I came across this quote on my daily calendar today:

Tiny children want to learn to the degree that they are unable to distinguish learning from fun. They keep this attitude until we adults convince them that learning is not fun.

EDUCATOR GLENN DOMAN

Why do people stop learning? There was a time when people got together, they asked the question, "Have you read [this book] by [this author]? And I imagine that more than often, the answer came back in the affirmative. Try that nowadays. 8 times out of 10, you'll get laughed at.

So when did illiteracy become the norm? When did that act of not learning become a badge of honor? There is such a deep undercurrent of anti-intellectualism in our society that to make a literaray reference in a conversation is to marginalize oneself or go totally misunderstood to point of having might as well not even have said anything at all.

I already know that you all (my readers) read, as a general rule, but I'm interested in hearing your thoughts about this issue.

Dear Georgie,

Since you won't return my phone calls or my e-mails and since you haven't posted on your ultra secret blog that you've been keeping from Laura and those tight asses in your Secret Service detail; I have to post this publicly. Now c'mon Georgie--you and I go back too far for you start acting like a punk, man. And this letter is an attempt to fix what's gone wrong with us because I care.

You know, when you and I started this thing in the summer of 2000; I had such high hopes for us--I really did. I thought we were going to be the Silver Anniversary surfers, my man--taking life by the big waves and smiling at the sun while the other surfers around us ate foam and wiped out one by one. Damn there's been a lot of wipe outs since that summer, hasn't there? But we've had a few good wave runs too, can't forget that and we shouldn't forget that you were the king dong on the board during those times. But we also can't help but pointing out that you were the Faust in charge when we ate it also.

Dude, I was with you in the days after 9/11--you were in my thoughts and prayers. I was with you when the lights starting flashing and the rocks started flying in Afghanistan. And I was even with you when the tanks rolled into the desert of Iraq and embedded media showed us, the populace and people who gave you the job, how a war begins in real time for the first time in human history.

I didn't get as bent out of shape as the rest of the country with the human pyramid torture pictures because I know that what Dr. Meade said in Gone with the Wind is some true shit: "Good Heavens,...this is war, not a garden party."

I was even with you on the surveillance stuff for the most part. Taking away the privacy of communications from the populace isn't anything new during war time. After all, Lincoln authorized simultaneous raids on every telegraph office in the North and seized the record of ever telegram written for an entire year by anyone in the north. He suspended Habius Corpus and authorized the seizing and imprisoning without being formally charged of hundreds of citizens. He took a shit load of money from the US Treasury and just handed it over to the Lords of Industry to procure the instruments of war from their impressive social and business networks and didn't even ask for a receipt.

So bad shit has been done by Presidents in the past who have also been picked by the three sisters who choose, measure and cut the string. Nobody's saying that you're the only one or even that you've gone way too far and deserve to get fired like your predecessor (even though he wasn't removed).

But I've been reading up on Lincoln a lot lately and things started to come into focus when I read this portion of a speech he gave to Congress on July 4th while the Civil War was still in its newlywed stage:

This is essentially a People's war. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of man, to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life...Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled, the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains--its successful maintenance against a formidable attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that whose who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion, that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they take by war--teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.

That utterance put so many things into perspective for me--with what we're trying accomplish in Iraq and the Middle East in general.

It's a monumental task to take a conglomeration of human minds so entrenched in their belief and in their worship of their deity (who in their minds calls for continued bloodshed in a ridiculous war which has lasted hundreds of years too long) and say to them that the age of religious zealotry has come to a crashing end and that instead of ascribing patterns and powers to the stars in the sky, mankind is now traveling to them and every race, creed and belief system is welcome to come along.

It's a bitch of a thing to say that to people, Georgie--believe me, I know. I've been trying to figure out a kind way to say that type of shit for over ten years ago and it still comes out harsh and unsympathetic. But since when has human history yielded to the sensibilities of the moment and the human emotion that swirls and fills the vacuum of the possibility of the next moment?

So, look--we're cool, Georgie. You can put my name back on speed dial in your Blackberry and you can start leaving comments on this blog again. Because we're down like that, I'm willing to wipe the slate clean in Two to the Double Aught Seven. Just make sure that everything you do is in the spirit of what Lincoln talked about in that speech because so long as you do that--you are still on the razor's edge, my man.

