JESUS Short Essay 4 of 4

JESUS

by Norm Lowry

We are actually free to choose the way of love which Jesus has shown us.— John Stoner

Last evening while sitting in my prison dayroom thinking about how to best write about Jesus, a fellow inmate, Derrick, came and said, “Hey Norm, thanks for writing a letter to me.  What’s it say?

“Dear Derrick, I love you!  You’re a free man!  What are you going to do with your freedom?”

“Derrick laughed nervously.  I had just broken a couple of sacred rules:  Never say “I love you” to another inmate and never talk about freedom to a man not scheduled for near release.  Derrick smiled and said, “You’re weird, Norm,” and walked away.  

At first glance, most folks don’t much care for the Jesus I know and love.  He didn’t come to cosign any existing religion or to start a new one.  Nor did he come to placate any governance other than that of his nonviolent dad, our Creator.  Saying “No” to church and state, for the sake of God’s nonviolent love, got Jesus arrested and executed, as a traitor to both church and state.

The nonviolence of Jesus is quite obvious in the Bible’s New Testament. His call to love both neighbor and enemy was a call to defeat evil with the greater power of love.    But  most folks start getting nervous when it comes to comparing the nonviolent Son to his supposedly violent Creator-God Dad, in the Old Testament.  In Bible college, my venerated professors said this was due to the “dispensational” (changing) nature of our supposedly unchangeable God.  This pretty much sounded like a large crock of “skubula” (Greek, for crap), to me.  People change but the God and Jesus I intimately know never change.  

Beside going to Bible college, I’ve read the Bible in just about every English translation there is (many of them multiple times), and I’ve read 12-1500 supporting God books.  In spite of the opinions of all the respected church leaders and writers, I still see the Bible in terms of the nonviolent God of love creating all things and calling them all good.  Along the way, the humans decided to reclassify all these good things, according to good and bad—a conundrum not of God’s doing.  Their resulting confusion resulted in good desire becoming rivalry—becoming violence—becoming murder; a complete platform from which to challenge our nonviolent Creator-God (or so they thought).

Well, the humans took charge of the dialog and soon had God changing his mind and calling good, bad. Now there were just too many bad humans.  So God had to repent and destroy the world (except for a few marginally good humans and animals), and the humans had God right where they wanted him (or did they?)  The dialog continued and illicit religion joined with illicit state, for the purpose of dominating humanity, in the name of an illicit and violent God.  Enter Jesus….

Jesus lovingly kept the dialog straight and held the preachers, teachers and his own followers to the same nonviolent standard of love.  When they spoke truth, Jesus called them godly.  When they slanted the truth in their favor or lied, Jesus called them “snakes,” reptilian  sneaks,” and ‘devils” (THE MESSAGE).  

That Jesus’ Dad was God and his mom was human has become a never-ending discussion of godness vs. humanity.  But to what end?  Jesus referred to the prophets who taught that “the human one [Jesus] is the son of God precisely because he is the son of man made in the image of God, and is thus not different from God but like God” (John Stoner).  This is pivotal yet largely despised by preachers and teachers of both his and our day, as it affirmed the godness of all people and nullified all lists of exclusions.  Jesus took away the illicit church’s and state’s ability to control and/or manipulate others, save by escalating violence, which was by some strange dynamic—the grim result of rejecting Jesus’ way of nonviolence— set loose to rampage by Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Yet compassion, the gift of our nonviolent Creator-God, was also released to escalate by Jesus’ death and resurrection.  And, as taught by Jesus, nonviolent love will prevail against violence, with its lack of love.  Jesus’ kingdom is emerging through nonviolent transformation, as opposed to the illicit church’s lie of evil violence being disposed of by righteous violence.

Does our society ever persecute Jesus’s followers for their nonviolent love?  Come and visit me some day and we can discuss the why of my imprisonment.  “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.”

