ARE JUST WARS JUST?

FROM BEING RIGHT TOWARD BEING WHOLE

(For me personally, if not for all humans)

At our present state of evolutionary consciousness, we humans compete for limited resources, some getting more than others. The “have mores” inevitably rely on some type of force to maintain their advantage. The greater the advantage, the more force that is needed to maintain the advantage. This force can be laws enforced ultimately by force or the threat of force. The force can be one’s own guns used in self defense. The force can be armed forces. The force can be nuclear arms. The ones we maintain the force to oppose, are our enemies.

We all think we have enemies. At least half of us have divorced spouses and spouses often become enemies over custody of the children. Israel has its Palestinian enemies. The US has its “terrorists.” Labor has its employer enemies. Marxists have their concept of an enemy ruling class.

After one has used one of the various forms of force to maintain his privilege, his advantage, and has “won,” there are various things one can do with defeated enemies:

· Ignore them or deny their existence. Israelis seem to do this with the Palestinians.

· Kill them all, ruthlessly and savagely. Hitler tried this with the Holocaust. Genghis Kahn and other conquerors in history did this. This was Stalin’s solution.

· Enslave them or hate them (which may be the same thing)

· Try to “rehabilitate” them or “reform” them or “educate” them, control them or impose laws or agreements governing their conduct. The US tried this rather unenthusiastically in the Confederate South for 100 years after the Civil War. Labor and management make their collective bargaining agreements. Israel apparently believes that its massive group punishment of Palestinians will some how educate them or persuade them to accept their plight. This is obviously not working either for the Israelis or the Palestinians.

Unless we are totally without conscience and lacking in sense of morality, we will not wish to kill or enslave our enemies. We can sometimes simply try to ignore or deny the existence of our defeated enemies while attempting to preserve our own sense that we are good and moral.

The trouble is that enemies defeated by violence are inevitably angry. They are resentful. They seek justice. They want to retaliate. Victors often project their own fear on to the defeated enemies thereby exaggerating it. The victors worry that they may be poisoned, bombed, hurt or killed. They worry that they may be subjected to a nuclear attack or a biological warfare attack. The victors arm themselves further and enact ever more repressive laws both on themselves and their defeated opponents.

If something of yours was unjustly taken by force, would you not be angry and try to get it back by whatever means it took?

We have to live with our defeated enemies after we have “won.” Some people will always be conservative or right wingers or fundamentalists. Some will always be fascists. Some will continue to fear gays and lesbians. Some will still be very greedy.

So it is important to remember three things:

The use of force is almost always counterproductive and increases the numbers of our enemies and their determination to retaliate. The use of force creates mirror images of the reactions and feelings in the users of force as well as the victims.

All advantage and all privileges over others are maintained at some level by force.

We will have to live with these others, our enemies, after we have “won” by the use of force. We will have to resort to even more force.

Because of the counter productive results of the use of violent force, I have been examining my own religious heritage, particularly the teachings of Jesus, and MLK Jr. and Gandhi in their exposition of non-violent means of exercising power. This necessarily requires my willingness to share whatever unjust privileges I have more equitably with my enemies.

It was far more complicated and profound than I had thought. I got a hint of this from the title of a nonviolence training manual offered by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Its title is From Violence to Wholeness, a ten part process in the spirituality and practice of active nonviolence by Ken Butigan and Patricia Bono, OP. How does one get “wholeness” out of a nonviolence training manual? Is this “wholeness” individual, cultural or both?

First, one can not use nonviolent means effectively unless one believes and is ready to act upon the insight that God created all humans, loves each human, and expects each of us to love each other as God does. This means not only giving enemies caring attention, but also affirming the good human qualities in every human, even enemies. This caring and affirming must be sincere. It must not be given grudgingly. This is basic. There are no substitutes. I am searching for a secular source for this foundational ingredient. For example, we can choose to act as if we were created equal and can commit to give each of our fellow humans caring attention, if not love, all based on thousands of years of human experience and expounded by the most respected sages of mankind. The human experience is that in the long run this secular assumption makes us and our families happier and safer. All of this involves the question: Where do we get our ethics? Our sense of morality? Our wisdom? Our Judgment? From God? From Human Experience? I am frankly not satisfied with my secular formulation. Can others do better?

Second: We must love our enemies no matter who they are: Ex-spouses, employers, the ruling class, fascists, greedy aggressive persons, racists, homosexuals, the rich, the poor, foreigners, terrorists, communists, and capitalists. We will be living with them after we have “won.”

An essential component of these first two points is the assumption that there is some glimmer of good in every human, and that no matter how evil, this evil human can be lead to change his mind and alter his conduct.

