Today I Wept...

Last Friday after work I was "starving" so I decided to go to my new favorite fast food Chinese restaurant. Desiring to satisfy my hunger I fled from the parking lot as quickly as possible but instead I was met by a long line of cars attempting to do the same. Realizing that my haste was met with slow moving traffic, I settled in my seat and allowed patience to be the space in which I dwelled. As I finally approached the front of the line I noticed a man standing next to the stop sign, holding his own sign, which read "lost my job, anything will help." Although his sign lacked a bright red background reflecting white bold letters, it spoke just as loudly as the stop sign into my vision of a world that works for all. This man was caucasian, appeared to be in his mid 50s, decently dressed and held an expression of humility within his still smile. I scrambled for change but could only find a $5 dollar bill. I hesitated for a moment to consider my own finances but then rolled the frosted window down and gave the money to the man. After all, the physical paper that we refer to as money is just that...paper, but what we have made it mean is far greater than the material matter of which it is composed. What I was giving was much more than paper, I was giving love and the man, with his gratitude gave it right back. He said: "thank you so much, this is too much really. You are the best!" I smiled at the man who made my day and let him know that "it wasn't a problem," it was actually the solution..love.

As u pulled away fom this man, I wept...

I wept for everything I have been given and for everything that had been taken from him. It was at this moment that I understood that compassion is a state of being. The space that no longer existed between myself and this man, his worries and mine was compassion. Our interaction with one another for those few seconds was compassion, compassion is not feeling sorry for someone, it's the experience of connection to another soul that acknowledges the oneness between you and allows you to feel their sorrow as well as their joy. Compassion is a state of consciousness beyond forgiveness, for in this state of oneness no one can be your enemy lest you be an enemy to yourself through the false illusion of separation, which is a tool of the ego. The ego is responsible  for the archaic perspective of "survival" which promotes superiority and thereby a notion of separation. In this perspective, someone must lose in order that one may win; however, in the oneness that is our true nature, we transcend a survival existence and ascend into a living beyond physicality, where "love" is our currency and "compassion" is our language.

The New Confederacy

I cannot help but notice the similarities between those who fought on the side of the Confederacy to keep the institution of slavery intact to some of the new young Republicans, Tea Party members and their followers.  If you are not part of the wealthy 1% of our country who controls arguably about 40% of the wealth I cannot see how you can support policies that effect you and your family in such a negative manner.  I can only relate this to a time in history when only a small amount of people in the United States could afford to own slaves, but more than half of this country was willing to fight to keep an institution that disenfranchised themselves.  Free labor for over 400 years equates to 400 years of poverty for poor whites who lost their jobs as a result of the institution of slavery.  It is ludicrous to me that simply for the ability to be able to say that you are superior to others, you would ensure your own demise.  While over 15 million Americans are unemployed, our Government has failed to relieve the working class and the poor of carrying the burdens enforced upon them by the greed of the big banking industry, large corporations and policies that promote the wealth of the top 1% of the United States population.  With the 2012 Presidential Elections approaching, the Republican primaries have been filled with such rhetoric as "if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself" (Herman Cain), the booing of a Gay Marine when asking a televised question regarding the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy during a Republican Debate and the refusal to increase the highest income earners' taxes despite the fact that according to the Pew Poll, "67% said the more high earners income should be subject to being taxed for Social Security, and 66% support raising taxes on incomes over $250,000, and 62% support closing corporate tax loopholes." These statistics along with the fact that wages are going down or stagnating for those who are lucky enough to find a job is in stark contrast to the Conservative perspective that saving the economy has to include tax cuts for the wealthy, removal or alteration of social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (to name a few), which they lovingly refer to as "entitlement."  The fact that the Republican/Conservative Party still even exists in today's society and has so many supporters reflects a country that has not strayed far from it's History.  Whether or not you believe that the current Administration (President Obama) has made the best decisions, if you are not part of the 1% or even close and you still support the Republicans and their Conservative views, I find it safe to say that had you lived during the Civil War, you more than likely would have fought on the side of Confederacy. What is most important to remember is that the Confederacy lost and the once Divided States became the United States...or did they?  I'll let you decide that yourself.  


In regards to the question I posed, feel free to answer within the "comments" section of this blog.  Thank you.

Columbus Day and the demise of greed

So this past week was "Columbus Day" and it was shocking to me that so many people and institutions still celebrate a day that for so many Native Americans remains in infamy.  Celebrating Columbus Day in my opinion is like celebrating the Holocaust.  The lack of clarity with which we still teach that Columbus "discovered" America seems to be deliberate.  Deliberately duping the American public has become almost a right of passage for politicians, historians, economists and anyone who will sell their moral integrity for money.  At a time when global protests are sparking up everywhere, beginning with the ousting of dictators in the Middle East to the Occupy Wall Street Movement, "ordinary" people are challenging the status quo and refusing to be duped any longer.  As a protester, I have been to Occupy Los Angeles as well as Occupy Ventura and I must say that the the "99%" who is disenfranchised, unemployed and underemployed is absolutely fed up with being lied to for the sake of greed.  On Columbus day I reflected on my 1998 Freshman year of college at the University of California, Santa Barbara and my excitement at seeing the chalk riddled pathways on campus which read "Columbus was a rapist."  I had never heard that statement in relation to Columbus but I knew that something never quite seemed right about a man discovering a land for which people already inhabited.  This type of skewed historical content is extremely one sided and blatantly questions our intelligence and ability decipher logic.  The 99% of us who are fed up, are fed up with being sent to war for economic gain, bailing out banks who destroyed our economy and face no reprise, for allowing the LGBT community to serve and die for this country but deny them the right to marry and for continuing to ignore an entire people who cultivated this land and replace their history by celebrating a man who if alive, should be tried for humanitarian violations, murder, rape, slave trading and stupidity.  I say "Stupidity" because, according to Americanindiansource.com, "the Egyptian-Greek scientist Eratosthenes already had measured the circumference and diameter of the world in the third century B.C."  Not to mention that "in the tenth century A.D., Al Maqdisi Monastery described the earth with 360 degrees of longitude and 180 degrees of latitude." (Just a little bit of real History for you). At this time in human history, all eyes are on the people of the world who demand change.  Because the United States is at the center of economic and military dominance, the catalyst for change must begin here.  As a country, we must admit that we were founded on greed, oppression and imperialist occupation.  We must admit that this system no longer has a place in this world and that if it persists, the United States as we know it, will and must fall.  The demise of a time when greed rules over morality is eminent and the people of the world are seeing to it that it does. 