Keep it real in DC, Georgie Boy and next time you come to Columbus you don't have to hang out with just the millionaires. You can come to the crib and we'll throw down on the XBOX 360 in a little Call of Duty or Gears of War and my wife'll make her Shake-N-Bake pork chops, out of the box mashed taters and Bush's baked beans which is about as good a feast as any man needs.

Love,

Josh

LINKS:

• Don't look now, but somone you know just won the very first Blog Carnival for Ohio Bloggers (thanks to Sadie's Take on Delaware Ohio for hosting)
  

• Wal-Mart is Determined to Push Energy Saving Light Bulbs to 100 Million Homes

Sic Semper Tyranus. There is something both base and satisfying about seeing a tyrant meet his end. Enjoy.

LINKS:

• Bomb explodes in Madrid Minutes After Saddam is Executed
  

• Saddam was handed one of his own red cards before his death
  

• President Bush keeps Saddam's former pistol "within arms reach" in the Oval Office
  

• Robert Parry Says that Bush has Silenced "one more key witness to the important historical events that led the U.S. military into a bloody stalemate in Iraq and pushed the Middle East to the brink of calamity"
  

I proudly voted for Bush 43 twice but this administration has gotten completely out of hand.

American politics has a heartbeat and the emotion of our country runs very deep inside all of us. I believe it is within our abilities as citizens of this nation to do a collective gut check, lick our forefingers, stick them into the wind and ascertain which way it blows. Dylan said it first and today's weathermen are the Bill O'Reillys, the Keith Olbermans and the Chris Matthews of the world.

If we are honest with ourselves; we can all admit that during this past November's election, we saw the ruling mandate leak out of this presidency like air from a tire spiked with a five inch nail.

And if ever one needed proof that this administration is out of touch with reality, it's the recent press fervor over the President wanting to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps. Folks, that ship has sailed.

Many make the argument that the historical occupation of Western nations rebuilding after an armed conflict took decades. But rebuilding infrastructure, like everything else in our world today, should and can be undertaken at the same light speed in which information and ambition travel.

Shit, if we can turn ten thousand acres of farm fields into a golf course community supported by both a Costco and a Wal-Mart in two years, surely we can secure the peace and rebuild infrastructure in a place where it already existed in five.

An administration with wisdom would pull the troops out when their function was completed.

An administration with brains would tell the world that our troops are coming home and that the all the cities and countries over there in the land of sand had better wise up and stop acting like 7th Century dopes duped by the written word and suppress their terrorist sub-cultures or else.

And an administration with balls would drop a thermonuclear bomb on the capital city of any country that allowed terrorist activity to fester into an attack on American citizens and load another one in the missile silo for the next bunch of stupid sons of a bitches dumb enough to fuck with a lion when he's cleaning his claws.

The War on Terror has become an atrocious display of corporate greed backed up by an unscrupulous spending-happy Congress and Lords of War military hardware manufacturers fueled by noble and patriotic soldiers and officers who are in danger of getting caught in a thick trap of their loyalty and honor.

I would never impugn the sacrifice that service men and women make for our country but Stephen Covey has a wonderful business analogy of people trying to make it through a jungle and frontline managers as the ones hacking through the underbrush while the true leaders are the ones who climb the tallest tree to survey the land and call down to the others, "Hey, we're in the wrong jungle." And the collective answer they get from the hacking managers is, "Shut up! We're making progress."

And I think the situation in the War on Terror is a lot like that--where the noble soldiers and officers are saying we're making progress and very likely are relative to their task at hand but We the people are ultimately responsible for determining if we are even in the right jungle.

And I think we're not only in the wrong jungle--we're in the wrong fucking desert.

What do you think? Holla!

NOTES:

• Picture by Jason

LINKS:

• Stop Calling Every Thing Blogs
  

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• House Panel Faults FBI in Oklahoma City Bombing Probe for Not Investigating "Other Suspects" Who Might Have Helped McVeigh and Nichols (read Middle Easterners and possibly Iraqis)

TAGS:
War on Terror President Bush

"Kill or be killed!"

That is the underlying mantra of human society today and it is being hummed in the boweled troughs of scale as well as at the high pitches where angels supposedly sing.

The mantra today is to distrust your neighbor and if he comes after you, you're supposed to say, "Fuck you and die, you bastard." Like you're Steven Segal in Hard to Kill, the entire War on Terror is based on the premise that a nebulous mass of sickened individuals are hell bent on killing each and every one of us at any time and place.

