THE STATUS OF RELIGION

The Status of Religion:

After almost 70 years of living I have seen a lot of changes in the world and the way Americans live. For a distinct minority on the planet, things are really great---we have a zillion conveniences, great big houses, immediate access to information or entertainment of any sort, the best of almost any kind of food a hop, skip, and jump away, and sometimes---for those of us in this category---it almost seems lavishly obscene. At the other end are people whose lives are as bad as at any time in world history, especially if one goes by the huge number living in these sordid conditions. We really do live in the best and worst of worlds.

But what about religion? What is the status of religion in the world? Are people in general more or less religious? Maybe the question is oxymoronish in that by human nature humans tend to be religious. Evolution is most often associated with, and studied based on, evolved physical changes to differing species over millions of years. Yet there are other aspects of evolution a lot less tangible but no less significant, and morality is one of them. Somewhere along evolutionary pathway morality appeared on the scene. Perhaps morality is nothing more than a product of increased intelligence. With increased intelligence comes a realization of how limited our understanding of many things really is, and what the consequences of actions towards others can be. There is a reason why the basic tenant of almost all modern religions is the Golden Rule---to demand fairness for yourself it follows that you owe fairness to others. To be different yourself you have to tolerate differences in others. Overlaying all of this is the concept of an afterlife. No one wants their own life to really, really, truly end. Life is a bitch and then you die-----no, no, no---it has to be more than that----some version of the 'Audacity of Hope'------and a suspicion that maybe how we live our lives on earth determines who gets an afterlife. From this mixture comes religion.

But what exactly is meant by religion---Ethics? Sectarianism? Belief in God? If we look at religion today based on any of the three aforementioned we arrive at different conclusions. My own perspective is that basic morality is embedded in human nature. Almost everyone everywhere knows basic right and wrong---not to kill, steal, etc.-----and the only question is whether one will do right rather than wrong. Thus, to me, ethics is part of human evolutionary history. What kind of priority anyone gives to ethics will vary depending on genetic aspects of their personality and their environment.

Clearly in this country church attendance is down. Sectarianism is on the wane. It is not often even part of social conversation outside of sectarian gatherings. I seldom know what religion anyone is in any general social gathering or with casual acquaintances. With this kind of indifferent environment there naturally develops a strong backlash from sectarians deep in some faith based mode. From their perspective all the many problems of our society stem from this decreased church attendance and involvement. Based on my few years teaching high school and many years teaching college I don't detect much correlation between church attendance and a person's ethics. The exception here was tolerance to diversity. Serious church goers seldom have the tolerance to diversity compared to non church goers. With sectarianism comes a lot of religious dogma---faith based dogma---and each sectarian member is faced with the dilemma of whether they can ever, in good conscience, deny the validity of any of their inherited dogma. If some of their faith based dogma is not true, then it sort of undercuts all of the dogma. The more top heavy and strict the religious sect, the greater the dilemma. Religious sectarianism, by definition, does not not leave a lot of room for freedom of thought about ethical matters, or any growth either. How can something ordained by church elders to be wrong for decades or centuries now suddenly be right?

With the passage of historical time a cumulative understanding of ethics evolves and matures, becomes more logically based as opposed to faith based, and with increased communication among people via modern methods of communication, it becomes increasingly difficult to 'protect' church members from modern ethical notions. This whole dilemma is compounded by the likelihood that the sectarian dogma was an inherited package rather than any elected, self thought through process. There often become select dogmas which fly in the face of what a particular person is exposed to in their life. When one sees a good person being unnecessarily discriminated against based on some particular religious dogma, it leads to mental stress about the dogma in question. Once dogmas become selectively discredited, church attendance becomes more unsettling than assuring, a sort of 'what else in these dogmas is not valid?'

What has changed over the years is ethics as a product of personal logic rather than packaged ethics by ordained church elders. It is a lot more difficult today for church elders to isolate church members from media generated ethical matters. People of differing faiths and lifestyles are much more 'in our face'----personally and via the media. So many matters once kept under wrap and out of sight are now open and permeate our lives at work, in public events, on TV, in the movies, etc. 'Political correctness' is both an annoyance and forced enlightenment. Social adjustments, in terms of equal opportunity, by definition create a more competitive job market, create reverse discrimination stresses, and starts in motion a pendulum which swings to extremes before it ever settles in the middle. Ethical justice always comes with a price and emotional tensions galore.
Ethical progress among differing religious, ethnic, or political groups generates both fairness and strong emotional resentments all in one ball of wax. No group has any monopoly on qualities which everyone finds admirable. Bad apples of various ilk in all these groups cloud any perfect conception of justice and fairness for all concerned. There is always less conflict if one cannot identify a member of a group on sight by color or dress. Little personal contact with members of any differing group fosters presumptions which otherwise would be dispelled. Of course personal contact with a 'bad apple' from the differing group cements already suspected negative notions, and thus theoretical ethics is trumped by experienced reality.

According to polls almost all Americans believe in God. I suppose in that sense religion is as strong as ever, maybe even stronger. At the same time sectarian allegiance is at an all time low. Polls on various behaviors (like abortion, birth control, homosexuality, war, guns, etc) now show little correlation with religious preference. More and more people tend to arrive at their own conclusions based on experience or media input. Back when I taught it always startled my preconceptions when I would advise a student with a personal problem involving ethics that they might talk to their minister or priest. It was almost always discarded as an absurdity, an option automatically off the table, and even by those who attended church regularly. The full meaning of this is probably complicated but it seemed to indicate the disappearing relevance of church authorities to ethical decisions. The 'just say NO' approach to ethical behaviors is routinely dismissed by young people as mindless dictatorial authoritarian archaic babble by irrelevant aged figures and based on past but now inoperative realities. And sometimes, of course it is true. And sometimes, of course, it might not be true. The logic of 'just say NO' is no more valid than 'just say YES'. Reminds one of the "Because I say so" mentality of child rearing.

In my own life, which of course has little relevance to the life of anyone else, I feel totally more religious today than when I was active in sectarian religious attendance. But I also am quite aware than many people find the strength to do right because they are active in a church. Unfortunately some other people find the strength to do wrong by being an active member of a church. Much of the needless slaughter, intolerance, and conflict across the globe is by dogmatic emotionally charged religious extremists of about every ilk with the exception of Buddhists and Quakers---sects like these have managed, for the most part, to keep violence out of their religion.

I guess religion, as it always has been in human history, is quite alive and well, but just comes packaged differently today than when I was younger. The major problems today are not so much one of ethics as the will to do the right thing. We know we should protect the environment, we know we should not be launching killing fields across the globe, we know that we should respect the sovereignty of other nations, we know that we should not permit the wealth of our nation to become concentrated in the hands of a few, we know that greed satisfied at the expense of others is unethical, we know that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We really do know all this. Unfortunately, logic and emotions do not mix well. Sometimes logic wins out, other times emotions win out. Most human actions and plans gravitate toward personal economic growth and defense of our own biases. If we know anything we know what we like and don't like. What we don't like is to have other people's misery too much in our face. How much personal contentment can really be achieved with the orphans of Dafar, or people without health care, or the kids of our ghettoes too much on our mind? I mean, what IS, IS---and none of us can individually change any of it---and people like Obama who dwell on shit like this are naive or insincere, and at the very least not to be trusted lest they open Pandora's box and let loose pent up fury that could disrupt our own lives in unpredictable ways. And besides, domestic and world problems are too many, too ingrained, too unsolvable so just let things be, things will work out somehow if we just be patient. Let's not lose the gains many of us personally have achieved by having some genetic mutt stirring up people best left undisturbed. If this guy gets in what is the price the haves might have to pay to improve the lot of the have-nots? Just how far will sharing go? How much tolerance might be demanded? And besides, there is absolutely no way governments can control overpopulation, or stop climate change, and we don't want to think about this stuff anymore. Enough is enough and George Bush tells us that everything is basically in good shape, that America is strong, the 'bad' guys---with enough surges---will all be defeated or dead, and peace and prosperity for all is just around the corner---not to worry.

