to the Cosmos)
If you know you are me, get on the list to read updates of what gets posted on our site, and hopefully to chime in. For how good the conversation can get, read the one that's featured now, with Walter Starck.
Whenever we post a Five Star Piece or a Noteworthy News article, there's an intro I write to give the gist of it and why it was selected. It wouldn't take much time for you to look at those pages that have all the archived introductory remarks on them.
Ditto re: intros for the two columnists, Geov Parrish an Arianna Huffington, whom we frequently post. Archived intros are on our Archived Columnists page.
We draw from the full pieces we post – and then some (with links to sources) – for our Quotes section, below. Reading it is another fast way to track what's going on in the world.
For an even shorter tracking, our Soundbites are pithy sentences that have been extracted from all of the above.
One other way to digest what's here, if you are new to it, is to look at our previous Updates, which include special "making sense" comments to our listmembers, many of whom are the writers of what's posted on the site.
Lastly, I call your attention to our Crop Circle Diary for a running report on developments with this phenomenon. We are being visited and signaled. It has been going on at least for decades and possibly for much longer. The Walter Starck conversation will give you a good feel for how important this could be to the evolution of human consciousness, which is the over-riding story going on. May humanity make it through these dangerous times for that evolution to continue, and may this site contribute to that future.
June 13, 2002
Over the last month, the continuing strength of the progressive position has been the rock underneath the turbulent waters of our corporate culture, which becomes ever more exposed for its greedy excesses and even for its criminality. The latest good news, beyond Michael Moore staying at the top of the bestseller list (plus getting new accolades at Cannes for his latest documentary), is Noam Chomsky landing on the list with "9-11," his scathing indictment of the United States as "a leading terrorist state."
On the bad news front, there are stories about corporate corruption ("corporate scumbags undermining the modern private enterprise system") and government oversight ("'It is unlikely,' Sen. Jon Corzine, a Banking Committee member championing reform, said this week, 'that we will get strong reform unless there is a new event that captures the public imagination.'") in Arianna Huffington's columns, where we can count on the bottom line skinny about every new scandal that comes along. Topics touched on by Arianna this month include Harvey Pitt as chair of the FCC being "a little like naming Osama bin Laden to run the Office of Homeland Security;" drug companies' "fraudulent schemes for pricing, sales, and marketing;" CEOs getting "large gifts, dressed-up with paperwork and disguised as 'loans,'" and the legal and illegal ways their corporations avoid taxation; the unwinnable war on drugs that siphons the strength we need on winnable fronts; and the Enronitis of predatory practices and energy manipulation that our government-on-the-take is not cracking down on.
And Geov Parrish continues to track what government is doing on the world stage that so endangers us. His excellent writings this month include the non-issues our government uses that are timed to eclipse real ones; the continuing folly of making war instead of addressing what makes enemies, that "should be the preoccupation of every waking moment of every political leader in both parties;" our support for unsupportable regimes that figure to come back and bite us; our failure to sign on to arms control because economics takes precedence over our safety; and the global conquest fantasies of the US, which don't preclude the use of nuclear weapons. As I said in one of my comments, "What will it take to wake us all up to how dangerous we've made our world? There is business as usual re economics being the ruling discipline, when the extinction of humanity could be the consequence of such a priority."
On the home front, Geov has a big picture piece about the "stunning variety of predatory practices" in our corporate culture, something about how our media is failing us in its refusal to blow whistles, and an outraged reaction to the continuing erosion of our civil liberties.
There's more insight into the ugliness of corporate culture in our Five Star Pieces. Read Jim Hightower and never shop at Wal-Mart again. And, there's a fascinating tale of a PR firm selling a corporate scam via planting lies that seem to be coming from real-people talk on the Internet. Another Five Star Piece takes on the misguidedness of pointing fingers at crimes of omission – re when Bush knew what, acting to obscure deeper crimes of commission we all are suffering from – as another piece asks liberals fascinated by conspiracy theories for a heads-up as to how a love of seamy speculation takes energy from more definitive issues we can do something about. Also, there's something about what couldn't be lower in terms of scare tactics than the over-inflation of the nuclear threat from India and Pakistan (please God it's true). Other pieces deal with the threat of endless war and our inexorable march toward Iraq, and with George Bush's unpopularity with our allies and how willing he is to fight without them.