8/24/16

A Prayer for Tenderness

write Norm at Norman Lowry KN 9758        

                      SCI Dallas

                      1000 Follies Rd

                      Dallas PA 18612

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Read Norm's book online CONSCIENCE BEHIND BARS: THE PRISON LETTERS OF NORMAN LOWRY    

https://www.academia.edu/2413332/Conscience_Behind_Bars_The_Prison_Letters_of_Norman_Lowry_Introduction_and_forewords_by_Dennis_Rivers_Eileen_Fleming_and_John_Stoner_

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A Prayer for Tenderness

by Norm Lowry

November, 2015

"It is those who have never accepted life's realities who always think there is an escape.  That's why, for example, many people believe in building bomb shelters.  It does not occur to them that life might not be worth living if conditions for a life worthy of human beings no longer exist."  --Arno Gruen

Ours is a culture of purposeful violence, whose powerful demand compliance, which societally equates with responsibility.  All who choose to be unsubmissive are deemed to be irresponsible and thus subject to sanction, ostracization, and imprisonment.   The problem with this is that our culture of violence is based on lies.  So to be in bed with the powerful in any way, shape, or form entails cosigning the lies, whether one is aware of them or not. 

For those of us who choose prison over gross submission to the lies, living with death, which comes in many forms, is our daily lot.  Two days ago, a close peer died from a severe cancer, exacerbated by poor health care and nutrition.  A coupled days before this, a peer died of a heroin overdose, enigmatic due to the poor grad and dosage generally sold.  A few days prior, a peer confessed to contemplating suicide rather than to face being stabbed by those extorting him, who had already raped him as a preemptive strike.

So along comes a letter from a friend who says, "I'm praying that you will maintain your tenderness…"  You've got to love a precious friend like this!  Here is one who gets it, who understands what it takes to make life work in our hardest moments.  Tenderness; being kind and gentle, is the only solvent which can penetrate the admixture of the submissiveness to violence all around us, whether in your prison or mine. 

In 1957 I saw black people burned in fires and hung from lampposts.  While adults salivated, we children knew this was not supposed to be.  

In 1960, after observing numerous atomic bomb tests, we would hunker beneath our school desks, to practice being "safe" from imminent nuclear attack.  Again, while adults salivated at the thought of besting some contrived enemy in a death match, we children nervously shook our heads at the utter absurdity of those whose place it was to teach us dignity and integrity.  

In 1965 my first friend died in Vietnam.  Danny was 18.  I was 12.  The adults told us it was for the greater good.  We children heard it as a question.

In 1991 I "won" my first lottery.  The adults said I was one of them now and that going to war was an honor.  With tears in his eyes, my did laid his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eyes, the went off to get drunk.  I sat, confused.  I couldn't get drunk at my age.  I'd never had sex.  But I could go to war.  I gave up desiring to be the typical adult that day.

I did enter the military but I did not go to war.  I resigned after being told we could rape Vietnamese women if we thought they were beautiful, as long as we killed them when we were through with them.  My supposed superiors were baffled that I could not see the normalcy of such behavior.  To them, since war was necessary, they had to offer young men something to make war worth their while--all the sex, drugs, alcohol and murder their hearts so desired.  The trouble was, I wanted none of those things, not even the sex if it was outside of loving, affirming relationship.

The whole scope of violence is predicated on one individual or group inflicting suffering on another or others, in hopes of avoiding suffering themselves.  This is insanity, of course, yet we continue to make it a sanity, or so we believe.

So here I am 45 years down the line, fast-forwarded from 18 to nearly 63.  It's actually been quite an adventure.  While our culture has severely degraded, as far as destructiveness and inhumanity is concerned, many of us have escaped by reassuming our birthright to actual, as opposed to blindly obedient, humanity.  For this, some of us sit in prison and many in graveyards, both far better options than our old, chosen alternative of merely going along. 

Today, overwhelmingly due to the United States, we sit on the edge of a monstrous precipice.  The U.S. Constitution still says that Blacks are only 60% human.  The U.S. nuclear threat is greater than ever, as the U.S. arsenal contains more nukes than most, if not all, other societies combined,  The U.S. war threat is the greatest threat of war on earth, buoyed by the 100+ wars and interventions waged in my lifetime.  Our fragile earth is telling us it cannot much longer sustain our abuses.  The U.S. and its allies (partners in crime?) are publicly hinting at the need for a one world government.  Even the Pope, on his recent visit, stated that we need one world, United Nations, governance--eek!

