Opening remarks tonight gave a simple Teaching in Conscious Creation. Jon pointed out that they heard over the wire service that Crossfire, the show he criticized rather opening last year, has been cancelled. He said apparently "all you have to do to get a show cancelled is say it out loud." I applaud Jon Stewart for having the courage to go on the Crossfire show and speak his truth. If you see something you want to change, and don't feel you have the 'reach' a big star like Jon Stewart has, think again. Often just the simple act of writing a letter asking for a change and giving a positive suggestion can lead to change.
The truth in this is that verbalizing or writing your intent, especially when done with positive emotion, does actually help make it a reality. From the Bible, this appears as "ask and ye shall receive" - sometimes, we don't get what we ask for / perhaps in these cases, instead, we get what we actually need but are so much expecting a very specific outcome that we miss the fact that something totally different has been offered to solve the problem. Another reason is that we say we want something, then immediately disempower that thought through fear. The more your 'request' is in line with universal values, the more positive emotion you bring to your visualization, the more effortlessly and sometimes miraculously the answer will be given. Ask for guidance, watch for signs, then act on what you are shown...
Alberto Gonzales Confirmation Hearing - IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?
Jon joked about the term confirmation: "the Attorney General and a 13 year old Catholic Girl both go through confirmation, but only one is quizzed on electrical stimulation of genitals." This is a reference to the fact that Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo in which he rationalized the use of torture by US forces in Iraq, calling the Geneva Convention "obsolete and quaint". When questioned repeatedly about his attitudes on torture, Alberto used the familiar "compassionate conservative" tactic of evasion: I don't remember, I have no views, are you asking me a question? Ironically, Jon pointed out that maybe a little _persuasion_ was needed to make him answer.
Unfortunately, our troops at war are also protected by the Geneva Convention, and our administration's flippant attitude towards this terribly unethical and inhumane behavior will in the long run turn around and hurt US.
The MOST alarming was Alberto's statement that "we are a nation of laws, not of men." EXCUUUUUUUSE ME? Anybody read the Declaration of Independence lately? Not me, but a Google Search found the National Archives site - www.archives.gov and it was clear that this is why that quote sent shivers down my spine:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.."
Or perhaps our Constitution?
"We the People of the United States..."
OR....
The Gettysburg Address
Nov. 19, 1863
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who died here that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have hallowed it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
Homeland Security Tidbits:
A seven year old girl behind the bizarre US airline "laser" incident?
Homeland Security department attended a Security Conference in WaiKiKi Hawaii last November, and boy we should feel safer knowing a film crew was able to videotape Tom Ridge relaxing poolside without him or the Secret Service noticing. AloHA!
Great moments in Punditry was hilarious - two kids read a transcript from Crossfire, Sept 10, 2004 where Paul Pegala and Robert Novak discussed Bush's pretend-interest in reading the book My Pet Goat (upside down) silently and with no sign of emotional reaction even after being told that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. It was good to see kids laughing!
Guest: Howard Zinn, author of "Voices of a People's History"
Sounds like a good book, filled with "200 statements of defiance"
Pointed out how ironic it is that Christopher Columbus is celebrated as a hero and taught to be such in the US educational system, and yet in truth he tortured, dismembered, and murdered Native Americans when he "discovered" America. The discussion pondered the parallels between Columbus and Bush. We all know now that every reason used to justify war with Iraq were elaborate misinformation campaigns if not outright lies, and so they pondered whether the real reason for the war was "Oil, or Drugs, or Oil AND Drugs" / Basically - our government is addicted to war and can't see how unnecessary it is and how wasteful of human life and energy. Maybe if we got to the root causes/source of our problems and work together to solve them rather than continue to run blindly down a road we know is headed NOwhere...we'd actually be able to live together in peace on this beautiful planet.
Zinn made a comment that sounded almost zen talking about the evolution of war: "right now, at this moment, we're doing OK, but that's it" (the Power of Now, by Ekhardt Tolle is a must read to see the significance of that simple truth).
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