Our quotes say more about much of the above, plus a meta-thought about being biologically wired for short term thinking as what accounts for our greed; info on how dangerous it can be to dissent from administration policy; echoes of the horrible folly of our relentless assault on Afghanistan; and some pointing at misguided Jews who have no tolerance for being accused of criminal behavior, balanced by Israeli women decrying their own government (which led us to separate out the women's calls on this site, as WomenSpeak – if I ran the world, I'd put women in charge and war would be a relic of primitive times).
In prioritizing my time, I don't read long pieces, except when I catch a sense that I'm learning something that's important and can't put them down. Hence the creation of a new section, "In Depth Reports." May you be grateful not to have to pore through all the pieces I didn't post, and find time to wise up on these choice items: the surprising truth about the history of the crusades and the light it sheds on contemporary Islam, a bio of John O'Neill that gets into the underbelly of our intelligence operation and the failure on 9/11, and a story of the march toward Iran that started when Cheney worked for the senior Bush.
Through all of this is my call for doing more than being irate. It is chilling to me how acceptable everything is for all of us. We shake our heads at the genuineness of the threat to humanity's survival, but how can we be more than impotent about creating change? The only thing I know to do is to toss that question around – the power of the collective is exponentially greater than the sum of many individuals. For however this little effort could serve to connect us and to galvanize us, I am your passionate servant.
In the meantime, we draw closer to the August opening of my crop circle documentary, the sleeper I have in my bedroom that soon will be in yours, waking you up to the fact that we're not alone. Our Crop Circle Diary takes you into the phenomenon as it continues to unfold. Hopefully, it will shift consciousness en masse to where everyone will create a different world. As Walter Starck, our best ever Featured Conversationalist says, "...we are an integral part of this world, not just in it but rather deeply and inextricably of it. This recognition results in a very different perspective on life. What we do to the world we do to ourselves...Belief in a limited, discrete, isolated self is self-fulfilling. It leads to a fearful, selfish, lonely existence. Too much power in such hands can only result in destruction. Before any civilization may advance to a high level this problem must be resolved. Such resolution can only be prompted and encouraged. It cannot be taught as a recipe, or bestowed, or enforced. It has to come from self-directed inner transformation on an individual level. Prompting and encouraging such realization is what I think the circles are all about and are in fact doing."
Our list is growing, and includes many of the people whose works you read here. If you are of like mind, do get on it for an update every few days of what gets posted on this site.
May 11, 2002
In the last month, we've been stretching between the threat to our survival and groping for how to shift consciousness to rescue us.
The threat from the war front is in three Five Star Pieces – Gaza City: Sharon's War On The Future, To the Courageous Soldiers Who Say "NO!", and U.S. Jews Cannot Acquiesce to Sharon's Monstrous Behavior – plus a Geov Parrish column, Zionists for Peace: 375 Israeli Conscientious Objectors Demonstrate the Greatest Courage in the Conflict (on Geov's Archive page), all of which take issue with what Israel is doing.
For the danger on the home front, there are two columns on our Featured Columnists Archive page: The Free Market Shrugged, by Arianna Huffington, about "a crony capitalism where the interests of CEOs are no longer aligned with the interests of their shareholders and workers or even the long-term interests of the companies they run – not to mention society as a whole," and, The Fight: All Bow Down and Pray to the Almighty Dollar, by Geov Parrish, pointing to the need "to advocate policies for reasons other than short-term financial gain," and a value system "based on human needs rather than personal finances."
For a search for ways and means to deliver us humans from the consciousness that got us to this precipice, read what's been going on in our Conversation on Becoming a Force. This site exists to unify us in a new reality, where our oneness supercedes our separation. On the way from being gadflies to becoming a force, we're looking for how such a shift could occur.
The visibility of progressives, following Michael Moore drawing crowds, continues to grow with the smashing performance of Noam Chomsky's post 9/11 book, which is reported on in a Five Star Piece, Surprise Best Seller Blames U.S. And there's more insanity on the drug front in Arianna's column, Tulia And Beyond: Taking Drug Task Forces To Task, on Arianna's Archive page – I called it "a graphic documentation of how ordinary the embattlement is in this zone of us against ourselves."
Keeping abreast of the U.S. use of muscle power to engage the world, there's Geov's column about our influence on the United Nations, The Untied Nations: The Israeli and Iraqi Double Standard for International Oversight about the U.N. (see Geov's Archive page). And, If You Want a Free Vote, Ask Nicely, is a Five Star Piece that cuts to the chase, in a deliciously satiric way, about how we did it in Venezuela.