So what of tenderness  The answer lies in the nature of tenderness, itself.  There can be no genuine or expansive tenderness in violence, for the violent seek to crush tenderness, seeing it to be a weakness.   How else can the rich and powerful hold exclusive reign over "the initiation of wars, the destruction of livelihood, and the poisoning of nature and of other human beings," while excluding themselves, largely, from imprisonment?  "Official statistics on criminality include more poor people than rich because those statistics reflect the ideology of the rich and powerful and do not include all forms of destructiveness."  (Arno Gruen).  Tenderness thrives on nonviolence   The more one commits to a life of nonviolence, the more tender one can become. True nonviolence must be embraced and espoused.  It cannot be imitated for long.  To me, nonviolence is the essence of our Creator, as it stems only from love.  And from love flows tenderness, as gentleness and kindness.

Through the years, I've caught a lot of flak for believing our Creator to be absolutely nonviolent.  Yet since the so-called "ten commandments" are said to be first a reflection of our Creator's essence, each statement would necessarily read more like "I don't murder so you don't murder."  Thus, our creator could not have been the god who told "the faithful" to murder those who did not believe as they.  Sure, some god told the people this.  In fact, the dominant empires of the day had 8-900+ violent gods who would have perpetuated such a ruse.  

Also through the years, I've caught no small amount of flak for my stances of opposition to the American traditions of colonialism, violence, racism, bigotry, poverty-production…injustice.  That I absolutely hated these driving traditions enough to renounce my association with government-registered religion and my U.S. citizenship disturbs most people, who consider these moves to be un-American.  If it is un-American to hate tyranny and love truth, then I'm un-American.  But I ask you, "Is it un-American to love all people boundlessly and indiscriminately, enough so to be willing to model another way of running the world:  absolute nonviolence, even if it costs my life and my all?"

So the most glaring and applicable question remains--do conditions for a life worthy of human beings still exist in the culture in which we live; for me, the United States of America?

What does tenderness say?

HEALING

HEALING

by Norm Lowry

We live in a culture gone mad, a society so disjointed that we have forgotten both who we and those around us really are.  We have given up our health--physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually--and our ability to heal ourselves and others, all for a distorted sense of power that only destroys.  Few of us seem to be able to claim any happiness at all, only misery, which we blame on someone or something else.  And if asked for the name or names of those with whom we have genuinely satisfying relationships, few if any can honestly provide one name.

So what do we generally do?   We tend to buy into society's love of mental illness; a state where circumstances are fully beyond our control; a state where we can play the victim; a state where we can take medication that will make our pain go away.  But does our pain genuinely go away or do we simply transport ourselves into a state where we can get out of dealing with our reality for yet another moment or two…?

My life has been no different than the many others who have suffered horrendous abuses, tortures, and tragedies.  I've found my obsessions, compulsions, and hatreds with which to build massive walls to keep myself presumably safe.  I've found myself meaningfully classified and diagnosed, professionally, and, I've taken my poisons which raised my seratonin level so I could feel better, for my token moment or two.  Yet where did it all get me?  It left me alone, firmly entrenched behind self-built walls that shut out all meaningful interaction.

One day, while literally depressed out of my mind, I went to see a movie.  I found that while I was watching the movie, my depression was nonexistent.  When the movie was over and I set foot outside, I found that my depression was right there waiting for me.  So I went back inside and watched another movie, another three or four movies to be truthful.  It didn't take extreme brilliance to realize that my thoughts and choices of the day were altering both my feelings and physiology.  I was choosing to depress, then choosing to stop depressing, when I found a more effective way to engage life.   My old, self-protective paradigm was faulty and had become useless to me.  So I went in search of a new paradigm.

That day, at the movie theater, my insanity was exposed for what it really was:  a massive lie that was literally sucking quality life right out of me and, it was my chosen lie.  There  may genuinely be such a thing as mental illness, if there's a genuine pathology that can be found to physically prove it.   And surely medications are at times needed, as they seem to lessen the anxiety of those turning certain emotional corners.  But I was past this basic need.  What I found has completely changed my life.