Is this any way to live?

This insanity has even pervaded business which is supposed to be providing the highest quality goods and services to the most people for the fairest market wage. But now it's too often, "Fuck you and die--let me step over your worthless corpse on the way up my ladder of corporate success."

This is no way for us to live as a species seeking to make it another hundred years on this warm wet rock hurling thousands of miles per hour through a space so cold and lonely it defies imagination.

Relationships are what make us human but so few of us ever stop to consider the mechanics of relationship and how important they are, not only to our happiness, but to our ultimate survival as individuals and as a biological species still finding its niche in a constantly changing and harsh environment.

So, let's take a moment to consider how relationships work and we must first begin with the way the mind works. The mind is an organ, like any other in our bodies. There is a reality which occurs in the moment and our bodies have five primary sense organs which gather raw information and relay it to the mind.

The mind receives this information from the five senses, processes it into mental images and then reacts to those images. If you hurt me, I store that image and it becomes part of your image in my mind. Likewise, if you flatter me, that also becomes part of your image in my mind. And this reaction based on fear and pleasure is what we call relationships.

But what the mind considers reality (the point at which it receives information from the five senses) is actually a step removed from reality. In other words, by the time the mind receives that information, reality in the moment has already changed and the mind is working with outdated material. And our sense of self is composed of these outdated mental images based upon false reality.

The mind is a warehouse of mental imagery from which we draw conclusions about the past and present and project the future. We have mental images of every person we come into contact with as well as how relationships between objects work in time and space. The scientific method is based upon observation, postulation, testing and theorizing about the certitude of causality in the relationships between objects in time and space and it's the same with mathematics.

Science works. Math works. They both serve a definite purpose and have allowed our species to construct the social niceties which have brought us down from the trees and let us build concrete jungles of glass and steel with weapons that can decimate all life on the planet in a string of nanoseconds.

But is there a point where the false reality of the mind actually becomes a danger and a detriment to our safety and future survival as individuals and as a species?

We keep images in our heads, not only of ourselves but also of the other people in our lives. These images are also based upon a false reality but even worse than that; they aggregate through a cataract filter of emotion which snowballs together until it becomes so obese with time and sappiness that the difference between the reality of that person and the image we have in our heads of them is as wide as the difference between Santa Clause and the parents who actually put the presents under the tree for their children.

It's a lie agreed upon and it is killing us like a gunshot to the heart.

If I have an image of you and that image is based upon my seeking pleasure from you and avoiding pain and you have the same type of image about me then we have no relationship. The only relationship is between two images which are based upon false realities and distorted by loaded emotional baggage.

So what happens when you see this as a fact? You recognize that it is unhealthy to allow dead images to drive your actions toward others in this life and you want to stop it because you realize that if you don't, terrible things will continue to happen in your life and in the lives of those around you.

You will continue abusing the ones you care most about and hating those who abuse you as will everyone else in the world. Seeing this fact is like the addict seeing the heroin taking their life after the needle has been injected and the plunger is halfway down the vial.

How do we stop?

How do we cease reacting towards others based on dead images? We recognize the true severity of the problem and the dire consequences for us all should we fail to act in some way? But what are we do?

The answer to that questions is a topic for another How to Think post. Stay tuned...

War is the final divorce of humanity from reason and the spiritual aspirations of our highest ambitions.

War is the final three count of the human animal over the human spirit.

War is the moment of inception when the worms of hell finally burrow into the holy of holies in the human heart and begin to divide and replicate.

And war is totally necessary in the social evolution of mankind.

War is the agent of change--the white blood cells of society moving to attack the diseases which threaten to hinder our forward progress.

War serves an absolute and justified purpose but as with everything absolute; war has a beginning, an ending and a limit to its usefulness.

Greatness of human achievement is most visible in the act of war but it remains the greatness of the human animal engaged in teeth sneering murder to secure health, wealth, progeny and ideological lebensraum.

White blood cells die off once they complete their cleansing the blood of foreign and harmful particles as must the act of war once an equilibrium has been reached and the boundaries of future progress secured enough so that we may steer our ship of specie between the jagged rocks of time, decay and mortality.