At any rate religion of a different sort abounds across the globe, people understand right from wrong, but whether humans can generate the strength to do the right and not the wrong is the crux of the matter. Most everyone believes in God, knows right from wrong, but is overwhelmed by the size and number of modern day problems affecting human existence.

Me, I think I will take a nap now till I wake up hungry, then gorge myself and go feed Reba the Horse. Life, as far as I can see, in my own world, is just fine.

A MOST DISTURBING PORTENT FOR THE FUTURE

The Most Disturbing Portent For the Future:

Human civilization has a lot on it's plate these days: overpopulation, climate changes, atmospheric and water pollution, depletion of natural resources, genocidal wars, terrorism,
a grossly distorted distribution of wealth, violence used as the means to solve conflicts at every level of society, etc. The onslaught of major problems is coming from all directions. And to address all these matters the last eight years we had Bush (the Dumber One), maybe the dumbest President ever. The timing to have such a Dumbo could not have been worse.

It is hard, at least for me, to be bubbly and optimistic about the immediate future. I know in the long run evolution has always been upward, but en route there have been periods of planetary disasters. God's created process of evolution is beyond our ability to appreciate the full brilliance of the process, but we understand enough to know that no species yet has ever been able abuse it's own environment without paying the price. It is true, "the Audacity of Hope" is really all we have left, coupled with Obama's "Yes We Can". Time will tell.

The most painful and depressing aspect of current human life on our planet is the U.N. estimation that 100 million people are going to die of starvation in the next few years. Large numbers tend to be incomprehensible and increasingly shrugged off. It is simply hard to be shocked anymore. While this large figure is out there, and to my knowledge no one disputes the prediction, it is not part of conversation, political debates, or on anyone's priority to do anything about it. I doubt one could find any other period in human history on the planet when so many people starved to death. In the past, the poorest of the poorest could at least live off the land. Not any more. Millions across the globe are homeless, jobless, sick from all kinds of preventable diseases, defenseless against persecution and violence, and thus 100 million of them are going to starve to death in the next few years. Sadly, practically no one gives a damn. I listen to these so called 'hot button' issues that generate such heated feelings and debate, far more debate and feeling than any of the issues already listed above, and I conclude some sort of irrational emotional insanity rules the day.

100 million people! 100 million people! Will starve to death shortly!! And no one is going to stop it! The Pope will come out and throw some sort of Holy Water around, the evangelical Protestants will remain apoplectic about same sex marriage, the Muslims will form Jihads about this or that breach of their own religious beliefs, Reverend Jackson will advise cutting people's nuts off, Bush will stumble through reading statements written and prepared by the sleazy evil cabals around him, blood pressures will rise over whether Favre should stay retired or not, politicians will debate over which wars should be given priority, prisoner tortures will rise to new levels, communities will pass laws stating how many inches of underwear can be shown above the pant level (as if the young people who dress this way will not just stop wearing underwear), and oh, just complete the list on your own---and while all of these raging debates go on 100 million people will starve to death.

100 million people are about to starve to death! That is 50 times as many Vietnamese as we killed in the Vietnam War. It is 50 times the number of Jews Hitlerism killed in World War II. That is 33 thousand times the number of people killed in the World Trade Center bombings. That is 500 times the number of Iraqis Saddam Hussein killed. That is one third the population of the United States. Of course 100 million in not exactly the biggest number around these days---the U.S, spends 10 billion dollars every month just for one war. These 100 million people could easily live on a dollar a day. That is $30 dollars a month. If we could just stop waging war for one month we could spare enough money to prevent these 100 million people from starving for years. I wonder if we spent our money on making the poor more prosperous across the globe whether we might regain some prestige across the globe?

It is hard for me to fathom how 100 million people are about to starve to death and it causes hardly a ripple of concern anywhere. Now that we have little miniature camcorders maybe most of these deaths could be recorded and played across screens erected along our highways. You know, something to amuse us as we drive along singing "zippidy do dah dey, my oh my what a wonderful day". Certainly you would think those wringing their hands over the sanctity of life would be screaming and marching and forming pilgrimages to save these 100 million people about to starve to death. Instead, while these ultimate 'nothingburgers', having suffered short or long lives of helpless desperation, die as they lived---human nonentities---the privileged of the world, gated from reality----wine and dine away in splendor.

Like I stated, to me, I find this reality about as painful as anything else in life. Has human civilization really come to this? It really doesn't matter anymore? My fussing these days is often about the lack of any population control policies by governments. But perhaps I miss the point---there are population control policies abounding across the globe: freedom fighters, genocidal wars, starvation, death from preventable disease, terrorism, well armed populations killing each other for reasons of race, religion, natural resources, status, and just about anything else irksome at any given time, and of course the King of Population Reduction across the globe----George Bush.

Some thoughts are kind of obsessive. I have this cousin dying of ALS and for more than a year she can't move any part of her body while her mind is unaffected. As an adult I have met her maybe twice in the last 50 years since she lives 1000 miles away. Still I think about her situation often---such an existence is unimaginable to me. Communication with anyone is almost impossible considering she can't speak. She can't even eat. Though I think often of her I never pray for her. The idea that God directly is involved in our daily lives is pure fantasy. Like God chose her for such a fate or waits for us to pray to save her. Really, that is some stretch. I don't pray for my own good health either. My own belief, and that is all it is, is that God created the evolutionary process and this process is governed by it's own laws with few, if any, interferences from God. That is just the way it seems to be.

So those 100 million people are out there, paying the price for overpopulation, weighing on my mind, a sort of sobering offset to my own good life. I catch glimpses of these hell holes across the globe on TV, somebody captures a picture of human life in its most depressing state. It takes the edge off of many things about life and reality. The national anthem, ritualistic church services, glittering cathedrals, Popemobiles, Pledge of Allegiances, flag burning, abortion, gay marriage, school prayers, the right to own all kinds of guns, the War on Drugs, Freedom fighters, huge military budgets, the weapons industry, tax breaks for the wealthy, unrestrained capitalism, military alliances----all of these things start to seem inane, misguided---cruelly misplaced priorities----symptoms of a world gone mad---a world too much with us with too much conflict and intolerance. 100 million people should not be starving to death in the next few years, humans should take responsible reproduction serious, there should be a war on misery, a war to protect our natural resources, a global blueprint to ensure every human adequate health care, a living wage job, pension plans, an environment of personal security, an opportunity for good education, and the right of every sovereign nation to control its own destiny, its own natural resources, its own land ownership, its own form of government and all people everywhere of every religious bent should simply agree to the Golden Rule: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". As Lincoln observed, this rule is the basis of all moral behavior, and by itself should be the blueprint for government decrees and laws. Quality of life matters, for all species on earth. Humans are neither the end point nor the special favorites of God in the evolutionary process. It is a fanciful concoction that God made man after His own image.

100 million people should not be starving to death. If that is not wrong, nothing is wrong. If we, as a human species, can tolerate this, we are on the road to sure disaster as a species. If we, as citizens of the richest country on the earth (for now) can tolerate and re-elect a George Bush and even contemplate electing anyone to continue the same misplaced priorities, the continued accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few, the continued use of violence to solve conflict, the continued build up of a massive military industry, the continued silence on population control, and the continued indifference to the 100 million people about to starve to death-----then everyone everywhere better tighten their seat belts, the future is going to be a chaotic rough ride with no group on the planet exempt from the dire consequences. Maybe we ought to take a long hard look into the eyes of those dying across the globe---this may well be the fate of our own offspring sooner than we think, if indeed we are thinking much at all these days.