I found a teacher who taught me six things:

1.  Life can only deeply be engaged by the one willing to accept complete responsibility for all personal behavior.

2.  As neither the past nor what occurred in the past can limit me, only working in the present and toward the future can effectively aid my personal growth.

3.  Relating as ourselves is always fruitful, relating as "transference figures" is never fruitful.

4.  Personal growth is never to be found in excusing behaviors on the basis of unconscious motivations.

5.  The morality of behavior--the distinguishing between right and wrong solidifies the investment in personal growth. 

6.  The more satisfactory our patterns of behavior, the more and better we fulfill our basic needs.  (William Glasser)

Today I no longer live by trying to deny the real world.  I do not try to fulfill my needs as if some aspect of my world does not exist.  I do not live in defiance of the existence of actual problems.  Today, I live to be involved with and to engage people, all people.  I look for quality, satisfying relationships in which I ask others to be real with me, as I am real with them.  I seek to change only me, as it is absurd to think that I can change another, anyway.  I correct myself when wrong and credit myself when right.

In being healed, I am becoming a healer….

5/24/15

Resistance as Exile in Prison

 by Norm Lowry

 February 24, 2015

 “The old yellow pus of American cowardice is once again throbbing in the veins of this sorry country. How does it appear? In chauvinism that struts safely in its own land, away from danger. It is easy to talk ‘dangerously' about knocking people down when you are on your own turf, behind an embattlement of thousands of nuclear missiles and an ocean.” - Jack Henry Abbott, with Norman Mailer

 Our ugly and tasteless culture cannot abide women and men with ideals, whose faith alone compels us to purposefully give up our lives of ease, for the betterment of mankind. We are not saints or heroes. We have simply grown sick and tired of the lies and can no longer stomach the fact that it is these lies that allow even we who are imprisoned to live better than two-thirds of all humans on earth. Our society’s chosen lies cover the obvious truths that we are the chief oppressors and terrorists of humanity, the fiscal pillagers of cultures and peoples we deem to be our lesser, the slumlords of humanity - all in the name of our country, our favored gods, and religions.

    Our society’s prisons are filled, not according to demographic substantiation of actual crime, but according to publicly-and-media-driven lies, racism, poverty, and political incorrectness or discomforts. All inmates in American prisons are there to be broken or silenced, no matter the perceived, necessary means or method. Anyone who believes that there is any justice involved in America’s justice or prison complexes is simply deluded.

      My gratitude goes out to all who are, or have been, imprisoned for the love of humanity, or who offer encouraging and inspirational uplift to those of us who are imprisoned. Truly, I could not do this alone, as prison is filled with death and human loneliness. My peers, both inmate and staff, constantly seek to bring me around to their chosen reality - that I cannot stop nuclear weaponry and warmaking, racism and bigotry, impoverishment and community violence, et. al, but they are deceived. In one, I am stopping all of them. If we can create adversity, surely we can disappear it.

 Blessings,
 Norm

A MESSAGE FROM AMOS, forwarded by Norm

write Norm at Norman Lowry KN 9758        

                      SCI Dallas

                      1000 Follies Rd

                      Dallas PA 18612

See Norm's profile     http://www.blogger.com/profile/09050714675357787551       

Read Norm's book CONSCIENCE BEHIND BARS: THE PRISON LETTERS OF NORMAN LOWRY    

https://www.academia.edu/2413332/Conscience_Behind_Bars_The_Prison_Letters_of_Norman_Lowry_Introduction_and_forewords_by_Dennis_Rivers_Eileen_Fleming_and_John_Stoner_

I share this, which I found deeply meaningful, from my Bible reading.  -- Norm

Amos 5:9-24  THE MESSAGE translation

"Woe to you who turn justice to vinegar and stamp righteousness into the mud.  Do you realize where you are?  You're in a cosmos star-flung with constellations by God, a world God wakes up each morning and puts to bed each night.  God dips water from the ocean and gives the land a drink.  God; God-revealed does this.  And he can destroy it just as easy as make it.  He can turn this vast wonder into a total waste. 

