ALL WE NEED IS LOVE

                                           

When I was asked to speak to my local Unitarian Universalist congregation on a topic of my choosing, I opted to speak about how we are morally obligated to resist injustice in general and war  in particular. Since this blogsite is a political one, it may seem inappropriate to some that I am choosing to publish a sermon here, but I do not apologize. Anyone who objects to the invocation of a higher power in the universe is welcome to skip past such references here, but the message is otherwise universal and entirely consistent with the stated aims of Soldiers For Peace International. I hope that it will provide some thought for those who battle for justice out of anger, and who forget that anger is but a response to the pain we feel when we see the powerful prey on the meek.


In his first inaugural address, with the nation on the brink of civil war, Lincoln called on the nation to remember that regardless of our differences, we are all bound by common ideals. Pointing out that we had a choice to resolve our differences peacefully, he concluded with an appeal to listen to “the better angels of our nature.”  That’s a beautiful metaphor, but what does it imply?

I believe it refers to the fact that Man has two natures that are often in conflict: spiritual and animal. When we decide to act in a situation with moral implications, we always face a choice between satisfying our physical and psychological desires or acting according to the greater good. Lincoln was pointing out that the coming war was not inevitable. War is always a choice.

In deciding on our actions, most of us try to balance the two types of motivation, animal and spiritual. We want to serve our own interests, but not at the expense of doing harm. But how deeply do we consider the effects of our actions and just as importantly, our decisions not to act? We can’t all be saints, but I believe if our needs are met it is a moral imperative that we do what we can to align with our spiritual side. That requires consistent effort. While accepting our limitations, we must constantly strive to improve. We are all creatures of habit, but the absence of change is death. Therefore, we must make it a habit to question our actions as a means of growth.

This starts with questioning our motivations. The difference between the two forms of motivation, spiritual and animal, is not always clear. Rationalization is powerful and universal. For example, we may strongly believe that character is built by being self-reliant. Does this mean that caring for others actually harms them? Some say yes. Are they just justifying their desire to avoid paying taxes to provide a social safety net? After all, most would feel differently if someone close to them is afflicted. Until the question affects them personally, such people suppress their innate compassion. I believe that this community supports the right of each of us to health care, but how many of us are standing up for the innocent victims of war. What interest does turning away serve?

Rationalization is an unconscious process, so how do we decide what our motivation is and whose interest our actions or inaction serves? The key is to honestly consider where our self-interest lies, and put it aside when it conflicts with what is best for all.   Perhaps we avoid confronting the evil of war because its horror is too overwhelming. That would serve to ease our anxiety and avoid a sense of helplessness, but at the cost of our spiritual well-being.

Animal nature is not inherently bad.  It enables us to survive as individuals in hostile physical environments. However, it is our spiritual side that connects us to the wider universe, including that which is not seen. God, however we choose to define it, is within us as well as outside of us. I believe that though we often forget it, love is what connects us to each other and to the wider universe. We can call this universal, all-pervasive love the Holy Spirit.

Love is not physical, yet nothing is more powerful. Love is the one thing that could exist without its opposite, which is not hate but apathy. Unlike darkness, which cannot exist without light, universal love fills the emptiness of space. I believe that this is because it emanates from the Source of all creation. It is our substance, in the most elemental sense.  We cannot ever separate ourselves from that Source or from each other, though we can become insensible of the connection. That is what apathy is, willful blindness to our innate compassion.

Our beliefs do not define us. Our actions do. What we think we believe is self-identity, but it is what we do establishes the identity that others see. When our actions follow our beliefs, we are said to have integrity. If we never examine our beliefs, we do not see inconsistency between our various beliefs or between our beliefs and our actions. But we cannot honestly say we believe in something if we are acting contrary to that belief. For example, “Christians” who claim that life is sacred but support the death penalty clearly do not believe what they profess.

We choose what we want to believe, often without thinking. In a very real sense, we construct our own reality. That is why we have become divided by our belief systems. We must strive to remember that in truth, we are one even with those who seem to have nothing in common with us. We should try to persuade others in a loving manner, not in one that promotes anger and conflict.  Our goal should be to create a common reality that is true to the loving nature of our spiritual selves.

So, if we want to become more the person we want to be, we have to make decisions by looking at all choices, understanding our motivations, and deciding to act according to the beliefs we wish to define us, such as thinking that we are empathetic, engaged and altruistic.