Third: We must establish a trusting, caring relationship with our enemy before we can change or teach, influence or persuade him. Those that we seek to change must know that we will not hurt them. This is the first law of nonviolent efforts. We must not frighten our enemies. We cannot successfully establish this relationship after we have used force of any kind to subjugate our enemies

Fourth: Our caring confrontations with others must be nonviolent. That does NOT mean that we should be passive. MLK Jr was certainly not passive. We must not try to dominate others. We seek cooperation, partnership, sharing with others who are as entitled as we are. We do not use force or fear in any form. We do not use abuse, be it verbal, mental, psychological, spiritual, or physical. The basic reason for this is that the experience of mankind, the teachings of the major spiritual traditions and sages shows that the use of force of any kind is always counterproductive. It does not achieve one’s intended objective. It causes more harm than good. It makes things worse. (A system of police and laws established by the human community humanely to control, treat, and reform the mentally ill or those who are out of control in committing hurtful acts is perfectly consistent with the commitment to be nonviolent as individuals and as a human community.)

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Fifth: We exercise our moral, persuasive, ridiculing, shaming, petitioning power nonviolently. We may break existing laws but we must accept the punishment. We seek to uphold the concept of law and to extend the law to overcome the injustice we are nonviolently acting against. The nonviolent process itself is far more important than the ends we seek. The reason for this is that the nonviolent process causes profound changes in both the actor and the observer.

Considering and hopefully choosing to live by these foundations has caused a major change in me personally in my 81^st year. It is creating a psychological and intellectual “aha!” It is an epiphany. As the title of the book suggests, it has brought me a profound sense of wholeness. It has to do with how I view other human beings. Without this insight, my view of others was: Do others hold my correct ideas in their heads? Are they liberal and open minded like me? If not they are my potential enemies and at some level I harbor anger toward them. On the other hand, if I can view other human beings as sharing a spark of divinity, a spark of goodness and humanity I can seek a relationship with them, no matter what ideas they hold in their heads. I now recognize that it is the relationship that I must first have before another human and I can talk about ideas. I must seek common human goodness and not simply try to teach or impose correct ideas. I know that I have always been judgmental and critical. I would rather be right than be in relationship. I believed that the way to change human beings was to teach them about truth and justice, and that most humans badly needed this teaching by me. I applied these assumptions of mine to spouses, all other people, particularly the rich, the greedy, the hypocritical, the civically inactive, the stupid, those in denial, etc etc. Naturally I have had few friends and much difficulty with my spouses. Nobody reads my articles, and nobody is changed by them. I was always angrily trying to expose the evil deeds of my enemies. I was always trying to reform things through my Democratic Party and through my Episcopal church.

This statement in from Violence to Wholeness about my church, and all churches, political parties, and institutions, was especially enlightening for me:

“Institutions are good at preserving and passing on the steps humanity has already taken…They cannot lead people into a different future…People who move beyond the ordinary consciousness and conscience of religious institutions face very much the same problem. They can draw on the words and symbols for support on their journeys. But they must not expect the institutions to create new life. The community that will support them can only be found along the way, as they themselves take steps into an unknown future.”

(A special note: It is necessary and acceptable to be acutely aware of the evil produced by one’s enemies. MLKJr and his followers were certainly acutely aware of the evils of racism. It is alright to be angry about the evil to get the necessary passion for action. That fueling anger at the evil must be focused and used in nonviolent action.)

I find that these new foundational inner assumptions and beliefs cause in me a sense of inner relaxation, of peace, of serenity, of being more accepting of the idiosyncrasies of others. I am much happier. I am relieved of the hopelessly frustrating burden of attempting to persuade others solely by criticizing the evil done by mankind’s institutions. I am delighted to find a method, a process, that has a chance of working, and whether it does or not, I am enriched by the process.

This new insight of mine is founded on theologian Walter Wink’s interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. According to Wink, Jesus sought to establish in each of us a dignified inner consciousness that we were nobody’s master, and nobody’s slave; that we were free to love others as we love ourselves; that the way to overturn the establishment evil persons was to love them and by example to try to influence or persuade them while maintaining our own self worth and dignity. Our objective is to live with them as equally loved by God both before and after we have persuaded them.

This nonviolent approach is truly revolutionary. It upends the status quo and all of the assumptions and institutions of the status quo. It upends one’s inner assumptions and psychology.