People hate this kind of talk.  Raw truth is never popular.  But here it is, bluntly spoken:  because you run roughshod over the poor and take the bread out of their moths, you're never going to mob into the luxury homes you have built.  You're never going to drink wine from the expensive vineyards you've planted.  I know precisely the extent of your violations, the enormity of  your sins.  Appalling!  You bully right living people, taking bribes right and left and kicking the poor when they're down.  

Justice is a lost cause.  Evil is epidemic.  Decent people throw up their hands.  Protest and rebuke are useless, a waste of breath.

Seek God and not evil--and live!  You talk about God, the God-of-the-angel-armies, being your best friend.  Well, live like it, and maybe it will happen.

Now again, my master's message, God, God-of-the-angel-armies: Go out into the streets and lament loudly!  Fill the malls and shops with cries of doom!   Weep loudly, "Not me! Not us, not now!"  Empty offices, stores, factories, workplaces.  Enlist everyone in the general lament.  I want to hear it loud and clear when I make my visit!  God's decree.

Woe to all of you who want God's judgment day!  Why would you want to see God, want him to come?  When God comes, it will be bad news before it's good news, the worst of times, not the best of times.  Here's what it's like:  a mean runs from a lion right into the jaws of a bear.  A woman goes home after a hard day's work and is raped by a neighbor.  At God's coming we face hard reality, not fantasy--a black cloud with no silver lining!

I can't stand your religious meetings.  I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions.  I want nothing to do with your religious projects, your pretentious slogans and goals.  I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making.  I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.  When was the last time you sang to me?  Do you know what I want?  I want justice--oceans of it.  I want fairness--rivers of it.  That's what I want.  That's all I want."

Finding Radical Love

FINDING RADICAL LOVE                                                                      Dec. 9, 2013

To me, the Gospel, the "Good News," is all about revealing the eternal freedom (past, present, future) that has ALWAYS been our (everyone and everything).  We simply are afforded the HONOR chosenness) of helping others to become aware of it all.  We "do" because we "are" eternally free!  It's the meaning behind "resurrection," which is the power behind "the cross," which ALL are invited to take up, in whatever LITERAL sense Jesus sees fit for "the cross" to be.  For some of us, at least, "the cross" means LITERAL, earthly death, for exposing the illegitimacy of the "idolatry" of " institutional religion" and of ALL that is "empire" (nationalism, statism, kings, presidents, congresses, treasuries, police, etc.).  So, I remain excited and eager to experience all of the Joy of Jesus, who loved us mere humans enough to become one of us, in order to show us, in "real time," the way home.

Lately, I have been thinking about, and pondering, my "UNCONFORMITY."

Ched Myers, in BINDING THE STRONG MAN, spoke best what my heart and brain embrace: "The way of nonviolence, as Gandhi said, will not prevail on account of words or argument, 'it shall be proved by persons living ii in their lives with utter disregard for the consequences to themselves.' "

Some HARD demographics have been floating through my total being, of late:  80% of ALL Americans (by survey) profess to trusting in a "loving" God, 80% of ALL Americans (by survey) profess to trusting in a "loving" God, 80% of ALL Americans (by survey) believe in the NECESSITY of a "strong" military, 50% of ALL Americans are considered to be poor (by their government), and 16% (1 in 6) of ALL Americans (including 50% of ALL Native American children) go to bed hungry…EVERY DAY!

I find something tragically amiss in the image presented by these figures.  How is one to suppose that the society of which "everyone," or so we are told, desires to be a part, is so schizophrenically paranoid that it is willing to blindly allow its leaders to expend 70% of ALL Federal Revenues on a "strong" military, when its supposed "loving" God is so close at hand?   Maybe AMerica's god, like AMerica's so-called god-trusters, doesn't genuinely know how to effectively deal with Love, Power, Justice, Poverty and Starving Children et al.

