I just finished watching the documentary Why We Fight by Eugene Jarecki, which focuses on the relationship of the Military-Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned the US about in his farewell speech as President of the United States. The experts in the movie contend that this corporate system of influence includes four primary entities:
The Military
The corporations who supply the military with hardware (Boeing, Raytheon, and of course--Halliburton among others)
Congress
The Washington Think Tanks like The Project for a New American Century
Let's consider the parting words of Eisenhower, shall we:
Now, the documentary contends that Congress, the military, and the corporations which provide the hardware for war are each junkies caught up in love with a drug they cannot quit, whereas the Think Tanks are the very danger which Eisenhower was warning us against in his farewell speech--groups of individuals making policy who are not elected nor are they affected by the feelings, thoughts, and beliefs of the citizenry. We, the People, have allowed a golem to come into being which is driving the world right into the toilet while the already wealthy become even more wealthy at the expense of our future and our individual freedom.
At one point, one of the Iraqi citizens who gets interviewed (and claims to have had family members killed from one of the first "smart" missiles missing its target and falling on their house) says, "America will not last long because it is not acting the way a great nation acts."
We are a war-society, despite all belief to the contrary. I wouldn't say that our culture is as outright blood thirsty as the ancient Spartans but we're not far off either. America has averaged an armed conflict with other nations something like every twelve years or so since our country was born. But it has only been since World War II when the machinery of war became the most profitable industry on the face of the earth.
The movie claims that the United States spends more on defense (22% of our gross expenses) than all other countries combined. Now, let's be honest; when we say we're spending money on Defense, it's not like we're building bomb shelters and arming and training young men 14 and older to handle firearms in case some blood thirsty enemy invades their community. No, when we say "defense," what we mean is the machinery to make war on other nations and the payoff after we've made war is in the access to their resources and the opportunity to sell them a bunch of plastic toys and nutritionless food that they really don't need in the first place and which will eventually rot their souls and bodies the way we've allowed ours to become rotten here in America.
Sorry to be so cynical but isn't that what it all comes down to? Isn't that the American dream today? Isn't that what the success of our billionaires is built on? Is this how a great nation acts when it claims to be the steward of all that is righteous and right about the world and our species?
Does freedom truly come with a blood red price tag that involves shooting another man in the head who doesn't have the same accent or bloodline we do?
I have seen glimpses of absolute freedom in my life and each time they were accompanied by death--the death of my ego, the absence of the observer, and each time a warm and pure energy flowed into the moment and filled every snapping nerve with a calm and roaring creative energy which is the source of all life and all things good in the world. I have had moments of death in life that were filled with whatever is beyond that razor metaphor that so many kill each other over and I did not have to pick up a weapon and splatter brains all over the desert sand to allow that type of absolute freedom to wash over my mortal soul (if only for a second).
But this type of freedom is worthless to the man in the suit in the corporate boardroom or the shadowy halls of Congress or the man in the dress blues in the first six rows during a Presidential address to the nation; nor is it worth a thing to the eggheads in the think tanks who work hard to draw lines of death and division on the maps of the world which we must all then walk around like invisible mine fields hanging in the air.
This type of freedom is absolutely free except for the payment of death in the moment.
This type of freedom cannot be killed for but it must be died for. Go ask Jesus. Go ask Buddha. Go ask Hallaj. Go ask Giordano Bruno. Go ask the Dali Lama.
This type of freedom is life itself in the sparking moment and moves the soul through instinct like a deep water fish through coral.
This type of freedom cannot be found in books, ancient relics, or arcane rituals. It cannot be called from the sky, divined from the air, or reeled from the sea of sorrow we know as the collective mind of humanity. It cannot be pulled into time and space because its presence dictates their absence.
This type of freedom is the beginning of intelligence and no man who ever claims to be the leader of nations should be without it.
This type of the freedom is the beginning of healing and the nexus of understanding and when the smallest seed of this type of freedom is present in the heart of the individual, the universe is set right and saved and so it is that the world becomes saved in tandem.
This type of freedom is the only thing that matters in this life and in this death and if we are not struggling to bring it into existence in the waking moment, then we are each living the lie of devils whispering in our ears and dangling golden trinkets before our eyes. This type of freedom can only be won inside each of our minds.
The final battle is always fought with ideas and emotions; the stakes are always for our immortal souls and the bet is always all-in.
Who Is the Most Interesting Character on Television?
by Joshua Minton
I have no frigging idea but I do have an opinion. I think that, in terms of sheer human conflict and drama, Walt Bannerman's character in the USA show The Dead Zone is pretty frigging good.
Look, here is a guy who loves his wife and his son but whose wife is still in love with her ex-fiancee Johnny Smith (who went into a coma and awoke five years later with amazing psychic abilities) and his son who is really Johnny's biological son but who has been raised by Walt as his own son. Top that off with the fact that Walt's the local sherriff and has to work with Johnny on tons of cases. His wife is in love with two men at once and his son calls two men father and he considers the man of their affections a personal friend who is indespensible to the success of his career.
Plus, he's a nice guy and maintains that disposition throughout the show's story arcs.
I don't know, it may seem an odd pick but I just think that given the amount of sheer conflict staring down the barrell at this character, he comes through amazingly well and could be the only true hero on the entire show.