Compare the underlying assumptions and approaches

NONVIOLENCE DOMINATION ENFORCED BY VIOLENCE

All humans are equally entitled Some humans are more entitled than others

Relate by mutual caring attention Relate by force, domination and fear

Humans are basically good Humans (other than us) are basically evil

Human relationships in

Community is foundational Force, the threat of force and starvation is

Foundational

Truth and Justice are absolutes Truth and justice are subordinate to our

privileges

A friend, Barbara Rector observes that humans and animals such as horses and dolphins share the following four reactions to fear:

Flight

Fight

Freeze

Faint (meaning not facing the evil by denial, drugs, alcohol, or actual fainting)

We humans have two additional powers that animals do not have:

1. We can observe our own reactions and inner feelings.
2. We can overcome our fear and choose another reaction while observing our fear rather than yielding or reacting to it.

The choice of nonviolent action has become possible due to the ongoing evolution of human consciousness. Some of us can choose to react to fear or injustice in a new way. People with a more evolved consciousness can lead and influence those humans with a less evolved consciousness. An evolved individual first learned how to start a fire and taught others. An evolved human first invented the bow and arrow and taught others. It is our evolved role to live and act nonviolently, to use nonviolent power and to teach it. With the awesome power of modern communication, the evolved consciousness of the sages can be shared with the millions. It is up to us. Will you share? Will you help?

Dated: December 19, 2006

Douglas R. Page dougpage2@earthlink.net

This article and others may be found on Doug’s blog at http://www.thenewliberator.blogspot.com

A MEMO FROM DOUG REGARDING CURRENT CONDITIONS

A MEMO FROM DOUG TO MY SPOUSE, MY EXTENDED FAMILY, FRIENDS AND STRANGERS

I am concerned about the fragility of our economy coupled with the criminality of the 1% who rules us. Both are extreme. When coupled with the coexisting problems arising from peak oil and global warming, it is not an exaggeration to say that civilization as we know it could fall in our lifetimes. Google /argentina inflation/ and see what happened to a very rich country recently. The currency inflated 3000% almost overnight. Bread that cost $1 a loaf suddenly cost $30.

Our economy is similar to Argentina’s and “on very thin ice” because:

· Our trade deficit is at an all time high and increasing, and there are no prospects that the deficit will be brought under control.

· Our national debt is ever increasing to the highest level ever. We are totally dependent on the Chinese buying our US bonds. They continue to buy so far because they want us to have money to buy their goods. China also has a vast and increasing need for oil. They can and will do anything necessary to get oil, including halting the purchase of our bonds. This will force the US to raise interest rates on our bonds to attract buyers. The value of the dollar will continue to decline.

· The debt of individuals and corporations in the US is at an all time high. We have no more reserves of cash or savings or any other source of money to finance more consumer buying. In the recent past, we refinanced our houses and spent the surplus cash.

· There has been a tremendous increase of investment in volatile, risky derivatives in the last 5 years. Investors are betting and speculating on every conceivable thing. There is absolutely no regulation or control. Banks and insurance companies are heavily involved, so that our major businesses are at a high risk of failure.

· Any interruption in our oil supply, due to another Katrina, due to sabotage of oil pipe lines, or whatever, will trigger a depression and unemployment

· There are absolutely no plans on the shelf to deal with any of the above, and no public figures, and no substantial voting population with the awareness or consciousness to demand that these problems be dealt with. There is also not enough time.

The wealthy and powerful top 1% rules us. We do not have a democracy. Our votes are almost totally meaningless in terms of controlling our destiny. We have an oligarchy.

By any reasonable standard, this top 1% is uncaring, malicious and criminal so far as we are concerned. It is this criminal oligarchy that is now intentionally causing our economic crisis. This criminal oligarchy controls Bush, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. It is an illusion to think that Bush is the cause, or that we can change things by electing Democrats. This top 1% is behind everything that Bush does, and everything that the Democrats will do or will refrain from doing (like ending the Iraq War).

Who but criminals would:

1. Lie to persuade us to get into a war, intentionally killing and maiming the sons and daughters of the poor, and none of their own kin
2. Give massive tax relief to this top 1%, while intentionally increasing the national debt, both while fighting a very expensive war on credit, thereby placing a crushing future tax burden on us and on our children.
3. Fail to help the poor victims of Katrina, and continue to fail for 15 months after Katrina.
4. Eradicate environmental controls, deny the existence of global warming and peak oil, and do absolutely nothing to save the planet or to reduce or control our total dependence on oil.
5. Give the President (the obedient servant of the top 1%) the power to arrest us, hold us in secret for as long as the President wants, deny us a lawyer or access to the courts, and torture us?
6. Leave health care and drugs under the control of this top 1% to charge us what they please.
7. Throw our money away without audit, without bids, without accountability to Halliburton, Brown and Root and other “contractors.” This is done with no apparent concern that the tasks these firms contracted to do, is simply not done
8. Cancel all SEC and banking regulations that would control their behavior
9. Encourage, sponsor and profit from illegal drugs
10. Ignore and deny the fact of global warming

It is this criminal class, the top 1%, that has as its barely concealed policies of:

1. “Starving the beast” meaning intentionally increasing the debt of the United States so that no government or subsequent Administration will ever be able to come to the rescue of the victims of the above criminal acts in terms of welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, health care, old age security, or a “New Deal” a la Franklin Roosevelt, or a “Fair Deal” a la Lyndon Johnson.

