Do Americans believe in justice?
01/26/2012

It’s not a rhetorical question.

I'm sure virtually all Americans would say “Of course!” they believe in justice.  It’s a cornerstone of our democracy.  It’s a fundamental tenet of our relationships—personal, professional, economic, societal, ethical.  Moreover, I would venture that most Americans believe that justice is a universal value: that over time, justice prevails.  Or, as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “The arc of the universe may be long, but it bends toward justice.”

So, believing in justice, one has to be concerned about the future of the United States.  Justice may be blind, but she keeps accurate accounts.  She records that a people that destroys another country under false pretenses--say, Iraq--owes a debt to justice.  We add to the debt when we destroy what is left of Afghanistan.  When GIs and military contractors kill and rape and pillage civilians.  When we incarcerate hundreds of innocents—uncharged and unprosecuted—at Guantanamo.  When we send drones to destroy wedding parties.  When GIs piss on corpses, laughing.  Or take trophy photos with corpses they then post to porn sites. 

Or perhaps Justice is most disturbed by the American people's careless disregard—our unconcern—about these historical facts.  Perhaps she is most dismayed by our ability to continue shopping, consuming, recreating, while atrocities are committed in our name--and too often at our insistence.  Perhaps she wonders at our unexamined faith that our wars are just. That we’re heroes, if you can stomach it, when the record shows that we condone savagery.  Indeed, we initiate it.

For documentation, please see http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175491/tomgram%3A_chase_madar%2C_accusing_wikileaks_of_murder/#more.

Peace is imperative
01/19/2012

Not a month has gone by since our "withdrawal" from Iraq and forces in the United States are demanding war with Iran. Despite the deficit, despite the supposedly dire debt situation, these forces argue that somehow we have the wherewithal to destroy another country. We wouldn't have to occupy it.  We could just bomb it to smithereens. 

The arguments are familiar: we can't let a hostile, fundamentalist regime develop a nuclear weapon.  Never mind that we have 8,500 in our own arsenal--which, along with Russia's, constitute 95% of the world's nuclear weapons.  Never mind that we've taught our enemies to value nuclear weapons: if you've got one (like North Korea and Pakistan) we negotiate; if you haven't (like Iraq and Afghanistan) we invade. 

Never mind that Iran would be insane to deploy a weapon of any kind--nuclear or conventional--unless absolutely cornered, because of the certain annihilation that would result. 

What we're really looking for is an excuse to take Iran out now, before they develop a nuclear weapon, so that we can install a government more friendly to our interests.  It's "the great game," don't you know.  Trouble is, it's played with real people--people with children, lovers, hopes, and aspirations similar to our own.  And it's played on a real planet--a planet staggering under the impact of our relentless assault as it is.  

Wouldn't it make far more sense to have high-level talks with Iran?  To stop harassing and isolating her as an "evil" regime and give her people a stake in a cooperative future?  Wouldn't it make sense to stop supporting other oppressive regimes in the Middle East so that we aren't perceived as hypocrites when we advocate democracy?  Wouldn't it make sense to use our diplomatic weight to insist on peace between Israel and Palestine, thereby removing a major source of geopolitical friction and despair?

 Yes, the road will be rocky and full of pitfalls.  Yes, we will have to overcome many differences. Yes, there is mistrust on both sides--distrust that is well-placed given our history in their affairs. But that is the hard work of peace.  It is work that preserves life, promotes true problem-solving, and sustains the common ground we share--a place called Earth.

Peace talks are always required at the end of a conflict.  Let's try them at the beginning.  The world we'll save is our own.   

Welcome 2012
01/02/2012

What a year, what a world!

2011 was an emotional, spiritual, political, environmental roller-coaster ride, was it not?

On the macro level we witnessed a tsunami and nuclear catastrophe in Japan; Wikileaks cables and videos showing the dark side of American foreign policy; Bradley Manning’s arrest and solitary confinement, followed by a defense that totally misses the point of his political heroism; Dan Choi’s victory over the military’s policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; and a year full of thrilling grassroots movements—from the Arab Spring to the Occupy protests of the fall.

In the belly of the beast
12/11/2011

So here I am at CEO Space International's December 2011 Free Enterprise Forum.  The information they're throwing at us is stunning.  We' re being presented with more Power Point slides, concepts, due diligence details, and sheer introductions to new people and ideas than a sedentary brain can readily accommodate.  I know my own brain has been alarmed into hyper-alert: What the heck?!  She's learning again? Let me reactivate that program...