Thanksgiving day, here in Hell, began with a lull in our otherwise escalating violence.  Recently, an inmate fight left a guard injured, which raised the stakes quite dramatically.  Add a face slashing and the morning was ripe for an inmate stabbing on my block, for which we received a complimentary lockdown.  At dinnertime, our warders were quite cautious, choosing to release our block in small numbers.  This was in no small way aided by the greatly pacifying effect of a better-than-average meal, which replaces our norman, pathetically poor fare on 3-4 occasions, yearly.   The calming effect was fairly short lived.  The following day ended with a fight on our block and with yet another complimentary lockdown.

My fellow inmates have not ceased to drone on about the "black" inmate who stabbed another.  Feigning ignorance, they just can't seem to understand why the blacks tend to be so ready to act out their anger in such open manners.  When quite a number of my peers asked me for my take on the matter, I responded with demographics: Around 12% of the total U.S. population is African AMerican.  African Americans commit less than 12% of ALL U.S. crime yet fill in excess of 38% of ALL U.S. jail and prison beds.  Dumbfoundedly, my peers responded with absolute profundity, "You're so naive," then walked away to bitch and moan to someone willing to join in with their "make me feel good" insanity.

Last week, my friend Eileen, lit a candle for me and for all who are precious to me (which is EVERYONE), near the ancient temple wall in Jerusalem, Israel.  It was a visual prayer for PEACE.   As I shared word of this act of Love with others, the response was most favorable, until it was remembered that Eileen was the friend who was openly critical of Israel's secretive nuclear weapons program, of U.S. complicity, and of Israel's cruelties toward nuclear whistleblower Mordicai Vanunu.  The discussion rapidly digressed to BIG BAD IRAN and how they simply needed to bee NUKED.  I excused myself, so as not to diminish the act of Love by al prized friend.

Some of the prison's church folks recently came to me, asking that I cease my associations with Jews; which was an expansion of their previous lists; which included sex offenders, rapists, blacks and Muslims.  With blood boiling, I informed them that I would no longer be talking with them.

Another friend, Berry, recently sent an article, in which Author Ian Welsh's premise was: "For some time my base scenario has been as follows:  We are so screwed."  Quite compassionately and masterfully, the author proceeded to voice his urgent concerns regarding our allowed pillage and desecration of all that supports life on our fragile planet and in our fiscal, industrial, military and political institutions.  He asked tough questions and offered keen insights, such as those by Wendell Berry:  "We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are.  Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed?  Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers?  Why else would we--by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians--be participating in its destruction?  Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and reward them for it.  We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cisterns are wealthier than the rest of us.  How do we submit?  By not being RADICAL enough.  Or by not being THOROUGH enough, which is the same thing!"

I've been pondering what it would mean for me to become RADICAL; THOROUGH.   American church and state have long been partners in advocating, perpetrating and perpetuating the brutalization of humanity and the desecration of our planet.  To draw a line in the sand, between myself and the originators of such execrable malignity, seems to me to be simply normal and restorative.

My nearly 61 years have borne witness, as my so-called "Christian" society advocated "turning the head," while my black neighbors were brutalized, burned and hanged; while women and children were belittled, mistreated and molested; while injustice and abject poverty were heaped on the backs of minorities and on those already poor; while war-making was celebrated as our DUTY to God.  Though our mainstream media and political pundits aid us in keeping our heads in the sand, today our situation is so dire that our children and grandchildren are 100% GUARANTEED to bear the consequences of our abominations.   They ARE going to die and it is WE who have MURDERED them…SIGH!

    I'm no longer a citizen of the United States of America.  I have renounced America's so-called "Christian" religion.  I'm nonviolently at war with, and in prison for saying my simple "NO" to our society's EXTREME love of Violence, Racism, Bigotry and Poverty-production.  This is  my NORMAL!

I'm madly in love with our Creator and with ALL women, children and men; boundlessly and indiscriminately.  I'm going to allow my love to become RADICAL; THOROUGH enough to make a change in my little corner of our world that, for years, I was helping to destroy!

CONSEQUENCES

               CONSEQUENCES      By Norm Lowry                       October 2013

"My nonviolence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving dear ones unprotected."  --Gandhi

We choose what we live by  Directly, we choose our thoughts and actions; indirectly, our feelings and physiology.  Internal control holds sway and external control is utterly nullified, as we choose to become responsible for the inherent, often frightful and severe pricetags attached to our volition.  Consequence lies solely in our life-offering or life-defeating thoughts and actions.