THE HARDEST THING TO DO

The Hardest Thing to Do:

I suspect the answer to the above differs from person to person. For me, letting someone inestimably valuable down when the circumstances eliminate or narrow the alternatives---that is a sorry painful plight. I think you die a little bit each time. When anyone starts to die varies individually, nevertheless dying is more a process, not a sudden or short term ending. I have observed many a young person dying before they have ever really lived. Their final death may be many decades away, but their spirit gets beaten down and their options limited, until they become a mere shell of their potential, living lives of quiet desperation---relegated to be among the living dead. How much any of us control our own destiny is certainly overrated, is absent any abundance of justice, is independent of religious affiliation, and is rarely self earned. The cards are dealt at birth, we sit at the table of life, few at the table are selected by ourselves, our abilities to play the game vary, and many more lose than win. Of course you and I achieved things on merit, smothered in fairness and equal opportunity, using our innate or self earned moral virtuousness to achieve success. Maybe, but frankly, sometimes I wonder about you.

Many of the best things in life are temporary, and will be taken away from us forever. It is easier to accept death as the mode of severance than forced separation. When someone close to you dies it is final, it just happens, you learn it is part of life, it was totally out of your power to prevent. You count your blessing for having known the person, you genuinely appreciate the contributions they made to your own well being and development. Part of them remains a permanent part of you, till your own death snuffs that out too. It is like the body goes first, then bits and pieces of your 'soul' hang around in others for a generation, but then all the traces of your existence are gone, while all the molecules which once were you are still around, still existing, still doing their thing, the only thing gone is you---the only you that will ever exist, the essence of the you undefinable. Maybe there is an afterlife for this 'you' or 'soul' independent of the molecules which created this 'you'. I hope so. If so, whatever the criteria, I doubt it is going to be any "I got to Heaven the old fashioned way---I earned it". I really doubt we will all be assembled in some huge stadium and God appear and ask all the "Southern Born Again Baptists" to follow him to Heaven. Or the Jews. Or the Catholics. Or the Muslims. I don't really profess to understand anything really brilliant about life let alone any afterlife.

The hardest things in life are the forced separations. For me, as a kid, it involved forced separations from two pets. The first was a horse, Virginia, sold at an auction; the second was Buff, a dog---influenced by me---to be a neighborhood pest. I taught him many really neat fun things, like wrestling, like flying by a person's head and removing their hat for them, like grabbing a kid's lunch bag and playing 'see if you can get it back', removing whole roasts from family picnic tables and bringing them to my own house, and you get the picture, he was just a 'riot'. When my parents gave him to some unknown (to me) upstate farmer the 'riot' was over and the bonds of friendship between myself and Buff were gone forever. The 'hurt' never really went away, the feelings of failure to protect a 'best friend' laid heavy on my conscience. I was supposed to protect him and told him I would many times.

Later in life it was certain people I failed, by my own decision, for reasons which at the time seemed unavoidable---which haunt me forever. This is not to say the same sort of thing doesn't happen in reverse and that others, by their own decision, for reasons they feel are valid at the time, let me down. The latter is far more easy to survive. After all, what goes around comes around. You cannot be all things to all people all the time. You can only try to be fair to all people all the time. Only the dumb or desperate try to force themselves on others. Respect the space others need, accept that your own personality doesn't have to be everyone else's cup of tea and can wear thin with time. Practice live and let live, but stand strong against those who insist you better think and live like them. They are a public nuisance, disturb the peace of families, of groups or teams, of neighborhoods, of nations, and the world. Watch out for 'faith' based warriors----waving bibles, or political dogmas, or ethnic visions of superiority---their faith is seeped in anger, intolerance of diversity, and wrapped in blind, usually inherited or indoctrinated faiths. Faith is great until it encroaches on the rights of others who have differing faiths. When all is said and done, faith based fanatics never seem to be very happy campers, always on edge, ready to pounce or denounce, ready to persecute others for differing beliefs. Often one can spot them at any gathering or meeting. They have that fixed look of resolute strong-minded moral 'fiberness' which projects the likelihood their face would fracture if they smiled, and their kindness reflected only back on themselves and others of like ilk.

Whatever our varied constitutional makeup, the golden rule always applies: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I doubt anyone ever bats a 1000 in this category. Most try, to varied extents, but in the end it is a some-time thing. Lot of should of, would of, what ifs in life. There will be times when, to protect yourself, you let others down, you let them go, you justify it with vague "this is really the best for all". Few people escape these dilemmas, and only the best of us get the priorities right. Most of the time the people you let down you don't even know. They are not part of your life and may even be in some far distant land. In this modern world of global communication the awareness of them is in our face one way or another---so much so that we become numbed by it all and, in our collective resignation, we shrug our shoulders, or mumble a little prayer, or find a target for who should be helping them or failed to help them. We deny we are included. But the let downs you really feel pained about are those you let down who are close to you, who you do know, and you know them very well---sometimes for a long time, sometimes for just a shorter time. If it is not a case of 'this is for the best for all concerned" it is a case of 'they deserved it', or 'enough is enough' and maybe a few other variants.

The people I remember the most, and which weigh on me forever, are those who paid a terrible price for my own failure to defend, protect, or support them---abandoned by me at their time of need, as a sacrifice to my own needs, or inability to find a solution for their problem. Of course there were always 'good' reasons at the time for the abandonment, some reasons better than others---but in the last analysis the reasons were always self-centered or a self weakness to do the right thing. It is the old "there is nothing more I can do" , "enough is enough", "they need to be taught a lesson", "I need to leave this part of my life behind", or "someone else can deal with this, not me". Later when the dust settles, and the deed has been done, remorse sets in. Even if most others, in the same situation, would have done the same thing---you know in your heart that you tossed a friend under the train or left them wounded and helpless in the path of an oncoming train. If I could rewrite the script of my life I would rewrite everyone of these cases and have found the strength to do the right thing for the right reasons at the right time and the consequences to me personally be damned. There are times when most of us need to borrow a little bit of the Terrell Owens persona and stand on principle against all the odds---ourselves standing immovable, as defiant, brave, and focused as Terrell can be.

In the end I have no idea how anyone, even God, can sort all of this out---or pass any sane judgment on others with so many variables in the mix. Let's face it, the more you live, the more and more you know for certain about less and less. Life is too much a bitch---and then you die. Sunday Morning Coming Down.

EXTIRPATE 'MANIFEST DESTINY' (Really Long)

Extirpate 'Manifest Destiny'

There are so many things Americans can be proud of about their country. I mean like, how many of us would choose now to have been born elsewhere? Thus, those who react to any dissatisfaction of this country by others with the time honored "If you don't like the way things are here, go elsewhere and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" -----their point is well taken. There are times when I wake up and feel like the luckiest person in the world, not that I have a beautiful spouse, successful kids, the brightest mind, a handsome body, or am the most popular person around, the most accomplished person around, or one of the 1% who own 90% of the wealth of our country. But given the cards dealt and an ample amount of good fortune, I have been blessed with inexpensive hobbies, economic independence, relatively good health, and interests which enable me to at least feel like a very lucky person.

I don't consider patriotism to ever be 'my country, right or wrong'. It was more that way at a younger age. I grew up in an atmosphere of Billy Graham, 'manifest destiny', proud military adventuresomeness, unrestrained capitalism, a missionary mindset, 'onward Christian soldiers', and a booming economy. All the battles of the sixties for minority rights, women's rights, the protests against the Vietnam War, reproductive rights, equal opportunity employment, etc. were never my battles. To whatever extent any of these battles were won, it was not with my help. I can't say I really much opposed the end result of any such victories, I just contributed zero to any of these battles being won. As my own life became more secure, stable, and to some degree successful---and considering the kind of institutions I was privileged to teach in-----along with my penchant for reading books about most any topic----I began to broaden my perspective about humanity. For the first time I actually began to perceive injustices to others that abounded around me, to listen to the viewpoints of others here, and in foreign lands. For so many years there was no other side, just my side, which was the 'official' American side.