The Cosmopolitan Citizen is the one whose paradigm surpasses the petty chains of nationalism and the superstitious metaphoric idol worship known as religion. The Cosmopolitan citizen is the one who thinks, not only in terms of their entire species or within the limited scope of all life on this planet but one who thinks in the absolute terms of existence itself. He or she feels themselves undulating in the peristalsis of life in the moment without tether to the ephemeral string of moments which came before or the rumor of the moment which is promised to come after this one.

We as Cosmopolitan citizens are imbued by destiny to define the scope of what an equilibrium with each other and the planet we inhabit both looks and feels like in every possible aspect, not just political and economic. We must deeply feel the interconnected web of all things and learn the beginnings and ends of each facet of our existence so that we may use the tool of war to its most effective end and put the tool away when that end becomes detrimental to the forward progression of our species.

The first step toward freedom is the only step in the process of true transformation and it can only take place within each individual's mind; anything beyond that is somebody trying to sell you something.

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

--Hermann Göring, Leading member of the Nazi Party, Second in command of the Third Reich, and Commander of the Luftwaffe--

TAGS:
How to Think War Sociology Politics Spirituality Evolution Joshua Minton Boys Wear Pants

Absolutely not. No more than I would be upset to see a suffering horse put down after its leg was broken. I tried my best. I made my case. I voted my conscience.

Bill Peirce put up a hell of a fight for an independent candidate, pulling in 2% of the vote (67,126).

But I'm not bitter. I'm thinking clear.

American politics today is like a broken down table in a house where the master refuses to replace it because its seemingly served its function for so long.

And the legs are breaking off one by one but the master still tries to convince himself that the table is good--to just give it two more years, four more years, twenty more years--all the while everyone is eating their dinner standing up because the table is no longer capable of serving its function.

But how many splinters will it take? How many broken dishes and cracks in the veneer will it be until the table won't service anymore? When will it be time to grab the ax and start swinging.

When will the bonfire blaze out back?

One thing this country has in plethora is plenty of trees to make new tables.

LINKS:

• (MUST WATCH!) Penn and Teller Bullshit: The War on Drugs (Hat tip to Fantastic Bastard)>

I have already cast my vote for Bill Peirce and I have never been more sure of the moral and political correctness of any ballot I have ever cast prior to this. I urge you all to seriously consider voting for Bill and start making the change now that our country so desperately needs.

Dear friends:

I am writing to you today to urge you to vote for me, Bill Peirce, for Governor of Ohio in Tuesday’s election and to ask your friends to vote for me.

If you believe the polls, I will not win the governorship in tomorrow’s election. So why should you vote for me? Because much more is at stake than just the governorship.

What is at stake in Tuesday’s election? Freedom. The Libertarian party is the only consistent defender of freedom today. Where was the outcry when Congress abolished habeas corpus as part of the Military Commissions Act? Where was the protest when Homeland Security announced that the “no fly list” would be extended to all arrivals and departures by land or sea to or from the U.S.? How long before it will be a crime to be caught without your Identification Papers? How soon will it be a crime to own an animal without an implanted chip?

Closer to home, who objects when the State assumes control of wage rates? Who questions writing a monopoly on gambling into the constitution? Can any voice be heard defending the right of a property owner to allow people to smoke in his building? Bit by bit, our rights are chipped away—and neither major party raises a voice in protest.

What is at stake in Tuesday’s election? Ohio’s economy. The economic plans of both major party candidates are based upon the belief that bureaucrats and politicians are able to spend your money more wisely than you can. The results are obvious in the lagging growth and sagging employment in Ohio. The direct relationship between low taxes and growth and between freedom and prosperity is shoved aside in favor of “pay to play” for the benefit of the politically powerful. The young people understand what is happening and are streaming out of Ohio. It is not another college scholarship program that will keep them here. It is freedom, low taxes, and the economic growth that results.

What is at stake in Tuesday’s election? Ohio’s future.

Voting Libertarian sends the message that the people do care, that we are not sheep grazing placidly until it is time for shearing or slaughter. Every vote cast for me sends a strong signal that voters are fed up with the direction in which this state and the country have been moving.

Voting for either of the two major parties sends a message, too: it tells the major parties that we are content with things the way they are and that we are content to elect the lesser of two evils, election after election after election.

I urge you to make a difference. I implore you to make your vote truly stand for something. On Tuesday, I ask you to vote for Bill Peirce for Governor of Ohio.

Sincerely,

Bill Peirce