Check in on our April and May Quotes sections for excerpts from all the Five Star Pieces, and from the columns by Geov and Arianna, plus pithy quotes from other writers, including Gore Vidal (re "perpetual war for perpetual peace" and Bush's "knockout blow to our vanishing liberties"), William Rivers Pitt (move over Enron for Merrill Lynch, echoed in Arianna's column, "Greed, Fraud, And Apologies: Corporate America's New Bottom Line"), Studs Terkel (cheering Kucinich and the progressive "movement" on), and Michael Lerner (with his courageous anti-Israel stand that incurred the wrath of many of his Jewish "Tikkun Magazine" subscribers).
With so much posted this past month of what's been written about Israel's treatment of Palestinians, and my own strong feeling about this – aligned with Robert Scheer, who says, "Those are not my tanks careening around the West Bank bringing fear and havoc in their wake" – I point you to Conversation on the Middle East, where us Jews in conflict can engage each other. It amazes me how strongly I am being met with a defense of what I think is indefensible. I welcome any help to get us to where we are "making sense of these times," and not fighting with one another.
In the face of the horror of this dangerous time, it seems urgent to me that we act with as much intelligence as we can muster. I invite you smart people who are reading this to think together – get on our list for email updates of new posts that go up on this site, and join in the conversations to search for better ways. (See Conversation About What's on our Site to be inspired by comments that listmembers are making.)
April 9, 2002
Somewhat in the background this month, Enron continues to smolder – but watch out. As William Rivers Pitt says, in our Five Star Piece, Enron, the Slow Burn, "Watergate burned slow and hot for two years before it lit the sky. The deliberate process behind Congress's Enron investigation is eerily reminiscent of this. One thing is certain: the ground in Washington is slowly heating up. One does not need to see a pillar of smoke to know a fire is burning." But, the fiery good news of the last month has been the developing progressive alternative, with Michael Moore (we made a TEN Star Piece out of "Stupid White Men" Shoots to #1 on New York Times Bestseller List – Bush/Cheney Prepare to Weep and Leave) and Dennis Kucinich (see Kucinich Rocks the Boat, our Five Star report by John Nichols on how the "real measure of [his] message's resonance came as the text of the speech circulated on the Internet – where a genuine worldwide web of opposition to the Administration's actions led to the posting of Kucinich's words on websites and dispatched them via e-mail"). Add to this, the explosive launch of Jim Hightower's Rolling Thunder Down-Home Democracy Tour, in Austin, to a 7000 person sparky throng (see The Lollapalooza of the Left, on our March, 2002, Quotes page) .
The new bad news, of course, is the horror of the Middle East, with reports we've posted – particularly poignant columns by Geov Parrish (see Featured Columnists, and Geov's archived articles, as well.), plus Five Star Pieces from William Rivers Pitt and Robert Fisk – that include first hand accounts of atrocities against the Palestinians that are not in the mainstream media. Interesting how unclear it has become who the good and bad guys are, as graphically brought home in a Five Star post from a Jewish "refusenik."
Other topics that have been covered include rattling of nuclear threats added to the continuing erosion of civil liberties in our government by fiat, the expansion of our enemies list in the war without end, the ongoing perpetrations against civilians in our war in Afghanistan, the continuing support for unsupportable regimes (the new one in Afghanistan, by omission rather than commission, included), and our ongoing failure to deal with the unspeakable horror of landmines (in a particularly moving account by Arianna Huffington, Hollywood Sends A Message: Sign the Mine Ban Treaty). A key quote about the zeitgeist is from listmember, Ed Herman, in his Five Star Piece, Axis Of Evil – in Washington, D.C.: "What is notable about [the Bush] agenda is that it flies in the face of all of the requirements for peace, global democracy, economic equity and justice, ecological and environmental protection, and global stability. It represents the choice of an overpowerful country's elite, determined to consolidate their economic and political advantage in the short run, at whatever cost to global society."
And, just to balance out the disgust with Bush, we've spread our sense of outrage at the world run by a privileged few – where the Enron embers crackle – to what the previous administration was up to. As Geov Parrish tells us in Deeper than Whitewater, "Simply put, you can't work the system in America unless you've been bought and sold so many times you no longer stand for anything except the expansion of your own power. And Clinton was a master at it."