We cannot allow superficial beliefs to guide us, if they conflict with our core beliefs. For example, many of us believe that capitalism is literally God’s gift to Man. That’s fine as far as it goes, but if we allow that belief to justify acting in ways that do not reflect our spiritual beliefs, we have to challenge those inconsistent beliefs. Again, only when we develop a coherent system of spiritual beliefs and allow them to determine our actions can we become the persons we want truly want to be.

If we consider ourselves spiritual and virtuous, how do our actions show it? Are individual acts of kindness enough? If so, then what of the suffering of those who are victims of the powerful?  The working poor in America have no access to affordable health care. Innocent civilians in targeted nations in the Mideast and throughout the world are victims of US aggression cloaked as “humanitarian” intervention in the name of liberty and security. These problems and many others are not unconnected. They result from moral choices that we make as individuals and as a society. As Franklin pointed out, if you sacrifice liberty for security, you will have neither. If we believe in the principle of self-rule, we have a duty to demand that our government serve the cause of liberty and justice for all.

We fought a war that was ultimately about ending the institution of legal slavery. Now we face the task of stopping our government from enslaving the human race through war and economic coercion. We are all paying the price for allowing our government to serve the selfish interests of the powerful. Whether we are victims of austerity measures at home or of endless war abroad; whether we are suffering from compassion overload or have become numb to our innate compassion, none of us are spared. 

Those of us who are comfortable have a duty to those who are not, both poor Americans and victims of US aggression around the world. Doing nothing is a choice, but those who make this choice should not try to excuse it by saying that they cannot make a difference. It is only their efforts that can. Good intentions are not enough. We cannot honestly call ourselves spiritual if we do not face the evil that our government is perpetrating in the name of “freedom” and “security” and demand justice.  Standing up for what is right often takes courage and sometimes requires sacrifice, but the only hope for humanity in these dark times is for those of us who understand that we are all part of an interdependent web of existence, bound inextricably together only as strongly as our love for each other.

A PEACEFUL GLOBAL UPRISING

Those of us who long ago realized that human civilization itself is on the brink of collapse should take note of the mass protests in Brazil, Turkey and Egypt that are actually having an effect on governments. Having begun to make progress in gaining liberty and economic justice within living memory, they value them more deeply and are prepared to fight for the right to continue to create more just nations.  This willingness to combat forces many would have viewed as undefeatable before the Arab Spring and the global Occupy movement gave them hope, they are showing the peoples of nations around the planet that a new world is possible.

Citizens of Western nations are failing to respond adequately to the threat to the economic, social and environmental destruction that will devastate human civilization. They have not yet realized the urgency of finding a way to use the power of our vastly superior numbers to seize power from the few who would enslave the many in a cycle of endless war, increasing economic inequality, mass starvation, pandemic, loss of basic human freedom and dignity and ultimately, the destruction of the environment that sustains us all. The protests in Greece, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria and Canada among others have not produced real change, leading many to conclude that the grip on the power over government held by the global elite is too strong to be broken, so have given up trying. If we feel any sense of responsibility to our children, we must reject this self-defeating attitude and do all that we can to end the enslavement of the vast majority of Mankind in what is rapidly becoming a fascist New World Order. Resistance is not futile. We can crush the corporatocracy, but the world revolution will begin only when we accept that it is not only possible but imperative.

Whenever the subject of mass revolt is brought up in the United States, one hears a chorus of familiar excuses for why it cannot be done. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy that has led to the US going from having the highest standard of living in the world to being a nation with economic inequality greater than the United Kingdom, from which the people who created the US separated so that they might not be subjugated by a nation long corrupted by the depredations of an economic aristocracy. If Americans can awaken to their collective power they can take back America for the People and create a democracy that will then spread naturally throughout the world. Only when injustice is resisted everywhere will it be possible anywhere. The task may seem unattainable, but the difference between the impossible and the merely improbable is the will to do the hard work that makes the improbable possible.

Though few realize it, poverty in the US is at record numbers. Americans remain ignorant of the fact because it is obscured behind government statistics that few understand. The majority who get the information that is the basis for their political thinking from a media that has become presstitutes for the government and the plutocrats it represents. The official poverty line is $11,000 for an individual and $23,000 for a family of four. Using the more realistic figure of $17,000 as the poverty line for individuals, fully one third of Americans are poor, more than half of them children. It is clear that the Puppets in Washington have decided that the era of shared prosperity for Americans is over.  It is up to average Americans, with the support of others who are suffering from the actions of their corporate-controlled government, to show that we demand a new era of social and economic justice.