The desert in winter is beautiful, as is our four-star hotel.  But the city (Henderson, NV) is a ghost town--an extravagant wasteland, a requiem to profligate overconsumption.  Miles of Italian stone, painted ceramic tile, and 50-foot-tall palm trees gaze out over artificial lakes, dead golf courses, and abandoned, albeit brand-new condominiums, hotels, and clubhouses, windows dark, no one home.  No one will ever be home.

Game time
12/08/2011

I’m leaving tomorrow for a 10-day business conference in Las Vegas. I’ll be staying at the Loew’s Resort on the Lake at Henderson; not on the strip, so perhaps I will be in a tad more Earth-like environment than Las Vegas proper.

Still, 10 days at a business conference at a “four-star” Las Vegas resort feels about as diametrically opposed to the summer I spent sitting out with my Native American spiritual teacher as a girl can get.

Although just as nervous-making.

If you want to be a rebel, be kind
12/03/2011

I really can't improve upon this story of love in action from Occupy Oakland, nor upon this young man's commitment to nonviolent transformation of our planet.  God bless him.  http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?sid=127 . The full text follows. 

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Happy 11.11.11
11/11/2011

Happy 11.11.11!!!

I believe Humanity itself has created this auspicious day of celebration.  I find no ancient prophecies that speak of this date...11.11.11…only some that speculate it may be associated with a more accurate rendition of the start of the Mayan calendar’s 2012.

But rather than a day of endings, Humanity has re-envisioned its future and collectively chosen this day as a day of new beginnings—a day of ascension—not in physical form, but in consciousness.  It is our commitment to change, to transformation, to Oneness, that has created this vision of an opening, a portal, a pathway to God.  We are creating this reality.  And when Humanity acts, Providence moves also. 

Indeed, I hear there is great joy and celebration on the other side of the veil that Humanity has finally realized what free will and co-creation are about.  We say; we choose; and we choose life.  We choose Oneness.  We choose peace, love, and a world that works for everyone.

Happy 11.11.11!

Let the new world begin today
11/08/2011

This week we await with anticipation a numerically special day—11:11:11.  The Goodman family has its own reason for celebrating this occasion: it is the day our quadruplets (my sister's children, my parents' grandchildren) celebrate their eighth birthday.  My sister has always believed their birthdate to be significant, reflecting the birth of four "ones" at the same time: 11:11.  Like the fictional Four Musketeers, her children are One for All and All for One.

This week's date--11:11:11--places even greater emphasis on oneness. How many “ones” does humanity need to grasp the truth that all are One? That there IS only One of us here? One in all its splendiferous permutations.

Lessons from the plant world
11/01/2011

“No striving.”That’s what the plant said to me.

I was lying in her shade, stroking her leaves, inhaling her lemony scent, and hoping I was offering her something in exchange for all she was giving me. That was our assignment: to go make friends with a plant, as we would a human being.

Here’s to the losers
10/24/2011

There’s a lot of talk these days about “losers.” To hear some folks tell it, the country is full of them. They’re the unemployed people who occupy Wall Street. According to Herman Cain, they’re also the ones who crashed the economy, signing predatory loans (that they knew full well they couldn’t pay) and defaulting once the loans ballooned and their home values tanked. Or they got laid off (losers), fell sick (poor genetic stock or bad habits), or both. Soon they had no health insurance (freeloaders), couldn’t pay their medical bills (deadbeats) and declared bankruptcy. Next they’ll die out of spite—just to make the rest of us look heartless.

Jump-starting a movement
10/10/2011

The media have criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement for a lack of clarity in their demands; for being “leaderless”; for not knowing what they want.

They—and we—are not leaderless, but full of leaders. As Paul Hawken said in Blessed Unrest, ours is a movement so dispersed, so decentralized, that it cannot be categorized, targeted and eliminated. In short, it cannot be put down.

Neither are we unclear as to what we want: A return to democracy. An end to corporate “personhood” and corporate rule; in other words, an end to plutocracy. An end to war and militarism; a dismantling of the military-industrial complex that enriches itself by keeping Americans in a state of perpetual “war” and the rest of the world in a state of perpetual threat.

A beautiful statement from the Wall Street occupiers
10/05/2011

According to Nation of Change.org, this is the first official, collective statement of the protestors in Zuccotti Park:

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together.  We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.  We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profits over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments.  We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known: