by Don Hynes
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| Vantage Point | Culture and Politics by Don Hynes |
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"No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong.
He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he sees it is not so,
the prejudice will be gone." - Tom Paine
October 28, 2006 Focusing the Lens As you read these words your eyes are a lens focusing a stream of words before you through a microscopic aperture into a vast field of thought and consciousness. Beyond the words there is the larger field of the internet, a storehouse of information, and beyond the internet the field of creation itself, the world in which we live with its seven billion humans and a veritable infinity of creatures, living in a matrix of unfathomable coordination. So too the inner world expands, on the inside of the lens, to intelligence, to creative power, and to a connective substance Jung termed the collective unconscious which unites intelligent life as surely as the air we breathe and the soil upon which we tread. Although the eye is the most easily available metaphor for the bridge between the inner and outer worlds, consciousness is a more accurate term for this connective space, that links our lives as created beings with the world of creation, and in this lens, of conscious awareness, lays perhaps our greatest power and potential. The importance of individual human sovereignty and intelligence has been belied throughout history. Religions have been dedicated to the purpose of furthering their priesthoods under the premise that people are incapable of experiencing God directly but require an intermediary to introduce them to the very Spirit from Which they live and move and have their being. Politicians follow up on this shadow play by endorsing their importance in maintaining civic life and order, convincing people through whatever means available that people NEED external control, that self government would be chaotic if not impossible. The founding of the United States was a crack in the veneer of this ignorance, the original Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights flying in the face of tyrannical rule, requiring a separation between individual faith and collective governance. The system of government did mandate for representative democracy but the obvious endorsement in the foundation of this country was faith in individual independence and self determination. The majesty of this light has been degraded over the years, most significantly in the last six, with a nationally enforced dependence on “security” and direction from a central authority unresponsive to the will of the people; a diminishment of the freedom of the citizenry to unprecedented levels. All of this was accomplished because of a single act of terrorism whose actual cause has never been properly investigated and the results of which have been reenacted on other countries to powers of ten. The victims of 9-11 are tragically outnumbered by the Department of Defense figure of three thousand Americans dead in Iraq, and the recent Johns Hopkins / Lancet study indicates over six hundred thousand Iraqi dead and one million displaced. The supporting beliefs about clash of civilizations and Islamic proclivity to violence are merely recycled religious and nationalistic bigotry which have for long been readily at hand to further the taking of land, natural resources and suppression of whoever stands in the way. Power does not belong to such “leaders” or their military might. Sovereignty and creative power belong to the individual and lay inherently in the lens of consciousness by which the individual is aware and creatively interacts with this world. As we act as one we may also act together, from a collective awareness of what is true and right. At this point in our human history we are challenged to let both our individual awareness and our collective understanding evolve beyond the regressive state we have known into a new level where we may live with the shining simplicity and life affirming harmony that is our true human destiny. Vantage Point is a personal declaration of independence. I don’t rely on the political or cultural loudspeakers that crowd for attention to tell me what is true. What I rely on is an inner understanding, in conversation with a field of information that is most accurately available at this point through the internet, and in dialogue with the many wonderful human beings with whom I am privileged to create what we may of a good world. And today, from this Vantage Point, I want to invite your individual lens into play. I want to ask you to focus on the issues of the day not because of yours or my political or religious or national prejudice, but because of the critical juncture we presently inhabit in the sustaining of life on Earth. There is a reason we are on Earth right now and it’s not to run the nickel slots in Vegas or think good thoughts while remaining detached from the so called “negativity” of the planet. We are here as creative beings and that means we bookend the spectrum, from the lowest and vilest of human behaviors, which seem to concentrate at the top of our governmental and corporate state, to the highest spiritual ethic and philosophy. We’re destined to this cross over point, and like it or not our collective lives