It was the Vietnam War which caused me to take the braces off my brain. Finally, I began to realize not everything my country did was right. I have written about Vietnam before, so here will just say when one supported a policy which killed 2.1 million people for no valid reason, and then finally realized what one had supported, the realization was quite sobering. Those people had fought for centuries to free themselves from foreign domination. They somehow managed to keep fighting first China, then France, then Japan, then the French again, and finally the strongest military might in the world----the United States---and they won. Their victory is changing the world, but in a way which cuts both ways. Up until Vietnam, those with the greatest military hardware and the greatest number of soldiers in uniform pretty much always won. Ho Chi Minh (Sp) will be remembered long in history for his comment that "you will kill ten of us for every one of you we kill, but in the end it will be you who tire". Back then Barry Goldwater, I, and a majority of Americans were all for bombing these stunted little bastards back into the stone age. We kind of did, with more tonnage of bombs dropped on them than all of World War I and II. We certainly did level the place---makes the World Trade Center bombings look amateurish. But with determined 'terrorism' toward an invading enemy, Vietnam won---and for the first time in centuries they had their own country back and all the bullshit about what a danger they would become to the security of the region, and indeed to the security of the United States, became exposed for the barren lie it was. That was many decades ago, and to the best of my knowledge Vietnam hasn't bothered anyone, hasn't meddled with the internal affairs of any other countries, and whatever the nature of their government these days I don't know, and I don't care. 2.1 million deaths may well be a record for citizens to gain sovereignty over their own country. Both Barry and I long since saw the light, and that is one of the reasons I still admired him. Without realizing it till much later, both he and I, independently, changed politically almost the same way on a bunch of issues. What that says about either of us is of course debatable.

But that War was decades ago. It seemed just a big solitary mistake on the part of my country, a lesson learned, and a lesson not to be repeated. Ever so slowly I began to feel uncomfortable with the nature of our foreign policy and it took George Bush to blow the lid off what turns out to be a long history of arrogant interference with the internal affairs of foreign countries. Maybe arrogance that benefits the targeted countries could be justified (we are doing this for their own good), but any benefits to them are increasingly questionable and in reality, the game may be up.

Recently I read a book entitled "OVERTHROW: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq." The book was very depressing and sad. It covers the last 110 years of our foreign policy in which America overthrew 14 governments that displeased us for various ideological, political, and economic reasons. Almost all these disposals of foreign leaders occurred before I grew suspicious about these things, so the reality of what went down, how things went down, and for what reason they went down is truly unnerving. None of our founding fathers---or Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, or FDR would have ever remotely considered engaging our country in this kind of behavior. Each time, the American people were duped into believing we were just helping the oppressed people of foreign nations overthrow a terrible dictator.

It is not my strongest talent to condense anything, and any condensing of this book does injustice to the topic. But I will attempt some sort of condensation here with no attempt to claim all or most of this is original with me. I am simply rearranging the information gained from this book and other books into what I deem useful focus points. I guess it starts with the question as to why a strong country would arrange to depose leaders of weaker sovereign states? Based on who we did it to, the answer seems to be because we sought to impose an ideology, increase our own power, or gain control over valuable resources. History has pretty much documented what went down. Thus, the question these days is not whether the U.S, did these things, but why, and who orchestrated them?

When the CIA was being vilified years later by Congressional investigations for these sort of sordid affairs, Barry Goldwater stated "the finger should be pointed at Presidents, and not the intelligence group". I don't know what kind of history is being taught in schools today, if history to any degree is being taught anymore, but clearly much of the history I learned in school was sheer propaganda. Our domestic history was fairly accurate, but history of our foreign affairs was quite another matter. Of course not every military action by the United States is clouded by unconscionable motives and actions---certainly not World War I and World War II or the more recent Balkan Wars. In these cases countries were being attacked and any action on our part was to help defend the countries being attacked. In these cases we were never the attackers. In all these cases we were reluctant to get involved and, if anything, we were criticized for waiting so long.

Let us back up a bit. Who were the first Americans to plan and carry out the overthrow of a foreign government? The date was 1893 when Queen Luiluokalani of Hawaii was deposed of with a few American soldiers in an afternoon's work. She was disposed of in order to keep the ownership of the sugar plantations in American hands. The Queen thought Hawaiians ought to own the land. But the native Hawaiians were doomed much earlier when they were exposed to diseases brought to the island by the first Europeans. This nearly wiped out the entire native population. Of course America can't be blamed for that, so this first disposal of a foreign leader was kind of a simple task. Hawaii was conquered more by disease than America.

At any rate, the following are countries which have had their own rulers or leaders overthrown by the United States government in the last 110 years: Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Nicaragua, Honduras, South Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq. It is not clear to me why Haiti is not on the list, so will add it.

Whether a strong country has the right to overthrow leaders of other sovereign countries is a legitimate question. I suppose one might argue that if the overthrow benefits the people in that sovereign country, then the end justified the means. If one accepts that premise, then perhaps Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Grenada might pass the test. Clearly, in all other instances the people suffered, and continue to suffer the consequences. The Monroe Doctrine has long been seen in our own history books to be a doctrine which protected South American countries from any European interference. But what about the claim that this Doctrine, in reality, just prevented South American countries from ever having control over their own destiny, instead becoming economically exploited by the U.S. right up to the present time? Like most political matters the question cannot be scientifically answered. While the status of most all South American countries is one of mostly poverty and violence, one could still argue that they would even be worse off without American interference and control over their own resources.

This musing will not be a summary of the particulars in each overthrown government operation by the United States. A person should read the book to get this information. Rather, I will attempt to condense and group the general principles the author identifies as operative in the whole process. So here goes:

Territorial expansion is nothing new to American policy. It has been part of our history from the beginning and eventually became the basis of our 'manifest destiny' mentality. One might think that fairness might have given the natives---the American Indians---at least one state for their own. But fairness is not an operative force in the middle of any contest over land ownership. Disease and lack of guns did the Indians in and that is just the way it was. The founders of our Constitution might have urged Americans to avoid foreign 'entanglements' but never in the history of the world has any powerful country been able to restrain itself from establishing foreign 'empires' of one sort or another. All past historical powers collapsed from GREED. Enough is never enough and those with the most talent and disposition to accumulate wealth and power do so until their empire is stretched too thin, the natural resources available for growth become exhausted, and the distribution of wealth between the rich and poor becomes way too lopsided. Then the civilization collapses. There has never been an exception. GREED is always the culprit.

Expansion had always been the operative mode of of American foreign policy. At first it was expansion to the west of our own country until we stretched from sea to sea. Then, when the frontier closed, expansion took place in selected places across the globe, then it moved to control over natural resources across the globe, then came the Cold War, and now some sort of War against terrorism. But what is 'terrorism' except the desperate attempt by the weak to escape control by the powerful? It is perhaps unwise to view the actions of the U.S. foreign policy as good or evil. The reality is that strong countries tend to impose their will on weaker countries and protect the self interests of the stronger country. The self interests of the weaker countries will always be secondary. Of course neither does this reality make anything right. The problem, in the last analysis, is that unlimited power by a strong country always leads to self destruction of the stronger country. One could argue, I guess, that 'not this time', but I think any reasonable person might wonder just why 'not this time'? Has something changed about the nature and consequences of power?

Economic growth for this country in the late 1800's sort of 'demanded' that the country look outward. Growth of our own wealth depended on the successful exploitation of natural resources and labor from other countries. The defense of this sort of 'greed' and 'power' has always been some version of, 'without America the exploited people would even be worse off'---kind of the same mentality used to defend slavery. Perhaps in some respects slavery just got moved off shore. Mixed in with the economic exploitation was missionary zeal---a sincere desire to 'save' heathen savages and convert them to enlightened 'Christians'. Organized religion, looked at from any respectable distance, is filled with contradictions, and wrapped in an enigma of good and bad. It takes considerable imagination to look at World History and get any sense that God has ever endowed any human group with any sort of 'divine' inherited religion. Organized religion has always been a source of brutal conflict. When people conduct massacres in the name of God the nature of the killing often rises to the worst level of man's inhumanity to humans.

Part of the American justification for grabbing foreign lands, or putting military bases in a sovereign country was, and is, that if the United States doesn't others will. If we don't control Iraqi oil, then somebody else will. Any notion that foreign countries should control their own natural resources is just out of the question. "Spreading democracy, Christianizing heathen nations, building a strong navy, establishing military basis around the world, and bringing foreign governments under American control were never ends in themselves. They were ways for the United States to assure itself access to the markets, resources, and investment potential of distant lands."

In the earlier days disposal of a sovereign government by the U.S. was not much of a big deal in terms of lives lost to accomplish takeover. Hawaii was taken with hardly any blood shed at all. Cuba was taken with a total of 385 Americans killed in action, Puerto Rico with 9 Americans dead, etc. Any serious casualties had to wait until World War I and World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and maybe yet to be the Iraq War and Afghanistan War. In the earlier days America didn't have to do much except land and march to the Government headquarters and secure a regime change. Those were the good old days. No wonder Teddy Roosevelt felt war was an invigorating, uplifting, character building adventure. Perhaps to some degree it might well have been, at least to the victors.

It might be well here to document the mentality of these earlier conquests. Here are the words of President McKinley as to why he captured the Philippines. " One night late, it came to me this way: there was nothing left for us do do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos and uplift them and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could for them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died". Let us, I guess, be thankful that Iran is not an over powering military power compared to us. I can almost hear it from some Head Mullah: "One night late, it came to me this way: there was nothing left for us to do but to take America, take them all, and to educate Americans and uplift them and make them Muslims, and by Allah's grace do the very best we can for them, as Allah demands of us". But even back then there were dissenters. One senator warned about the Philippine takeover that it would turn the United States into "a vulgar, commonplace empire founded upon physical force, controlling subject races and vassal states, in which one class must forever rule and the other classes must forever obey." Peace has yet to come to the Philippines even today, McKinley's vision notwithstanding.

Official American statements as to why we impose a regime change in a foreign country are often, in retrospect, amusing. Take President Taft's statement as to why he was deposing the government of Nicaragua: " We did this, he stated to impose "republican institutions" and promote "real patriotism".

The Philippine War was the first one to become vicious at an obscene level, as described in the Philadelphia Ledger at the time: "Our present war is no bloodless, fake, opera bouffe engagement . Our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people, from lads to ten and up, an idea prevailing that the Filipino, as such, was little better than a dog, noisome reptile in some instances, whose best disposition was the rubbish heap. Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to 'make them talk', have taken prisoner people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later, without an atom of evidence to show that they were even insurrectos, stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down as an example to those who found their bullet-ridden corpses." When war gets really serious, human behavior is beyond savage. When the conditions are right, American soldiers are no more less savage than any other warriors caught up in the emotional violence of the moment. That is one of the reasons war is so bad as a means to resolve conflict---it reduces everyone to savages---terrorists abound on both sides.

I thought of Reverend Wright (I think that is the name of Obama's pastor) when I read what Harvard Professor William James said of the conquest of the Philippines, that Americans were guilty of "murdering another culture" and concluded his speech by declaring 'God damn the U.S. for its vile conduct in the Philippines.'. To capture the Philippines it took 3.5 years and the death of 4,374 American soldiers. And for what purpose? Americans quickly forgot the war ever happened. It was a bit harder for the Philipinos to forget since 16,000 guerillas were killed along with 20,000 civilians. What good ever came to the U.S. or the Philippines from this war? Who among the thousands killed ever died for anything worth dying?

At this point I want to skip over the details relating to the U.S. overthrow of sovereign governments. The details are of course important but handled thoroughly in the book. The goal here is to look at the broader picture. I guess it starts with morality. And morality as any kind of entity is difficult---like does right and wrong exist in the external world or just in the sentiments of the observers of the external world? Can morality exist in the absence of rational thought processes? At what point in the evolutionary process does the concept of morality have any meaning? If our nature was different---a different species for example----would our duties be different? And within our own species, if our environment differs are our duties different? Does the destitute kid who steals money commit less of a moral sin than the white collar criminal who steals millions of dollars from investors or customers etc? All these interesting aspects of morality cannot be answered here, but they are out there and applicable to all questions of ethics.

So perhaps it best we start with this question, which relates directly to the question of whether one nation has the moral right to overthrow the government of a sovereign nation just because it has the military strength to do so. Probably not, but one could argue that an immoral act is justified if it leads to a greater good. Often our involvement in the overthrow of a foreign government, or the assassination of it's leader, is couched in a humanitarian need to save the people of a foreign land from an abusive leader. If so, the welfare of the common people would improve after the despotic government has been overthrown. Clearly, if one nation attacks another nation, it is ethical to defend the attacked nation. No one would criticize the U. S. for going to war in World War I, or II, or the Balkan War. But with the 14 nations we attacked in the last 110 years to overthrow their government, the government in question was not attacking any other nation. Ah, but one could argue, North Vietnam attacked South Vietnam and North Korea attacked South Korea. True, but it was never the Vietnamese or Koreans who divided their country to begin with. Thus, if other nations divide your own country, do the people in the country on either side have any right to put their country back together again? Well, one might say yes, but by a democratic election. But this is cloudy too. The major powers had promised free elections in all of Vietnam, but when it was clear Ho Chi Minh would win, the elections were canceled. And when the Palestinians recently held a free election and elected Hamas candidates, the Hamas government was then refused to be acknowledged by most Western countries and Israel. So much for democracy as the guiding principle.

Thus, it seems we are back to the question of whether an immoral act can be justified if it leads to a greater good? Just what would be the greater good in these 14 countries whose government the U.S. toppled? Our claim at the time was always to endorse a government which would bring more freedom and prosperity to the citizens of that country. Maybe, allowing some stretch, one could claim Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Grenada pass such a test. The rest---Cuba, Philippines, Nicaragua, Honduras, South Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Haiti---have seen no prosperity or great freedom result from our plotted regime changes. And of course there are many other countries across the globe whose people suffer badly from lack of prosperity and human rights and freedom. Clearly there are other reasons why the U.S, plots the overthrow of certain sovereign countries. These reasons have a lot to do with natural resources, cheap labor, land ownership, ownership of major industries, etc. Religion and democracy are kind of thrown into the mix to energize support for a regime replacement.

Be all this as it may, one need be careful to label a strong country less moral than weaker countries. Morality, as a whole, is probably at a higher level in the U.S. than practically any of these weaker third world countries---but part of this is a reflection that the rich are less likely to steal from, or rob, or physically attack their neighbors on the street. There is a reason why the poorest neighborhoods are always the least safe. Environment has a lot to do with moral behavior. The poor who rob from the rich can always rationalize that their behavior is justified because it leads to a greater good (sharing of wealth). When one watches American soldiers behave badly towards citizens of another country it would be ludicrous to blame it on genetics or nationality. The blame lies on those who put young men in situations which bring out such savage behavior. One of the unheralded negatives of our attack on Iraq is the personal assault on the integrity of moral behavior by all involved in such a war. There is a reason more American soldiers have committed, or attempted to commit, suicide than have been killed in Iraq. There is a reason why the people of Iraq have steadily degenerated into savage behavior towards each other. There is a reason why violence to solve problems has become more prevalent at all levels of American society. The idea that violence is ok to solve problems at one level, but not at others, doesn't fly. Bush sounds more like a local gang leader in his attitude towards others than he does a learned Lincolnesque statesman. And the last person Bush ever so remotely sounds like is Jesus. When Bush blames all the conflicts across the globe as a contest between 'good' and 'evil' ---he and us the 'good', and them the 'evil', he exposes his ignorance of human nature, and the realities of why humans behave as they do in varied situations. If democracy works, how the hell did Bush ever get elected a second time? That has to be the ultimate case of Dumb and Dumber. Fool us once and shame on you. Fool us twice and shame on us. Finally, patriotism does not require blind support for bad behavior. To criticize American foreign policy these past 110 years does not imply other nations are morally superior. They are not. If Bolivia doesn't impose regime changes in other countries it is probably because they are not strong enough to do so. If I didn't beat up kids in high school perhaps it was because I wasn't strong enough to do so. Of course this doesn't make it right for those kids who did beat up on other students. One could argue that those Americans who opposed the invasion of Iraq were better patriots on this issue than those who supported the invasion. It would be hard to find anyone in Iraq who finds life in Iraq now better than it was before our invasion. It certainly wasn't a 'good' experience for the 4,000 dead Americans or the 6000 who attempted, or committed, suicide during or after their experience.

Part of the reason people in many third world countries are poor is that the best land is owned and operated by large companies from major world powers, especially Americans. Many countries have only their best arable land and natural resources as a source of wealth, and these lands are owned by others. Many of the American deposed leaders of other sovereign nations were attempting a redistribution of land ownership and nationalization of companies peddling their natural resources abroad. Unfortunately, for the people of exploited lands, the companies who own and operate these vast most precious properties have tremendous political clout. And most American government officials feel it is their duty to protect American financial interests abroad.

Compounding the above problem is that once an exploited third world country starts borrowing money from European or Chinese banks, this bring another powerful lobby in Washington into the fray. Foreign third world leaders who think they can borrow money from banks other than American banks put their lives at risk and become candidates for regime change. At some point enough becomes enough. On top of all this, the practice of supporting repressive dictators as long as they were anti-communist has had long term consequences which are being felt across the globe even today. On the face of it, supplying foreign governments all kinds of weapons, in many cases weapons which are used to maintain repressive dictatorships, has played no small role in the rise of terrorism. The idea that people are safer when large numbers of people have guns is historically ridiculous, and never more so than in this country. The right to bear arms was put into the Constitution so people could, as a group, protect themselves from tyrannical government. Times have changed and I don't know anyone or any group that has the remotest chance of challenging any government tyranny with the use of their guns. What a joke that would be. The idea that when everyone is armed people are safer might be an interesting idea but I can think of no place in the world where this has worked. If it did, wow, Iraq would be the safest place in the world. Yet, according to Bush the Erudite, the problem in Iraq is that Iran and Syria arm the insurgents. Like who are the insurgents? The Sunni, the Shiities, the Kurds? Ok, I forget, anyone plotting to kill Americans, by definition, is Al Queda. The term Al Queda has become one of the most abused terms in history.

Is it really so amazing when revolutionists like Castro overthrow an American imposed, and supported, dictator like Batista, that Castro would proclaim: "This time the revolution will not be frustrated! This time, fortunately for Cuba, the revolution will achieve its true objective. It will not be like 1898, when the Americans came and made themselves masters of the country". Nor is it surprising that the American then President Eisenhower would be perplexed and state: "Here is a country that, you would believe on the basis of OUR history, would be one of our REAL friends. The whole history.....would seem to make it a puzzling matter to figure out just exactly why the Cubans and the Cuban government would be so unhappy when, after all, their principle market is here, their best market. I don't know what exactly the difficulty is". This sounds remarkably like what Bush might say today about dissatisfied middle and lower class Americans. I mean all these people across the globe who have lost control over their own destiny, why are they so hostile and ungrateful for their slave laboring, for the military assistance America gives to their own government forces, for helpful American regime changes, for promises to rebuild blown up infrastructures across their lands, for the experienced management of their own natural resources, for the appropriation of the best land by American companies which increases world trade of their resources, for thousands of deaths to family and friends, all to bring peace and prosperity right to their own doorstep. Like can't they see all the peace and prosperity we have brought to those we have invaded or imposed regime changes on? The Bush puppeteers predicted that after the removal of Hussein, Bush would receive a hero's welcome on the streets of Baghdad in a victory parade. Really, then how come he can only visit Iraq by sneaking in for a quick touchdown on a military base? Perhaps he is modest and would be embarrassed by the public adoration.

Amazingly, and probably with naive sincerity, Bush sees democracy as the solution. It seems clear, from any rational logic, that real democracy in most third world countries, would result in immediate reclamation and control over their own natural resources, ownership of their best, most arable lands, and, in short, control over all those things upon which we impose regime changes. "Why did Americans support policies that brought suffering to people in foreign lands? There are two reasons, so intertwined that they became one. Th essential reason is that American control of faraway places came to be seen as vital to the material prosperity of the United States. This explanation, however, is wrapped inside another one: the deep seated belief of most Americans that their country is a force for good in the world. Thus, by extension, even the destructive missions the United States embarks on to impose its authority are tolerable. Generations of American political and business leaders have recognized the power of the noble idea of American exceptionalism. When they intervene abroad for selfish or ignoble reasons, they always insist that in the end, their actions will benefit not only the United Sates but also the citizens of the country in which they are intervening---and, by extension, the causes of peace and justice in the world." What stands out is the absolute lack of interest in the opinions of the people in those countries whose lands we seized. To listen to these people strikes many Americans as absurd---these are "ragged children, usually non white, who have no more idea of what is good for them than a block of stone".

In the 1940's Juan Jose Arevalo was elected President of Guatemala. In his inaugural address he stated:

"There has in the past been a fundamental lack of sympathy for the working class man, and the faintest cry for justice was avoided and punished, as if one were trying to eradicate the beginnings of a frightful epidemic. Now we are going to begin a period of sympathy for the man who works in the fields, in the shops, on the military bases, in small businesses....We are going to add justice and humanity to order, because order based on injustice ad humiliation is good for nothing." This might well summarize the kind of priorities needed in most third world countries.

He tried, but made little headway. His successor, Jacobo Arbenz, then set out in his inaugural three fundamental objectives for his Presidency:

"to convert our country from a dependent nation with a semi-colonial economy into an economically independent country; to convert Guatemala from a country bound by a predominantly feudal economy into a modern capitalist state; and to make this transformation in a way that will raise the standard of living of the great mass of our people to the highest level" This speech, by a democratically elected President sounds like one that could have been issued by our founding fathers upon getting out from under British colonial rule. Unfortunately, this kind of talk was extremely threatening to United Fruit which owned one fifth of Guatemala's arable land, even though it only cultivated 15% of it, to International Railways of Central America (46% of it's stock was held by United Fruit), and Electric Bond and Share which supplied power for the railways and banana plantations.

As Guatamala made plans to gradually own it's own land, railway system and electric power system the U.S. reacted angrily, and called it all Marxist, and furthermore insisted the whole instigation to do this must be coming from Moscow. There was no evidence for this, Arbenz had no ties to Moscow, but the U.S. moved swiftly to engineer a regime change in Guatemala. After all democracy is only tolerable if the right person gets elected. Thus Arbenz was forced to resign after a military coup backed by the U.S. The United States Secretary of State Dulles issued this statement: "The Guatemalan government and Communist agents throughout the world have persistently attempted to obscure the real issue---that of Communist imperialism---by claiming that the U.S. is only interested in protecting American business. We regret that there have been disputes between the Guatemalan government and the United Fruit Company.....But this issue is relatively unimportant....led by Colonel Castillo Armas, patriots arose in Guatemala to challenge the Communist leadership and to change it. Thus the situation is being cured by the Guatemalans themselves."

In the end, neither democracy or the welfare and prosperity of the Guatemalan people mattered. The economic interest of American businesses mattered. Period. It is a mistake to get hung up on the ethics. It would be ludicrous to say the the American people have less morals than the Guatemalan people. But is is fair to say that democracy was ill served, that the right of sovereign countries to control their own natural resources was ill served, that the the right of a sovereign country to control it's own destiny was ill served. And sadly, to this day, the people of Guatemala have never been able to implement the goals of either Jose Arevelo or Jacobo Arbenz . Arbenz died in a distant land alone, with people of Guatemala forbidden to mention his name in public. Only in 1995, when his remains were allowed to be bought back to Guatemala did the people have a chance to honor him. It was the largest funeral ever in Guatemala with 100,000 people in attendance. It strikes me how the U.S. had our Washington, Jefferson, et al who were free to serve their country, free from outside influence. When Washington advised his countrymen to stay free of foreign entanglements we can assume he meant it. Somewhere along the line the U.S, changed course. These regime changes were carried out under both Republican and Democrat Presidents. Most of us, as Americans, have endorsed or quietly acquiesced to all of these overthrows of foreign leaders. Nixon, capable of amazing bluntness at times, told a meeting of the National Security council. "I will never agree with downgrading the military in Latin America. They are power centers subject to our influence. The others, the intellectuals, are not subject to our influence." So there you have it, shorn of all disingenuous bullshit---Military rulers are preferred as long as we are the ones propping them up, supplying the arms, and not someone else.

When Nixon ordered the elected President of Chile, Allende, to be overthrown, Kissinger's chief advisor on South America wrote this to Kissinger: "What we propose is patently a violation of our own principles and policy tenets. Moralism aside, this has practical operational consequences.....If these principles have any meaning, we normally depart from them only to meet the gravest threat to us,e.g. to our survival. Is Allende a mortal threat to the U.S? It is hard to argue this." Once the United States started down this path of overthrowing foreign sovereign governments, it greased the way for similar actions with increasing frequency. U.S. Presidents, Democrat or Republican, began to view these decisions as a measure of their toughness. It became our way of empire building. We didn't take over countries like the Romans did, we simply ensured a government that we could control was in power, supplied them with whatever military weapons they needed to stay in power and used our economic clout to keep them in line. Not all regions of the world were equal in necessity to control. Africa was the least concern, the Middle East and South America of the most concern. The middle East was because of the oil, and South America was just always considered to be permanently under U.S. 'protection'---benign colonies of some sort.

Before Allende was deposed by a U.S. engineered regime change he said this to the United Nations: "Our economy could no longer tolerate the subordination implied by having more than eighty percent of its exports in the hands of a small group of large foreign companies that have always put their interests ahead of those of the countries where they make their profits.....We find ourselves opposed by forces that operate in the shadows, without a flag, with powerful weapons, from positions of great influence....We are potentially rich countries, yet we live in poverty. We go here and there, begging for credits and aid, yet we are great exporters of capital. It is a classic paradox of the capitalist economic system." Those Americans who opposed this blatant interference with sovereign nations were labeled Communists, Socialists, anti-American. I was never one of those complaining. I was a 'good' patriotic American. And even today I don't comprehend why capitalism based on fair restraints is not the right way. In his final hours, his capital residence being bombed by American planes and attacked by American tanks, Allende made his final address over the radio to his countrymen. " I will not resign. I will not do it. I am ready to resist even at the cost of my own life....Long live Chile! Long live the people! These are my last words. I am sure that my sacrifice will not be in vain. I am sure it will be at least a moral lesson, and a rebuke to crime, cowardice, and treason." Thus Pinochet was installed to the rulership of Chile, one characterized by a reign of terror against the common citizens of Chile. Pinochet had one ace card---he was always willing to do the bidding of the U.S. government and corporations. Unlike Allende, he lived to a ripe old age, in splendor amongst a population of slave laborers, if they labored at all. When the former Chilean Foreign Minister commented to Kissinger that Kissinger knew nothing about South America, Kissinger told him: "No, and I don't care. Nothing important can come from the South. History has never been produced in the South. The axis of history starts in Moscow, goes to Bonn, crosses over to Washington and then goes to Tokyo. What happens in South America is of no importance." One has to admire the basic honesty of Nixon and Kissinger as opposed to Bush who pretends that Jesus himself is the architect of our 'freedom fighting' for regime changes, some sort of onward Christian soldiers.

This U.S. empire building via regime changes was limited by the Cold War. When the Cold War ended, the restraints upon American empire building was gone. Now any American President with the inclination to do so, could tamper unfettered by the fear of Russian engagement.
When Bush was confronted with long term consequences of his foreign policies he snarled, "I don't do nuances". Instead Bush reiterated that the United States was locked in "a momentous struggle between good and evil" that we were fighting across the globe to promote "God given values" and "defend freedom and all that is good and just in the world" against all those who "hate us for our freedoms", "hate us because we love liberty", and hate us because we're good".
Clearly Bush doesn't do 'nuances' of any sort. After a long and distinguished history of partying and owing Baseball teams with his family fortunes, Bush claims at some point he became a 'born again Christian'----the rest is history, but not any history that remotely resembles or follows the words of Christ himself.

Given the increasingly accepted penchant for U.S, intervention into the affairs of sovereign nations, and the simultaneous increasing anger on the part of those citizens who have borne the instability and devastating poverty that accompanied these interventions, it is no surprise that when a weak brained, stubborn, 'born again', JohnWaynesque cowboy such as Bush is let loose across the globe, that an explosive 'take no prisoners' series of conflicts break out across the globe. Bush even proudly proclaimed that the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of prisoners did not apply to prisoners taken in Afghanistan or Iraq. The puppeteers manipulating Bush functioned with a sort of arrogant confidence that they could win popular support for these military adventures if they presented them as motivated by benevolence, self-sacrificing charity, and a noble desire to liberate the oppressed, operations carried out by the desire to share the good fortunes of the have's in the United States with others across the globe.

At this point in history there is little need to engage in any lengthy discourse on the morality of it all. All morality aside, the game is kind of up. Countries who have the power to interfere in foreign lands almost always do so. This game is up because:

1. With the internet and cell phones people can build 'terrorist' organizations without ever having to physically meet to plot and plan and execute attacks on foreign companies or citizens. All dissident groups everywhere have the power now to 'terrorize' if they now choose to do so. Obama can generate huge crowds because through the internet he can communicate with thousands of his supporters. Bin Laden (sp) can operate out of caves because he can find ways to spread his directives via satellite communications to operatives throughout the world. All the missiles and troops and tanks and planes and ships can no longer effectively end dissent practically anywhere. Whether the U.S. likes it or not, the ability to exploit the natural resources and land ownership in foreign countries will become increasingly impossible. Whether we stay in Iraq or get out, the pipe lines for oil out of Iraq will not become safe until the warring factions in Iraq come to some sort of accommodation with each other. Those who cling to the notion that negotiation, compromise, meeting with tyrants, etc. are a waste of time have yet to understand that there is no longer any choice. If nations and people in general can't collectively agree that violence no longer is any solution to anything, then all hope is lost because military might can no longer force any effective solution. There is no longer any need for the U.S. to spend more money on military hardware than all the rest of the nations put together because military might is increasingly useless to solve today's kind of problems. If the U.S. and Israel had spent just a tenth of what they spent on military matters, building a healthy economy for the displaced Palestinians, that conflict would be over because the Palestinians would have something themselves to protect from attack. Like what the hell is left to blow up in the lands occupied by the displaced Palestinians? How can you stop attacks by those with nothing left to lose?