But, if you don't read anything else on the site, take two minutes to look at the latest Five Star Piece, Firm Boosts Profits by Asking Staff to Cuddle. It will make you feel good.
What's new and dear to our heart on the home front here is the launch we made last month of an email Updates List, where every few days we send out what's newly been posted on the site. They are bites that come in digestible packages, so that our readers can stay on the same page of the world drama. Ten updates have gone out since March 9th – one approximately every three days. We've got almost 100 people on the list, many of whom write the best of the bests that we post. Comments that come back to us are included in those updates. Be in touch to get on the list.
As we put up this new report, Joe Simonetta, the focus of ongoing Conversation here, is hitting Southern California for two weeks (see information about his trip). Please spread the word about his appearances and his availability to anyone who might want to attend his talks (in Ojai, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles) or make contact with him.
March 4, 2002
I find myself sick at heart at how insensitively my great country handles itself in relation to the rest of the world, and at the self-dealing in the financial community that lines pockets with such outrageous wealth – that all this has come to light is almost more than I can bear. May the efforts represented on this site contribute to the world that so many of us of greater heart and soul would want.
A big story on television this week was about how badly the U.S. polled in terms of the world's approval. Duh. Bless the Net, where we groked that long ago, and have gone on to get ourselves informed about what got us into this sorry state. In Allies Hear Sour Notes in 'Axis of Evil' Chorus, in the New York Times, David E. Sanger has the latest about how repugnant we have become to other countries, across the boards worldwide, thanks to the America-first braggadocio – and then some – in that Bush speech.
But mostly it has been the foreign press that has excoriated us. Thomas Walkon, in Bush Counts on the War Without End, in the Canadian press, wrote about the usefulness (ugh) of our war, which "has provided oomph to the sagging U.S. economy and a new raison d'etre for the alliance of politicos, defence contractors and security specialists who make up...the military-industrial complex." And the BBC picked up where the war in Afghanistan left off – or at least we thought it had – with Hunger and Death in Afghan Villages, a report by David Loyn about our callousness in that venture, with far worse an outcome than we are being told, where, "The U.S. chose policies that all concerned agreed could kill millions." However, it was the New York Times that gave the world a cause for pause about us in a ho hum what-else-is-new way, when it matter of factly ran Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad, a front page report on our plan , since squelched because of how gross it was, to "provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of a new effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries." (We've got a link from this news item to an Op-Ed piece from the New York Times, Office of Strategic Mendacity, by Maureen Dowd, that points an intelligent finger at this ill advised venture.)
On the Enron front, my pick for the best expose is Frank Rich's State of the Enron indictment "of the genius of capitalism," where "insiders get to play by one set of rules...while the unconnected and uninitiated pick up the bill." Get wised up about the dark side of free market capitalism, where, since Reagan cursed us with deregulation, a system without brakes has run wild on greed, corporate cronyism and the insidious corruption of democracy by political money. Read Enron as only the appetizer on this menu.
Meanwhile, our featured columnists keep penetrating the popular mythology. Geov calls for a massive rethinking of our whole approach in the face of "the most deeply anti-democratic presidency in modern American history," which is "anti people and pro corporation." He points to our failure to do anything in Afghanistan but cause death and misery to civilians, the erosion of civil liberties at home, our propping up despotic regimes throughout the Islamic world, the militaristic control we are exerting all over the world as we combat terrorism "through reliance on raw power – military force abroad, expanded governmental authority at home," the globalization that stuffs profits into corporate pockets and corrupt native elites, and our continuing to incur the world's hatred by arming dictators and propping up dangerous regimes. He also has a complement to another of our Five Star Pieces, where Zara Gelsey, in Pricey Prime Time Propaganda: Anti-Drug Adverts and the Super Bowl, tells us about the ridiculous anti drug campaign kicked off in Super Bowl commercials. Arianna also has a say on the same drug idiocy, while she applauds Colin Powell for the kind of honesty about AIDS that would serve as turkey-talking on drugs. She's also whistle blowing about oil interests and the duplicity of Dick Cheney's when-convenient stand on principles.
Quotes since the last update, from our Five Star Pieces, our columnists, and other smart writings (where you can link to the pieces from which they are drawn) deal with all of the above and then some. As Cheney arrogantly invokes principle at his convenience, as the bottoming out of our economy could be much deeper, as the use of raw power feeds terrorism rather than defeats it, as 9/11 can be seen to be the logical consequence of what we did to protect oil interests, as we make regulations favorable to business at the expense of people, you can argue convincingly that the war on terrorism is a junior issue to America's aspiration to global supremacy.