2. Intentionally reducing the value of our dollars by inflation. Be very clear: Inflation causes a massive transfer of wealth from us to the top 1%. It is an intentional stealing of our money and transferring it to the top 1%. (In March 2006, the US stopped giving public notice of the M1 money supply. This means the US can print all of the paper money the top 1% chooses and we will never know, except from the rapidly lessening of what our dollars will buy. In mid December 2006 Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernake will again travel to China (they tried and failed in October) to try to persuade China to let its currency float vis a vis our dollar, so as to lessen the amount of goods that our dollars will buy. The top 1% is using the power of the US to reduce the value of our dollars and to cause wealth transferring inflation) Meanwhile, the top 1% can and will hold its wealth in gold or stable foreign currencies, or land. The top 1% will not be hurt by inflation. They desire it. They are intentionally causing it. It is a further transfer of wealth and power to them.

3. Conducting a permanent war against “terror,” a war the top 1% planned and designed before 9-11. The above criminal acts and policies have an adverse economic effect on the whole world. More “terrorists” are created daily. The talk of “getting out of Iraq” or reducing troop levels is a manipulative lie. The top 1% believes that it must control the oil of Central Asia and Iraq. It is building 4 huge permanent bases in Iraq. These bases are like cities with KFC, Burger King Etc; there are more permanent bases in Afghanistan and Central Asia. The war is permanent for our lifetimes and our children’s lifetimes.

The ideology and stories that the top 1% believe and tell themselves to sustain this criminal, reckless conduct are of course false, and harmful even for their own well-being, but they control the media and academic sources that might expose the falseness. They are in a trance, and they keep most of us in a trance.

SO WHAT DO WE DO? WHAT CAN WE DO?

I choose to face the fact at some time in the near future the following will happen:

• Things will become more and more expensive and our dollars will buy less and less. There will be much unemployment and homelessness.
• In the slightly more distant future, food will become unobtainable at any price people can afford. Electricity, lighting and air conditioning will be very expensive, if available at all. There will be millions who are hungry and desperate. Our dollars will be nearly worthless. The probability is that people will “choose” a right wing dictator who promises to make them “safe,” or the Oligarchy will take charge. Congress has already granted the President the power to declare martial law when he chooses, and construction of prison camps is already authorized.
• My own need for caring relationships with spouse, friends and community and strangers will become far more important than money, more than it is even now.

Therefore I am considering the following as the prudent reasonable things to do:

a. Being prepared to hold all spare dollars and cash reserves in gold. The problem is timing. Our dollars need to be invested in liquid investments for as long as is safe.

b. At some time when land prices fall or maybe now, buying fertile land with abundant water where I and others can grow food and survive, and help others. (It is very difficult for me to time these purchases of land and gold. Our cash has to “work” as long as possible. I seek input.)

c. I am thinking of establishing a kind of charitable mission on this land where this could be accomplished.

d. Spreading awareness by encouraging people to read David Korten’s The Great Turning, leading book discussion groups about the book and encouraging others to do the same.

e. Learning how to grow survival foods quickly without petrochemical fertilizers or tractors, and how to save the seeds; how to preserve foods by canning, drying, and in storage cellars

f. Preparing ourselves for civilized mentoring and leading by learning the discipline and moral foundation for the non-violent exercise of power and building small self sufficient communities

g. Be prepared so that when hungry people come to us, we can say: “Join us. We need you. We care about you. You have skills that we can use. We will feed you and give you starter seeds so that you can do the same for yourselves and others.”

h. Visit and copy very aware communities like Ukiah, CA where the entire community is engaged in efforts like the foregoing.

Dated: December 6, 2006

Doug Page dougpage2@earthlink.net

Steven E Jones Nov 11 06 Lifting the Fog Lecture UC Berkeley Campus 911Truth.org

This is the recording of a live webcast of Steven Jones' presentation from the Lifting the Fog conference held on the campus of UC Berkeley thanks to 911Truth.org. Jones, a professor of physics at BYU obtained some dust and steel from the World Trade Center crime scene, and tested it. He found traces of powerful explosives that he concludes were used to demolish the three buildings of WTC