The Puppetmasters of Washington have made clear they have no intention of tolerating the sharing of their wealth produced by workers and expropriated by them. The mass of Americans are falling into poverty as the American economy descends into a self-destructive spiral must organize and united to force them to relinquish the power over us that we have given them, despite decades of growing complacency and ignorance born of affluence. Today’s economy is built on financial transactions that amount to a rigged game of Monopoly, where the .1 percent are gaining not only at the expense of the poor, but even the 1 percent. After all, there is only one winner in that game. Of the 90% of wealth that has gone to the top one percent in the last 10 years, the vast majority has gone to those at the very top who are the real rulers of America, through their ability to pick who Americans are allowed to represent them in Congress and the White House. With the right message, it is possible that we may even get the support of the majority of the one percent who do not yet realize the true nature of their self-interest.

Americans are well aware that millions of Greeks, Spaniards and Italians have taken to the streets, if only sporadically. They realize they are protesting austerity measures designed to destroy the welfare states that protected average Europeans from the worst excesses of capitalism and assured a decent standard of living for every one willing to work and those who could not do so. They were shocked to learn about 25% unemployment rates in Spain and 50% of youth unemployment, never realizing that the real rate of unemployment in the US is over 40%. That statistic is masked by Obama’s triumphant proclamation that the official rate has dropped to “only” 7.5%. Even though most know that figure does not include those who have given up seeking jobs in the new economy, few realize that the shrinking middle class has created a lower class that is growing in numbers and potential power. One of the advantages of knowing that you have no hope for employment is that it frees time to join in mass protest, as Occupy showed. The problem is that Occupiers stubbornly resisted prioritizing objectives. Anyone with military experience would realize that we cannot win this class war without a strategy that leads to clear objectives. Brilliant tactics are meaningless if not based on objectives developed with a clear strategy in mind.

The greatest virtue of Occupy is that it raised the consciousness of Americans that the only real democracy is direct democracy. The greatest danger it presented is that in failing to lead to a growing, sustained movement, most will conclude that democracy is not possible. The truth is that it is possible if Americans can learn to understand that there is more to democracy than the ability to speak and vote on collective decisions. However, it will take a new willingness to listen to those who are focused on a strategy to peacefully overthrow the existing political and economic order by creating a mass movement, one that is international is scope, organization and strategy. It must include those in other nations who have already taken up the struggle for freedom. They need the support of Americans willing to put pressure on their government to act in the interests of all rather than the few on whose behalf they feel they owe their positions of power and privilege. If they realize that their real interest is served only in working on behalf of average Americans, we will have at least a Republic, one in which government represents the People.  Such a government would stop wasting national resources on wars that serve only the corporate interests. The entire world would then be free to reorganize itself into a stable society.

The task then in creating an international front against fascism and war will most importantly depend on a change in the collective consciousness of Americans. While only part of a general global awakening to the fact that we need not submit to slavery if we can work together to end it, it is the most critical component. Americans, and to a lesser extent those in other highly developed nations, have to awaken to their collective power and the urgent need to exercise it. It is citizens of these nations whose representatives in government are the chief builders of a New World Order. That structure is designed to accommodate the whims of the global economic elite who are its architects.

The citizens of NATO nations that have known only relative prosperity for generations have the most to learn about the reality of deprivation. When the majority come to understand the need to consider the good of all if democracy is ever to be more than an illusion promulgated by the rich to keep the rest of them complacent, democracy will be possible. As long as they play defense within the existing political order, they are bound to be defeated. It is only in becoming part of a movement that stretches beyond international borders to fight for liberty and justice for all that they will become responsible citizens of a planet fit to pass on to their children.

HOW TO DEFEAT TYRANNY

Today's blog is by Brandon Smith and originally appeared on The Western Center for Journalism website. It is perhaps the best statement of what Soldiers For Peace fight for and how we can accomplish our mission of building a united international front against fascism and war.






It is inevitable. There comes a point in the development of every crisis, every catastrophe, every impending disaster, and every act of methodical dictatorship in which the generations selected by fate or destiny to endure the trial must attempt to look beyond the intellectual and the psychological to deeply consider the greater philosophical or spiritual questions of their epoch.  Certain moments in history demand that truly free individuals relinquish their cynicism and embrace that inherent world of form and conscience that exists in each of us but remains largely unexplained.  Without this act of “faith” (or intuitive knowing), good cannot exist, inspire, or prevail.