For what you won't find anywhere but on this site – and was the reason for putting it up – see our Current Conversation Topics and Featured Conversations. I've selectively posted from what people write to me and to each other as we try to puzzle out reality together. Much of this revolves around a consideration of Joe Simonetta's book, Seven Words That Can Change the World, as fodder for exploring the nature of reality and what it is to be human. All the invited participants in the Simonetta conversation are writers who themselves have ideas that could be seminal and causal to world transformation. What we have in these times of separation is a lot of individuals with smarts, who primarily talk to students, readers, and audiences, but not to each other. To go from separation to oneness, we need a new organizing idea, and our conversation could be a place to arrive at such a thing.
To stay tuned in on a daily basis to what is worth thinking about, we've put a link to the commentary by Danny Schechter on his sensational MediaChannel site from our main page. Danny and I are very simpatico, and the site "is concerned with the political, cultural and social impacts of the media, large and small," and "exists to provide information and diverse perspectives and inspire debate, collaboration, action and citizen engagement."
And Escaping the Matrix, by Richard K. Moore, is a fabulous in-depth piece of writing from 1990, that "offers a particular perspective on what's going on in the world – and how things got to be that way – in this era of globalization," that will tune us all in to the distortion and corruption of our democracy.
For those in Los Angeles, Joe Simonetta will be at the Bodhi Tree Bookstore on Sunday, April 21, at 7:30 pm. His talk, "Astonish the World, Tell the Simple Truth," about a new understanding of sacredness, gets rave reviews. A discussion of a grass roots movement he's launching with our help and blessings, via the Internet, to turn conscious people into a force for the good, will follow. Bring your friends to be part of what we hope will be a very big deal.
January 23, 2002
Hell to Pay, a new Five Star Piece, may be too hot to handle, but I am a sizzly sort. I mostly stay away from conspiracy-tinged items. The probers who are in positions to discern the truth will do so – the Internet can't suppress that. I save my attention in this category for matters where I have personal knowledge. (I am dealing with my own little corner of suppression with what the government is doing to the crop circles, which I do try to do something about because I know the truth. Read the latest news about the government's shady dealings to discredit the startling developments this summer on my crop circle page. If you don't know anything about what happened this summer, start with the "contact" story.") However, Hell to Pay, by William Rivers Pitt, got me. I have this feeling that Enron will not be our Whitewater, as some think, but our Watergate, as is suggested in this piece, which hits my jackpot in laying out a possible path to Bush's demise. If anyone wants to scream in protest, email me and I'll be all ears for where I may have gone too far.
But do wait until you read another new starring piece, Crime in the Suites, by William Greider. Of all the pieces written about Enron, I think this is the quintessential one that explains what happened. You will come away with an education about the corruption inherent in our market economy, which creates the climate in which terrorism flourishes.
There's absolutely no doubt in my mind, however, about the content of a brilliant history lesson in another Five Star Piece we've recently posted, Muslims and the West After September 11, by Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor in Islamabad. It is nuanced thinking that we desperately need to grapple realistically with the complex realities of our day. It argues that terrorism cannot be resolved simply through military domination, but that a critical re-examination of US imperial arrogance and Islamic religious fanaticism is imperative if the roots of terrorism are to be fully understood and an imminent "Century of Terror" to be avoided. It's conclusion – that the way to go is neither related to religion or to nationalism, but to coming out of belief systems and into "principles of logic and reason" – is consonant with my advocacy, where I'm inviting a wisdom council to consider the work of Joe Simonetta. The conversation with him continues to be lively as we circulate his book, Seven Words That Can Change the World, as fodder for exploring the nature of reality and what it is to be human. My thinking is that when you get some number of highly evolved people to be in alignment around a new idea, you can change the world – we need a new organizing idea, and this conversation could be a place to arrive at such a thing.
See what we've archived of our Featured Columnists between our last update and this one – Geov talking about the time bomb of the inequity between the rich and the poor, as illustrated in how we're dealing with the situation in Argentina; about the domino effect that may bring the world down if, in a policy of conquest, we invade Iraq; about how corporate favoritism is bleeding the world; and Arianna digging into the underbelly of business as usual, when usual gave rise to the mess we are in.