increasingly depend on how we govern from the place of consciousness. I propose to begin posting one article of note weekly on Vantage Point and invite all of you to join me in a focus of our individual and collective lens on one specific issue or event weekly and to invite ten or more of our friends to join us each week in this. I survey hundreds of articles for those I post monthly and I realize this is daunting, but we can all give our attention to one issue a week. There is one thing those who favor the destruction of life intensely fear and dislike and that is the LIGHT of awareness and recognition upon their activities and misdeeds. I’m not suggesting specific action on these issues; that’s an individual decision. What I am suggesting is that our individual and collective attention MATTERS. Here’s the first example. Retaining control of both Houses of Congress is essential to the foreign policy of our present executive administration, and although the mechanisms of voter fraud stole the presidential elections of 2000, 2004 and the midterm elections of 2002, there is a growing wave of citizen discontent about the abysmal war in Iraq and the pillaging of the US Treasury. A changing of the guard is not only politically important for the process of restoring balance to our national governance, the lives of thousands American soldiers and many tens of thousands of Iraqis may depend upon this next election. I invite you to read this article, hold the importance of this issue in your consciousness, then cut and paste this link to as many of your friends and colleagues as you know would be receptive to the information. Build your own list and expand our collective focus. Let’s shine the light of our collective awareness and begin a new day! Article of Note The Coming Storm: Activating the National Guard (from TBR News, 10-26-06, http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2552.htm#002) It doesn’t take a Yale graduate to recognize that Iraq is a devastating mess. Sectarian war has broken out there between Sunni and Shiite, those not fighting each other are fighting the U.S., military casualties have tripled, there is wholesale theft on the part of government friendly contractors and the Administration’s approval ratings are on a steady downhill course. The total inflexibility of the President will not permit him to cease and desist and the very idea of his walking away from his very own precious mess is a foolish one. Bush will, as he has said in public a number of times, never withdraw from Iraq as long as he is in office. So, rather than negotiate, which he and his people are incapable of doing under any circumstances, it has been decided, at the highest levels, to smash any kind of sectarian or political opposition in Iraq and then impose a Bush peace at the point of a gun. Spirit in Action Amish forgiveness offers a powerful lesson for us all Olbermann: Amish Forgiveness is Christ Like Iraq 'Stability First': Newspeak for rape of Iraq Iraqi Prime Minister Lambastes U.S. Grass-Roots Group of Troops Petitions Congress for Pullout From Iraq A coup in the air (Scroll down to) Another Disastrous Coverup John Hopkins / Lancet Study on Mortality in Iraq following US Invasion Study estimates 600,000 Iraqis dead by violence Original John Hopkins Report Iraq Death Rate Estimates Defended by Researchers Riverbend (Iraqi writer in Baghdad) on the Johns Hopkins / Lancet Study Lebanon How Hezbollah Defeated Israel Part 1: Winning the intelligence war Part 2: Winning the ground war Part 3: The political war Cluster bombs still taking heavy toll on civilian life Israel Israel Admits Phosphorous Bombs Used in Lebanon Israel's Minister of Strategic Threats Gaza doctors say patients suffering mystery injuries after Israeli attacks Gaza's Darkness Afghanistan NATO bombs kill scores of Afghan civilians, officials Why It's Not Working in Afghanistan International Putin Gets Mugged in Finland Oaxaca Teachers Refuse to Budge, Reject Order from their Own Union Leadership to Return to Classes National GOP Losses Could Spark Partisan Warfare Stay the Course? Olberman: Beginning of the End of America The Wretched Years The Dow’s Phony New High National Scandals Diebold Voting Fraud Study: 9/11 responders' lungs impaired Documents: Feds, City Knew Of Ground Zero Toxins Further Allegations from EPA whistleblower on EPA fraud following 9/11 Olberman: How dare you, Mr. President Rumsfeld's profiteering on North Korea nukes Sickened Iraq vets cite depleted uranium Mercenary Jackpot Environment & Energy Tackle climate change or face deep recession, world's leaders warned Exxon Mobil third-quarter net tops $10 billion From Indifference to Ridicule, Bioneers Sparks Drive-by Shots from New York Times Voices from the Gas Fields Cracking Up: Ice Turning to Water, Glaciers On the Move - and a Planet In Peril The End of Eden Natural Building as Community Repair New Orleans Devastated New Orleans Still Reeks Of Overwhelming Neglect Essays Message from Chief Arvol Looking Horse The Bush Administration's War of the Images After Pat Tillman's Birthday (by his brother Kevin) Year One of the Empire Confessions of a 'Defeatocrat' (from the Department of Name Calling) America's Moral Decline and the Rise of False Christianity Interview With Ray McGovern, Part 1 TV Really Might Cause Autism *** |
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