To understand what we face in our age of encroaching technocracy draped like glistening silicon across the face of a third-world American cesspool, we must accept certain realities, the first and foremost being the existence of “evil”.  Not the evil of ignorance; that is easy to recognize.  Not the evil of apathy and moral relativism, though the stench of both sharply permeates the sour underside of our culture.  No, I am talking about pure, unbiased, unflinching, perfectly conscious and fully absorbed evil.  The kind that they tell stories about.  The kind that history books speak of almost in awe, as if it is miraculous in nature.  A dark tide. A prehistoric leviathan. An unbelievable and seemingly inhuman myth made manifest by astonishingly vile despots.

This evil is so overwhelming that many people today scarcely imagine it possible.  It is our society’s greatest weakness: the denial of ultimate malice.Our current governmental system has adopted a policy of open theater, in which the two sides of the false paradigm now barely hide their farcical opposition to each other.  Their rhetoric no longer obscures their acts of political collusion in the destruction of our founding principles and Constitutional protections.  In the past several years, they have acted in the best interests of corporate minorities and moneyed elites without hiding their intentions towards globalism and the destruction of sovereignty, fearlessly spitting on the redresses of the public. All of this while they arm themselves to the teeth with billion-plus round stockpiles of ammunition and Orwellian surveillance technologies.   Yet, foolish subsections of our populace still argue that the government is a “product of elections” and is “made up of Americans for Americans”.  Even if we do not see them as an enemy, they certainly see us as such.
Our financial system is a stampeding procession of nightmare-fueled, blood-drenched circus freaks dancing in an ether-driven haze of pungent absurdity.  It is as if our economy has become a morbid parody of itself, like a queasy piece of horror/comedy cinema.  We are so far along in the collapse of our markets that the banksters no longer see the need to hide the fraud. With the advent of the Libor Scandal, governments, central banks, and corporate financiers all flaunt their criminality with pride. Yet, some Americans still clasp their naïve hopes to a chance of fiscal recovery.
To fight against an evil of this magnitude takes more than anger, or physical preparation, or organization.  It takes personal exploration, a steeling of one’s heart, and a conquering of one’s shortcomings.
Tyranny, true tyranny, thrives on our selective awareness and our ability to bend our minds and our vision to avoid seeing that which is really there.  In the end, victory over tyranny is less about guns, bombs, mass dissent, and civil fury; it instead requires an acceptance of the dark side of the world and the unwavering will of honorable men ready to face it.  That is to say, the defeat of tyranny begins and ends in the mind.
In America today, many minds are not ready to handle the trials ahead. Maybe it’s the ease of several generations of uninterrupted prosperity. Maybe it’s the Baby Boomers. Maybe it’s Generation X.  Maybe it’s the public education system. Maybe it’s the water. Maybe it’s all of the above and more. At this point, we have little time to debate symptomatic culprits. It is time to go to the root of the problem and cut it out.
What we need is a foundation, a set of “personal rules for combat” when engaging a tyrannical establishment. This “code” should above all else provide a way of mentally and spiritually confronting one’s own weaknesses and presumptions.  Dictators and oligarchs are not our primary concern. Our inner state is.