Free Rein

Since my previous entry was deleted, I will attempt to paraphrase my original posting.  I have no clear intention for this posting other than to clearly express the mind gibberish that interrupts my thoughts and projects outwardly.

The first thing I would like to mention is the Troy Davis execution which some are referring to as a "legalized lynching," that took place this week on September 21, 2011 at 11:08 PM.  (For those who are unfamiliar with the case go to http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20956-troy-davis-execution-highlights-witness-unreliability.html) The execution of Troy Davis created world wide shock and disappointment in the United States justice system or lack thereof.  This case brought forth old wounds of racism and the controversy of capital punishment to the forefront of our consciousness as we watched the death of not only a life, but the hope of change.  We would all like to live in a world (well, most of us) where evil doers are isolated from society and punished for their evil deeds; however, the definition of who is considered "evil" is a matter of opinion.   If the definition of "evil" is dictated by those who have committed some of the greatest atrocities on earth, then that opinion might be questionable to say the least. In a country where the determining factor of who is sentenced to death is often skewed by race and socio-economic status, capital punishment has become a subject of contention.  This weeks' execution of a man whose guilt was riddled with doubt caused the world to question how far the United States has actually come to resolving its issues of discrimination and inequality.  Whether or not we will ever know the true guilt or innocence of Troy Davis is unclear but what is clear is that the amount of doubt far out weighed the amount of evidence against him.  In a world with such uncertainty let us attempt to  desire to exibhit more compassion than judgement and more forgiveness than condemnation.

In Loving Memory of Mark MacPhail and Troy Davis

Radiography

Three radio stations are in constant rotation in my car radio and on my live stream Iphone radio: KPFK, a non profit, liberal radio station, KCLU, which is a local progressive radio station connected to NPR and KRLA, an ultra right-wing conservative radio station. You might be asking yourself why would a self proclaimed Liberal such as myself listen to right-wing conservative rhetoric, well it can be summed up in one phrase: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Although, I strongly disagree with over 99.9% of every host on KRLA and I often find myself with deep seeded anger listening to their skewed, narrow, exclusionary views; it is nevertheless entertaining to say the least. It seems that the entire Radio station was created to discredit President Barrack Obama and the under represented minorities in this country and abroad. The sheer disrespect of our Nation's President is enough to scream treason. I often find myself completely tensing up in agonizing disgust, but I can not stop listening.

I felt compelled to write this particular post while listening to KRLA in the midst of their favorite topic of government"hand outs" and "entitlements" afforded to "the lazy" and "uneducated" in reference to Medicare, Medicaid, Planned Parenthood and even Social Security Benefits to name a few.  In the middle of my eager listening and contempt, my rage was interrupted by a commercial break.  Wanting to feed my desire for more contempt, I found myself slightly irritated by the commercial interruptions.  It was then that I realized that the other two constant radio stations that I listen to (KPFK and KCLU) do not have commercial breaks as they are completely supported and contributed to by their listeners.  The striking connection between "hand outs" and community powered media, in which the listener is privileged to receive non stop information, struck me.  Here we have a conservative station who repeatedly criticizes government programs that help the less fortunate, dependent on other companies and products in order to stay on the air and are therefore reliant upon them; henceforth, creating bias.  This media bias could be compared to the same bias we see between politics and its relationship to lobbying, which has created a huge distrust among United States citizens for our Government.  Stagnated by differing ideologies, one of the "haves" and "have-nothings" these three radio stations are tiny microcosms of the entire populous in which the elite believe they did so on their own and anyone else, was too lazy and therefore deserves no assistance.  The arrogance held by the elite conservative right, has neglected the fact that the United States has thrived as a result of receiving over 400 years of free labor, what country would not become a world power under such circumstances.

Perhaps, if it were possible to truly understand that in the end we are all one people, one race, one energy operating at the same time, we could realize that what we give, we get to keep.  That if our fists are clinched, not only are we not open to give, but we are no longer open to receive.  Let us begin to exist beyond the confines of our past and live knowing that the present moment is one in which all things have already been given and what was truly given, cannot be taken away.  For there is more than enough to go around, in, out, up and down.

Mind babble

Ah, my first ever blog...so freeing within my own space to rant, rave and babble about any and everything my brain can withstand. As random as my thoughts are, so too will this blog be! Let freedom ring and in this case babble!

The first thing I'd like to address is the undying greed this country and so many others are exhibiting, it's sickening. My dad once said that if everyone truly followed the basic doctrine of their own religion, this world would be a much better place...I couldn't agree more. In spite of uprisings here and all over the world, those in power refuse to relinquish their stronghold on money and power. In the name of Religion, people all over the world are being systematically stripped of our fundamental rights. If there were ever a time to stand up as one voice to scream out, it is now! As Rev. Beckwith, Founder of Agape Spiritual Center once said: "Being fearless doesn't mean you never have fear, it means you do not allow it to stop you!" Today, lets be fearless and no longer allow that which has no meaning to rule with dominion over us.