2. With American companies now moving headquarters abroad to escape taxes, and employing slave labor across the globe to produce their products, and the ability of foreign companies to produce cheap products via the same pool of slave labor, American workers are finding themselves being reduced to third world labor conditions---poor pay, poor or no health care, poor or no pensions, and no job security. The exploitation of foreign countries has come full circle now, and American workers are now in the pool of the exploited---sometimes by American Companies headquartered overseas to avoid taxation. Legislation and elections themselves have become increasingly financed---and therefore controlled---by special monied interests whose control over legislative matters effectively makes it easy for those already rich to pile up even larger monetary gains.

Thus, the GAME IS UP and the ethics of it all irrelevant. Foreign workers and many American workers now have a common enemy---the American government. The current and recent past mentality is no longer a means to effectuate any relief for the oppressed. The principles upon which this nation was founded have become hollow words, but hollow words used effectively by professional speech writers and campaign spin experts. In the not so distant past in this country Presidents used to make few speeches and those they made they wrote. Today, Presidential 'addresses' are made almost everyday, none of which are written by the President himself. Bush has all he can do to stumble through reading such speeches, let alone claim any of it is a product of his own thinking, if I can use the term thinking loosely.

The good will toward the U.S. generated by the attack on the world trade centers has all been dissipated by the actions of Bush. The Bush 'doctrine', for lack of a better word, is to invade sovereign countries, turn them into a 'cauldron of violent activity' which then attracts fanatics from all across the globe. Having run out of concocted excuses for his world policies, Bush now blames Al Queda for all the killing fields, even though Al Queda is essentially a group of Saudi Arabian dissidents who gathered together to oppose American military bases in Saudi Arabia and the propping up by America of the Saudi monarchy. All but two of the World Trade Center bombers were Saudi Arabians. Most of the killing now taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan is being done by those with different motivations and different issues, not the military bases in Arabia. Nevertheless, by Bush's definition, anyone attacking Americans is Al Queda. If one goes by the numbers alone, Bush has initiated World War III----hundreds of thousands killed; millions of refugees with no homes, jobs, or security; huge prisoner of war camps with some thinly veiled torture camps---when necessary prisons in far away lands where the torture can be more secretive; billions of dollars spent to finance these wars and all of it done on borrowed money from our chief economic competitors like China. Sadly, the more killed, the greater the number of enemy combatants, and the more fanatical the killing. True, in any given area, enough combatants can be killed or chased away to reduce the deaths per month. But that in itself is totally deceptive---they just move on elsewhere, regroup. refine their own 'terrorist' abilities, and then---at a time and place of their choosing---the attacks will start up with even more vengeance and violence. The efficiency of terrorism is still in it's infant stage. These terrorist attacks will, with time, become more destructive, more frequent, more sophisticatedly simple, and the targets more catastrophic. It is becoming a standoff---neither terrorism or vast traditional military might can defeat each other. The solution to conflict lies elsewhere. Whether the solutions will come before chaos and massive loss of life by all sides, coupled by economic collapse of complicated economic systems, remains to be seen. The problems of the environment, world population, distribution of wealth, health care, living wages, religious fervor, terrorism, and manifest destiny are all intertwined as the human species begins to drown in the misery of it's own excesses.

Manifest destiny was a malodorous concept from the very beginning---driven by greed, injustice, disrespect for others----with a blind eye to long term repercussions. The founding fathers had it right, avoid foreign entanglements, behave more like Switzerland, lead the world by example---not meddlesome interference and instigating regime changes. All foreign aid should be aimed at increasing the prosperity of common people across the globe, supporting justice for all---act like the statue of liberty still represents the essence of our politics, and behave like the Golden Rule is really the basis of our Christian heritage. There is no need for spending more money on military matters than all the rest of the countries combined. There is no need for 750 military bases in 130 countries. None of this is necessary to defend our own country from attack, just to wage wars across the globe. If we had our priorities right---politically and religiously----we would not be selling all kinds of weapons to other countries thereby greasing the way for killing fields across the globe. Our nation is too violence prone. Whether this is ethical or not is now irrelevant since in any event it can no longer achieve the results intended, and this mentality has now permeated all levels of our society. This country is better than that, and alternate ways to resolve conflicts are needed. Even Al Queda is not without legitimate issues for peaceful resolution. Is all this bloodshed worth the right to maintain military bases in Saudi Arabia? That is what started this recent whole damn terrorism stuff and now our means of subduing whole populations by uniformed armies, smart bombs, smart missiles, monster tanks, etc has proved terrorism a match for all of it. Those on the recipient end of all these sophisticated military attacks have no credible means to defend themselves against such attacks and those on the recipient end of simplistic 'terrorist' attacks have no credible means to defend themselves against these kind of attacks. It is a stalemate. Military adventures are now obsolete as a means to solve much of anything.

Patriotism, waving religious bibles of this or that sort, ignoring population and environmental problems, allowing the distribution of wealth to become increasingly lopsided----these are the real challenges, the real problems needing global attack. The world is now past the point we can just have our way because of 'or else'. The two areas that need attention for any peace and justice to ever be achieved are population controls, and a more even distribution of the world's wealth. Many of the genocidal atrocities occurring across the globe are subsequent to overpopulation, as groups fight for the meager resources available. These meager resources can be arable land, water, jobs, and health care. Peace will come when governments can agree that all people are entitled to a realistic opportunity for a living wage job, health care, an education, and a home. Without this terrorism cannot be stopped. Even within our own country we are rapidly approaching the trigger point for terrorism due to the growing accumulation of wealth in the hands of a privileged few. Because we are a relatively new continent for large populations we still have adequate natural resources, but just for a short period longer. No matter where the conflicts are, it is the same causes listed above driving the vicious behavior. It is too late to undo the UN displacement of people from their homeland so a particular religious sect can have their own nation, but at least the displaced people, left with the most barren lands, are owed living wage jobs, health care, and decent schools. The cost to have done this would have been a miniscule fraction of what the U.S. and Israel have spent on military weapons to subdue the Palestinian population. You cannot subdue people who have nothing left to lose. Most of the money being spent across the globe on weapons should be spent on population policies, forcing a more even distribution of wealth, providing health care for all, a good education for all children, and protecting our environment. Anything done in the absence of the aforementioned is a waste of time.

There is only one manifest destiny---the God created evolutionary process---and this process proceeds totally independent of religious dogmas of any ilk, nationalities, and political philosophies. People get frustrated when prayer doesn't stop outrageous injustices, but the evolutionary process is not driven by prayer. Humans are the only species with the ability to affect their own destiny---up to a point. If we continue to allow our own species to reproduce like rabbits, let wealth to accumulate in the hands of a few, and fail to protect the environment, then we will have lost the ability to control our own destiny---and the laws of evolution will operate, as they always do, to correct the imbalance and abuses. The population is going to be controlled, exactly by what means is not yet clear. But if the present mentality of violence to solve conflict persists, the the population reduction process is going to be chaos and global massacres---- -every man for himself.

The clock is ticking, we--as modern day Neros'---are fiddling away, in denial of what is coming down across the globe, failing to address little of substance, wrapped in patriotism and religious dogma, viewing everything with myopic vision, praying away, still believing America is blessed by God with Manifest Destiny. This seems to me to be rather presumptuous. I mean, how could this be? God is too busy answering my own prayers about my personal manifest destiny.