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I
invite you all to re-visit Allen Ginsberg's Howl.
Appropriate for the times.
Hi Lawry,
Your hope for guidance from Canada to help the US find its way
toward peaceful resolve is by far more logical than anything that is likely to
transpire. It is flattering to Canadians, yet I don't believe that
Canada, in these days of increasingly influential corporate agendas, is
necessarily the country to lead the way as a beacon. I will second Ed's
opinion of Paul Martin's intended directions and would concur that we are not
far behind the U.S. in arriving at some huge seeming impasses.
I don't believe you are looking exclusively at a Western decline
in morals and culture. I believe that that is a global symptom of collective
guilt, and heaven is where you are if you are willing to choose for it.
Relocating for the sake of leading the way by example is tempting, but in the
long run merely results in another distraction, another imagined separation
from the so-called "evil" around you. With such judgment, you presume a
position you do not have, and will augment your fears. Trust in the
world, do what you feel is right and help others by walking ahead of them a
little as you can easily do, Lawry, but if you give up your own sense of peace
because of insanity in one or many, you give up on humanity. In so doing
you show the world that peace cannot triumph, that it is in itself
unattainable, and forgiveness impossible. I'm sure you know that peace is not
only true, but is the only thing that does work, and it is a choice from
moment to moment. I suspect you may also understand that forgiveness is
the closest thing that we have to heaven on earth. Trust in the world and all
life because it is governed by a power that is in all of us, but not of us.
This having been said, I wish to clarify that should the world simply
ignore error, we allow ourselves to be misled, and do a disservice to both the
victim and the victimizer. If we or others are not accountable, no
progress transpires. The Whitehouse appears to be the monster today, but
tomorrow will reveal other monsters behind the puppet government.
When I was in Maui about 16 years ago, there had been but one or two
serious crimes on the island for many years prior.
People were friendly and warm. It was not overly tourist-ridden, and I
looked forward to its independence from the U.S., but never thought that
possible. We heard from Darryl's Ex, who was living on the big island, that
the few remaining royal Hawaiian descendants were planning secession,
and then came Ray's article on the very same thread that a document was
submitted to Congress after all. New York in 1980 or so, following the
Canadian assisted rescue of prisoners in Iran, was so open to Canadians that
Darryl and I were given free lunches in a restaurant and even free clothing in
Manhattan just for being Canadian. Things change all the time. Mecca is no
longer Mecca, but it is and never really was. Americans are just as capable of
sanity as they are capable of being misled, and it is within them as it is
within Iraqis to find their own way out of fear. If and when they are ready
for international input, it will surely be there, though that help may take a
different form than anticipated.
Being vigilant to a politician's psyche by observing facial nuances
and the like, though fascinating to observe, will not necessarily lead you
much closer to truth behind the scenes. We already know that Bush is far more
insane than the rest of us, and that most news we seek out with regard to his
actions basically boils down to the same news event, over and over-- Just how
insane is he? Or anyone in that position of power? The Bush administration was
established by other far more influential people, and
therefore Bush's team may well be the last to know what's going down.
Economies change, new people seem to emerge as threats, money begets more
money and poverty sux. Wars are ongoing worldwide, and our judgment of the
U.S. certainly takes our minds off of The District of Congo, the twenty
million baby girls who are murdered by their own parents for being the wrong
sex, or the countless other holocausts of history. The policy of scapegoating
the "evil" onto a nation outside of our own is the same one we apply to our
personal lives when we project. We must do what we can to deny what is not
truth, to remove the blocks to love within and then of course do our best
to ensure that government policies reflect that in just
governance. Though the US is most influential, it is abundantly
clear that lately its guidance has been selective and self-serving. But
that will change. It will grow out of the adolescent stage to earnestly
embrace other nations--down the road. Be patient with its fears as much as
with your own.
One thing that is crystal clear to me is that trying to solve the world's
problems over my own lifetime is investment in fear. There have been thousands
of civilizations that fractured fear into what it has become, and it will
take time, as long as it takes, to undo it before we all invest
in what really matters. What is important is to live in your own mind
with peace at your side, and to remember that healing does not come
from treating symptoms, but from taking form around a peaceful
attitude of mind and thereby changing the content. If we ourselves are not
peaceful, we cannot be truly kind or helpful. We do not react to fact, we
react to interpretations around a fact. By making our perceptions real, we try
to offer ingenious ways of solving problems, political, economic, religious or
social, to magically escape from them. But upon making
these interpretations real, we cannot escape from them in order to stand
back and look at them in a clear light. Ego mind is always trying to
understand what is initiated by itself. It's the classic revolving door
syndrome. Peace and Do Unto Others is also a dream, but one that
will sit better with your thoughts than the chronic anxiety of feeling that
you and like-minded must be the ones to rescue the world.
Form through which we communicate is not important. Places and
things, special people, rituals and prayers are not important. What is
significant is the love that speaks through us when we join with the love
that is in us but not of us, the love that joins with truth (higher self), and
connects with that place of peace in others that we all share.
I read that when Beethoven's close friend's husband had died, he did what
he felt he could do that was most helpful. He said to her, "Tonight we
shall speak together in tones", then simply sat down to the piano and played
to her for two and a half hours. She was much
relieved.
Natalia
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 9:06
AM
Subject: Toward a spiritual renaissance
(was RE: [Futurework] Be a good little beaver for Uncle Sam!)
Yes, good point. I would guess that the differences in values within
the US is greater than those between, collectively, the US and
Canada.