And have a look at our most recent quotes, for more of "the best of Enron," which spotlights this administration's unpropitious ideology of crony capitalism and world domination. This, plus the other subject you'll find in the quotes, of our disregard for civil liberties, illustrates how the government is undermining the basic values America rests on.
Also, there's new material that's been added to all but the second of our Current Conversation Topics, which are among the most interesting pages on the site. Love to hear what anyone else might want to chime in with.
On a personal note, useful to any readers with small children, one of my smart daughters, clinical psychologist Dr. Dana Chidekel, has just written her first book, Parents in Charge. After her appearance on the Today Show, on January 17, Amazon ran out of books, as she went from a 200,000 ranking in their hourly computed sales statistics, to number 3. And Today wants her to come back as a regular!!!
December 30, 2001
We seem to have fallen back into old patterns, shopping quite comfortably (see Arianna Huffington for the "fly for our country" aspect of this) as our partisan government returns to its familiar ways (Arianna gives us a good look at the spin we are in with A Child Left Behind). However, I can't stop being appalled at warring being ordinary boy games while people in an impoverished land die in droves (I bet you can't read our new five star piece, The Innocent Dead in a Coward's War, and not weep). And at no longer having some of our inalienable rights (see Geov Parrish re critics of our policies being branded unpatriotic, a new five star piece about how fascistic our American populace has become, and a couple of good pieces on this topic from which we've excerpted quotes on our December quotes page), not to mention the magnitude of the Enron debacle not diminishing Bush's unprecedented popularity. (Arianna has a say on Enron and Geov has a piece about the stranglehold of corporate power where drug company influence peddling could endanger us.)
NO!!!! That's what I say. We are in deep shit. This government only knows how to blast our enemies, but the ones we've got now NEVER will be eliminated that way. Not in "years." Not in "a very long time." NEVER.
Now what? We will not be safe unless we address what else we possibly could do. Car bombs will become nuclear blasts and Agent Orange will become smallpox – GUARANTEED – unless we do something that's different from what we are doing.
All I know is that you create reality by consensus. Something new could spark even by your responding to me here. Just say yes to saying NO. Put your name in the pot. That's something, not nothing. If you have ideas for anything outside the incendiary box we live in, express them. Somehow, some way, we can change reality.
I have not written this with an agenda, but getting something from Joe Firmage in my email which offers something radical enough to actually change everything is what prompted me to go from internal seething into writing this.
That email concerns the UFO situation, something about which I know no more than others who wonder what the truth could be, who are certain that the public is not being told what our government knows. That takes no more than the awareness that the government not long ago attempted to put 50 years of curiosity to rest, telling us that what crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, was not an alien craft, but a weather balloon – only those balloons were not developed till some years after 1947. Start from there. Then have a look at what Joe Firmage is telling us about UFOs and the National Security State, a new book by Richard Dolan.
I haven't read this "exhaustive and ruggedly-balanced overview," which Joe says gives a "phenomenal elucidation of the import and context of the modern UFO drama," and I don't intend to, even though he says, "It is a book that every student of science, government, philosophy and history must read." I'm not going to read it because he's read it, and from his reading he convinces me that my answer is NOW to his question, "When will we band together, demanding relief of security oaths for those with first-hand knowledge to testify in open hearings before the United States Congress and the people of Earth?"
Joe writes, "If you take the time to absorb Dolan's exhaustive and ruggedly-balanced overview, you may find yourself seriously considering three conclusions I now hold: (1) we are not alone in the Cosmos, (2) an incredible chapter in the book of Nature is sealed from public view, and (3) the community of science may be the only force on Earth strong enough to unlock that seal...and wise enough to know how to do so."
Of the "40 Questions for Scientists Who Care About Truth," that are in Joe's email, I was particularly struck by these 3, which deal with salvation from the environmental disasters that were lapping at our heels before 9/11, and with the ESSENCE OF OUR SALVATION coming from the awareness of what is beyond the narrow scope in which we have guns trained on one another:
25. If the music industry can align all powers in its possession to obliterate Napster's liberation of songs, what might vastly larger interests have done with energy and propulsion technology that would liberate electricity and transportation...and global politics?
26. How might human civilization have evolved if Faraday's discovery of the principle of induction was made not in the public domain, but in a secured facility, deemed a 'national security threat' by virtue of its power to revolutionize steam locomotion and oil-based lighting infrastructure, and kept secret for half a century?"