Rule #1:  Stop Waiting For Others To Fight The Battle For You
If you want to put an end to totalitarianism, you can’t sit around waiting for other people to solve the problem for you.  The greatest downfall of any political campaign (even when led by a liberty- minded candidate) is the centralization of popular focus on a single man.  There is no knight in shining armor coming to lead the Liberty Movement to the promised land.  These unrealistic expectations will only end in disappointment and nihilism.  The solution starts not with others, but with YOU. Where do you contribute to freedom? What actions have you taken? Who have you inspired? What ideas have you offered?  What project have you organized, struggled for, and sweated for? Take the reigns of your own destiny, and finally join the fight instead of perusing the internet longing for a guru to hand you a mission.
Rule #2:  Believe In Something Greater Than Yourself – Abandon Childish Cynicism
This is where we get all “spiritualized”, which for the typical cynic is a rather gooey and uncomfortable affair.  If accepting a higher purpose to the universe and your own existence is too much for you, then at least consider deeply the future of humanity in general.  Think not of what mankind is today, but what mankind could be tomorrow if you make it so. Know that there is an indelible good within us, though it may be difficult to see at times.  Cradle that spark, and champion its return. It is not enough to oppose tyranny.  One must know exactly what he is fighting for in order to triumph.
Cynics do not make history or change a country for the better. They are the forgotten dust wafting about in the wayward attics of time.
Rule #3:  Deal With Your Fear, Or It Will Be Used Against You
A subjugating government’s size, military might, technological superiority, and overall gravitas are irrelevant.  The fight will come, whether we want it or not.  Accept the fact that the fight is coming to YOU; your fear of it does not change the eventuality of it.  Wars, especially those waged for freedom, are won by the will, not by arms or technology.  Not by laser-guided missiles and predator drones.  Tyrants always have the advantage.  They always have the upper hand.  They win when they are able to convince the masses that this advantage makes them invincible and that resistance is a futile exercise.  They lose when the people could care less about the size of the guns pointed at them.
All men are afraid to take risks, especially mortal risks.  However, great men understand the necessity of risk in the pursuit of that which is right.  Fear should play no part in your life, ever.
Rule #4:  Understand The Nature Of Tyrants
Overcoming fear is one thing.  Being overconfident is another. Understand that the evil you face is capable of absolutely any depravity in its lust for absolute control.  Understand that the crimes you will one day witness in your battle to dethrone the autocrats are designed to rattle your will and eradicate your resolve.  Know that to attain a free country, you must struggle through social, economic, and physical carnage you never thought possible before.  Be ready, psychologically and emotionally, for anything…
Rule #5:  Dump Nihilists And Obstructionists By The Wayside
You can’t save everybody, and you certainly can’t impart a sense of greater purpose on cowards, weaklings, and nihilists.  These people are inherently self centered and seek only to prolong the ease and length of their own existences regardless of the cost to others.  Nihilists in particular are so inwardly and subconsciously ashamed of their own weaknesses that they go out of their way, often obsessively, to project those weaknesses on the whole of.  They have to believe that if they are not capable of fighting back, no one else can be either, and they will shriek to the rafters about the impending doom of us all.
Nihilists and Obstructionists are dead weight on any dissenting activist movement, even though they pretend to support the cause, and should be tossed to the curb immediately.  A revolution for liberty requires foresight and courage.  If a person does not meet both these criteria, they will eventually bring you down with them.

Rule #6:  Find A Love For Humanity Once Again
I know as well as anyone how hard it is today to care about most people, given the amount of utter stupidity so many display on a daily basis and the costs this behavior has accrued in our society over time. Get over it.  Recognize that when you fight for freedom, you fight for EVERBODY, even people who have not earned your efforts. If you fight only for yourself, or your immediate circle, you will lose. Look at the bigger picture, and know the real breadth and consequence of this undertaking.  Fight for all, or you might as well crawl into a shallow hole and pull the dirt over your head now.
Rule #7:  Remain Adaptable To The Circumstances Of The Environment 
Absorb what works, and cast off what doesn’t.  Be stubborn in your principles and your resolve, but not in your strategies. Vulnerability comes with predictability. Blaze trails the tyrants don’t expect.  Show them something they’ve never seen before.  Be bold, or go home.
Rule #8:  Retain Your Principles, Or You Will Fail
The philosophical doctrine being peddled by elites in our military today states that “in order to defeat a monster, you must be willing to act like a monster”. This is insanity. Forgoing one’s principles and adopting dishonorable and vicious methods is not the way of a warrior; it is the way of the tyrant. Remember what you are fighting for. This is not just about our personal survival, but the survival of a worthy ideal.  Abandoning that ideal may give us the illusion of short-term success, but in the long run, the cost will bankrupt our movement, demolish our moral high ground, and make hollow any victories we do achieve.

The Real Fight Is Within 
Some may have stumbled upon this essay with the expectation that it would outline a kind of step-by-step instructional guide to crippling the globalists. Sorry to dissatisfy if that was the case, but it is better that we all comprehend now that there will never be such guide.  As much as globalists and collectivists with aspirations of world dominance and total financial centralization are a threat to our way of life, the real fight, the fight that matters most, is not without, but within.  We will overcome them only when we overcome our own failings.
I imagine many wish, as I surely wish, that simple days and comfortable times could continue on forever.  The difficult truth is that history tests man and sets the extraordinary apart from the mundane. Sometimes these tests are so epic in their scale that one wonders if anyone will step forward to weather the storm. Someone always does, and we owe those brave souls a debt of gratitude that can only be paid with our own stand in our own era. At the end of all things, we will either open the door to a better world, or we will cut our own throats.  Tyranny is nothing but an opportunity for the best in all of us to rise.

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You can contact Brandon Smith at:  brandon@alt-market.com