Someone earlier (Ed?) wondered whether Canada was losing its own way.
(Sorry for the lack of precise attribution: I have been for the last two
weeks embroiled in complicated and time-consuming negotiations and and
skipping lightly on my list-reading...) I hope this isn't happening.
The West, generally, is in my growing opinion in deep trouble, morally,
culturally. We very much need a place or places where this degradation is
not happening, both to serve as a haven for those who do not wish to remain
part of the degradation, and to serve eventually as a resource through which
the West can rebuild itself.
I
can think of no more important a priority than this.
Lawry
The current issue of the Economist contains a
review of the US that suggests rather wide ranging differences and growing
divergences in values there as well.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003
9:12 AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Be a good
little beaver for Uncle Sam!
Further to this you may be interested in the book:
Fire and Ice: The United States and Canada and the Myth of
Converging Values by Michael Adams.
Adams runs Environics, a polling firm of some repute in
Canada. His sampling of opinion (over a very wide range of
values/issues) shows the differing values between Canadians and
Americans and within the US itself where there are surprisingly wide
regional spreads.
arthur
Lawry:
Times are very difficult, and require a surer, more granular,
and more disciplined treatment than is normally the case. Missteps at
this time can create very bad results. I would hope that Canada's
historical ability to see the moral light and policy essentials will
again prevail, and that Canada may be able to help the US learn what
it must, but by ignoring the US's mistakes, but by guiding the US to
their resolution.
My fear,
Lawry, is that Canada may also have lost its way and that our moral
light has faded since Pearson and Trudeau were Prime Ministers.
Chretien, who is about to leave the scene, is a very bright man, but
a pragmatist, not an idealist. To his credit, he kept
us out of the "coalition of the willing", but he has not offered
anything as an alternative except the rather tired idea that if the UN
goes along with it, we'll go too, knowing full-well that the UN would
not. I read Martin, the incoming Prime Minister, as a neo-con
whose major concern will be keeping the deficit down and improving the
economy, including trade relations with the US. And to improve
trade relations with the US we have to pretend to support what the US
Administration is doing, don't we?
The light of
higher purpose still shines on in Canada, but you increasingly have to
look for it. One sees it in people like Romeo Dallaire, the
general who almost single-handedly tried to stop the blood bath in
Rwanda, but I'm afraid we're not going to find it in our
politicians.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003
10:24 AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Be a
good little beaver for Uncle Sam!
Good morning, Ed,
The single most important task that lies ahead for the US is
to learn what it must learn so as to be able to start playing a
positive and helpful role in the world. At this point, we are doing
the very opposite, so the learnings will have to be profound and
cognitively revolutionary. Any reassurances that those who are
the present creators of the US's current policies receive, whether
they come from other US citizens or from foreign sources, will only
serve to delay those learnings and ensure a continuation of the
present policies.
I do not believe that is in the interests of anybody, whether
US citizen or citizen of some other country, for anyone to engage in
behavior that allows the current US policy-makers to believe that
they have done right.
Times are very difficult, and require a surer, more granular,
and more disciplined treatment than is normally the case. Missteps
at this time can create very bad results. I would hope that Canada's
historical ability to see the moral light and policy essentials will
again prevail, and that Canada may be able to help the US learn what
it must, but by ignoring the US's mistakes, but by guiding the US to
their resolution.
Many of us here in the US remember the help of Canada with
the hostages and Americans in Iran. We remember Canada's sterling
record in peace-keeping, and international development assistance.
We remember the contributions of Canadians to the arts and domestic
life in the US. Canada has a great standing in the eyes of US
citizens, and it would be wonderful if Canada could use some of this
standing to help the US find its way to becoming that better citizen
of the world.
Cheers,
Lawry
There are times when, as a Canadian, I feel a little less than
proud of my country's political leaders. This is one of
them.
I see by today’s local paper, the Ottawa Citizen, that Canadian
Federal opposition members are demanding that Prime Minister-to-be
Paul Martin's first order of business this week must be to phone
U.S. President George W. Bush to arrange a meeting that will begin
the process of repairing badly damaged Canada-U.S. relations. The
softwood lumber crisis, mad cow disease and the Iraq war are just
three issues he should address with Mr. Bush immediately, not to
mention establishing a good personal relationship, they say. Tory
leader Peter MacKay said Mr. Martin should not wait for Mr. Bush
to call and congratulate him on winning the Liberal leadership,
but should pick up the phone first and do so this week. And, says
Alliance MP Deb Grey: "He needs to prove what he says about
mending relations with the U.S. -- on BSE, get the borders open,
deal with softwood lumber. We didn't want to get involved in Iraq
-- so what are we going to do on that front?"
Yes, what indeed? What might Bush want in return to favoring us
with a pat on the head? Well, he could grant us the privilege of
joining the US in sinking into the Iraqi quagmire. The Americans
certainly need help there. According to this morning’s Power and
Interest News Report (PINR) dispatch,
"… if the White House is able to corral a greater number of
countries into committing troops to Iraq, the president and his
administration -- specifically the likes of Vice President Dick
Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul
Wolfowitz -- will appear vindicated on charges of unilateralism
and anti-internationalism, which is one of the most widespread and
accepted criticisms of this White House's foreign policy. It would
be both an international and domestic political victory over their
critics if the Bush administration were able to create a true
coalition of military forces sharing constabulary duties in
Iraq."
Question for my fellow Canadians: Do we really want to help
these guys out even if it does mean getting a few more cows over
the US border?
Ed Weick
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