30. Do you believe that the revelation of past contact with extraterrestrial life forms could profoundly transform our world for the better, giving us all an inspiring, unifying perspective of the grandeur of the Cosmos from which we spring, and pointing to new technologies that could dramatically reduce humanity's environmental footprint on Nature?"
I think that such a revelation, which I have seen coming most readily from humanity opening its eyes to the crop circle phenomenon, is indeed the greatest hope for what could transform our world. (See a new interview with documentary filmmaker, William Gazecki, who, with my participation, is making the first major film about the circles.)
For another revelation of sorts, THE MOST CHANGEFUL THING I've seen in a very long time is a paradigm busting small book written by Joe Simonetta, with whom I'm having a conversation. To cut to the chase, get on the Amazon site for Seven Words That Can Change The World, where I've written one of the reviews.
And a blessing to help us see through the haze of all the complexity in which we are mired and to get a clear bead on vital actions our government could and should be taking, see the best compilation I've come across: Seven Keys to a Safer Nation, from the Center for the Advancement of Nonviolence.
December 7, 2001
I went to a town meeting last night, produced by Students in Search of Peace, at Crossroads High School, in Los Angeles, where there was an illustrious panel of well-informed progressives who are in the media as producers and writers. What I came away with was the inside story that no progressives know what to do, nor is there uniformity in the government camp – everyone is shaking and quaking, as opposed to what happened during Viet Nam, where a divided America was solidly in two camps. We are all in the soup, and, although no one on the panel gave anything like a green light to what the government is doing, with all decrying the policies of the political elite that have heretofore so under-served us (see some quotes about Enron) and a government that had its head in the sand about terrorism, there was more scrappiness than uniformity amongst them about what to do now. But, as Arianna Huffington, whom we've just added to this site as a featured columnist, said, in the face of the over-arching agreement on the panel about the misguidedness of our politicos, "Let those in Washington govern; let the people lead." It is up to "us" in terms of coming up with what's better than what we've got, and how to do that is our challenge. This site is one attempt to weave the new world – as in the verse by Edna St. Vincent Millay that heads our Five Star Pieces page, "Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill... Is daily spun, but there exists no loom...To weave it into fabric..." Please look at the conversation topics here for an opportunity to cross connect with the smart people who are posted here and with others who have responded to them. If you have any thoughts about how to "let the people lead," the conversation headed Figuring Out the New Way Together would be a good place to share them.
What's becoming THE story these days, when we are not having to pick ourselves up off the floor from civilian bombardment, is how we don't need an enemy to destroy us – at the current rate of the Bush regime's violation of the fundamental tenets of democracy, we are so much as destroying ourselves – see our new five star piece by Martin Lee. Also, see a new "Featured Conversation" with Mario Martinez, which arose from what he said on our Quotes page, for something to calm the souls of those who abhor violence at the same time as they employ it in self defense.
December 2, 2001
If I wasn't in total terror before, I am now, after reading a report by Jerry White that you won't see in our media about the slaughter of Taliban prisoners that is happening with our participation, our blessing, and our encouragement. How far into hell can we go and not expect to burn ourselves? The other thing I saw today that disgusted me was a report in the Los Angeles Times on an Afghan refugee camp, where conditions are worse than they were in German concentration camps, which, on page three, is juxtaposed to ads for luxury items at the most expensive stores in Beverly Hills that fill page two. What has happened to this country after the magnificent heroic response of its citizens to the tragedy that befell us, as this bogus government moves ruthlessly to serve the interests of its fattest cats? We wave our flags to cheer our great military victories, but anyone with a discerning eye can see that it is democracy that is being defeated.
In stark contrast to how I felt about the above is the profound wisdom I received, from a Buddhist perspective, that could turn everything around. We've had two five star pieces up for awhile, by David Loy and Thich Nhat Hanh, and I just added something new from Thich Nhat Hanh. It makes such a cogent case for understanding being what's required for peace to emerge, that I actually could envision Bush reading it and getting it.
Another thing that gives me solace is the crop circle phenomenon, which I think is the single situation which could shift the consciousness of all of humanity. I've added a good rundown on how to access information about it in the addition to the conversation with David Loy that I've just posted.
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Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour, Rains from the sky a meteoric shower Of facts...they lie unquestioned, uncombined. Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill Is daily spun, but there exists no loom To weave it into fabric... -Edna St. Vincent Millay- |
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