This premise is faultlessly illustrated in Raj Patel's solicitude over the McDonalds Big Mac, which he posits, in all actuality, to be "The $200.00 Hamburger."

When we think of the Big Mac, we think of a $4.00 sandwich, which can be discounted when packaged in a meal.  We seldom consider the socio-political, ecological or economic impact.  It tends to make us nervous when we consider the sordid costs, such as the "carbon footprint" (around $300,000,000.00 per year for all Big Macs sold in the U.S.), government agricultural (beef, corn, et al.) subsidies, governmental economic and healthcare subsidies to underpaid/under benefitted employees, underpayment to agroworkers in Florida's tomato fields et al (slave labor), etc.

Who do we presume to be fiscally responsible for this year's U.S. $107,800,000,000.00 Big Mac subsidy?  To whom should I remit my $196,000.00 repayment to society, for the 1000+ Big Macs which I've consumed over the past 40+ years.

Recently, on America's most popular morning TV news/gossip show, the panelists nearly unanimously agreed that maybe it's time to remove the phrase, "innocent women and children," from media reporting on oppression, terrorism and war, due to its caustic impactions.  I bawled like a baby!  I mean, who on earth, in the history of humanity, has been more abused than "innocent women and children?"  Women are humanity's most faithful, though largely unrecognized and unfitted, servant-leaders; children, its most helpless yet hope-filled trusting precious ones!  How dare we?

Interestingly enough, the lone dissenter to this conversation was a woman who dared to play the "I get paid less than a man for doing the same work" card.  The panelists got fidgety, made a few jokes and moved on, missing yet another momentous opportunity to adsress the monstrous bigotry and racism that is literally rotting our humanity away, from the inside out.

This week will see the premier of a movie which chronicles the hijacking of an American Captained container ship by Somali pirates.  From the pre-release trailer we are promised that, once again, good will prevail against evil.  Tom Hanks portrays the hijacked captain, a hero.  I wonder who will portray Larry Summers, former Obama chief economic advisor and recent appointee for Federal Reserve Chairman who, while an executive at the World Bank, spearheaded the dumping of U.S. toxic/nuclear waste into the ocean off Somalia.  Accepted reasoning was that it was more economically sound to pay $2.50 per ton for disposal in Somalia, compared to $1000.00+ per ton for disposal in the U.S.  For his fiscal brilliance, Mr. Summers was appointed to the Clinton Administration Treasury Department.  Somali fishermen lost their fishing ground to toxic, radiation-typical poisoning and chose to become pirates.  With no justification intended, in the actual, portrayed hijacking, did good prevail over evil?

Our society has no shortage of good people!  This being so, how is it that we allow:

1.  our consumption to be such that, if all other nations were to consume as we consume, it would require Nine Earths to absorb the ecological effect?

2.  racism, bigotry and poverty-production to drive our so-called Justice System?

3.  our prisons to house 25%+ of the world's total domestic inmate population, in a country comprising merely 4.5% ot its total population?

4.  our government to expend 70%+ of all federal revenue on war making?

5.  et al.?

Inside each of us exists a "quality world" (William Glasser); a virtual picture gallery of what we most value.  We pursue only what we most value!  In order to perpetrate or perpetuate an "evil,," we have to make it our "best" option; the "right" thing to do, according to our "quality world."

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I sat enjoying a cup of coffee, in my favorite Portland Oregon Coffee Shop.  Three friends, Portland CIty Police Officers, came in late that morning and were quite haggard looking.  Greeting them, I said, "You guys look like crap.   Something bad happened, didn't it?"  They proceeded to fill me in on the occurrences at NYC's Twin Towers; of the planes hitting the towers.  The youngest officer commented, "But you told us a couple months ago that this was going to happen."

After that morning, the subject was never broached again.  This was quite surprising, especially so, as the ensuing weeks exposed Portland Oregon as being a key city in the supposed terrorist attacks.

There is no history nor holy book which tells us that those who perpetrate and/or perpetuate oppressive horrors will end well.  There are always consequences!