A Heart-sickening Mass of Humanity and the Mentality behind It

A Heart-sickening Mass of Humanity and the Mentality behind It

While many of us live in the ‘best of all possible worlds’, many more now live in the ‘worst of all possible worlds’. Perhaps in a planet now under pressure from unprecedented  human overpopulation, this situation is rather predictable. We have a huge cabal of bitter, ignorant insensitive yapping self serving personages, with callous disregard for others, unrestrained across the globe. The solution, for this cabal, whatever the problem, is always violence and total disrespect for human diversity. Their words and actions create hatred and turmoil across a troubled planet. While too numerous to list they include Putin, King Jong-un of North Korea, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ayaatollah Ali Khamenei, Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the list goes on and on. 

Anyone with a remote sense of history knows that violence always begets violence. We know this when parents use violence on children, when any group uses violence on another group, when one nation uses violence on another nation—whenever violence is preached as a solution, the revengefulness will elevate the violence even further. Deranged leaders like Hitler and Stalin may be the worst, but many religious and racial conflicts are not far behind. Many of the victims are those least able to defend themselves and this, of course, includes children.

When a 15 year old kid, homesick for his mom and grandparents, stows away in the wheel hub of an airplane in an attempt to get to Ethiopia, the story is miraculous in that he survived, and difficult to fully comprehend. While the story may have intrigued and saddened myself and many others, it clearly is perceived by many in this country with inner rage against the kid. Below is a handful of examples of comments following an article about the incident:

Wow!!! I just went to cut and paste some of the comments, and at the end of the article it said “comments are now closed for this article”.  I surmise the comments were so repulsive that even Fox News decided to muzzle their own followers. 

Comment after comment was vitriolic anger towards this kid. They hated him, and despised he even existed in this country. He was, to them, stupid, a worthless piece of shit, with no redeeming qualities at all, a clear potential terrorist just like the Russian brothers who set a bomb off at the Boston Marathon last year.  And so it went on. I regret I could not paste any of these responses. There were many responses, and almost all of them of the same ilk.

Here are the known facts about this ‘worthless piece of shit’. He was raised as a child in rural Somalia. Then his world was turned upside down by the destruction of his home village in Somalia, not very different from the kind of violence taking place in dozens of areas around the globe. The family ended up in an Ethiopian refugee camp after a long dangerous, and difficult trek on foot.  His parents went through a bitter divorce and his Dad grabbed the kids and the family became part of a group of Somalian refugees sent to the U.S. The boy has no formal education. He has been in this country 4 yrs. The dad is a taxi driver. The kid is a freshman in a California High School. With no prior formal education and coming from a rural quiet community (before soldiers attacked his village), the boy suffers extreme culture shock, and with language difficulties on top of everything else, students said he rarely spoke to anyone.  He told the few he spoke to that he missed his mom and his life in Somalia before the attack. 

All these vitriolic haters of this kid, if justice were meted out, would have these haters go through a similar sequence of events at his age. And by their own standards they would be just as stupid a jerk as they labeled him. I lost a dog when I was about his age when he was in Somalia. and that was a difficult loss for me to bear. I cannot imagine the profound impact on this kid from all these events that would have impacted on most any child forced to suffer through such endless traumatic situations. They made fun of the fact he was so stupid to do such a thing, so stupid to not even know where the plane was going, and these haters were so angry he was even let into this country. 

Who is more despicable, a person with no formal education, or an educated person  (If I can use the term loosely) with a total inability to comprehend the difficulties such a child faced relentlessly year after year, and with that incomprehension, then generate such contempt for a 15 year old kid brave enough to take the ultimate risk to regain a life of happiness lost years ago. 

Who are the leaders and those who support such widespread terror, death, and injury to innocent unarmed civilians in such huge numbers, along with the accompanying physical damage to their environment?  Attila the Hun and Ghenghis Khan are small players compared to their counterparts today. The part that really hurts is that for the last 50 years it has been the U.S. which has killed/injured more people, and destroyed more property in other countries than any other nation. How can a nation which so rightfully mourns the death of 3000 innocent Americans in the World Trade Center explosion be so insensitive to it’s own indiscriminate killing of citizens in other countries? We often don’t directly initiate the violence but simply join in and multiply the violence exponentially with our smart bombs, missiles, and tanks. 

Almost all this violence today is the result of intolerance to human diversity, and non adherence to the global ethical principle of the Golden Rule. Whether it is the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, the Jews and Arabs in the Middle East, the Muslims and Christians in Africa, the Russians and non Russians in Ukraine, the main land Chinese and Chinese in Formosa, the Hindu’s and Muslims in India/Pakistan, the wealthy and the poor most everywhere, or whatever, it is this intolerance and and disregard for the Golden Rule which fuels all these conflicts. Why now is all this getting so bad and so prevalent in so many areas of the globe? Irresponsible reproduction is the subtle force which drives much of it and will make it just worse with every succeeding year. Every one wants a decent piece of the pie and those with the biggest pieces want bigger pieces never ending. There is no such thing as enough is enough for those whose whole purpose in life is to amass more and more till death finally parts them from their wealth, and then they bequeath that wealth to a genetic cabal in which non of the recipients can remotely claim they earned the wealth in which they will then wallow. 

The 15 year old boy is named Yahya Abdi.  Who knows whether he is salvageable after all he has been through? For all I know he might be an incorrigible lost cause at this point. Maybe his bravery, no matter how reckless and ignorant, will get him some professional help to deal with a world that has been so oppressive and unfair to him. The sad thing is so what? There are millions, probably billions, of other personages out there of all ages, trapped in the consequences of these bitter, ignorant insensitive yapping self serving leaders and their followers who see no value in others different from themselves.  Many of these others are right here in our own country, for now gated off from those of us more affluent.  Lincoln himself, the ultimate expert on human behaviors, would be hard pressed to right our planetary ship. Too much, too fast, too often is coming at us from every direction. If this kid hops into another airplane wheel hub, well maybe I will hop in too. Why not, does it make any difference in this new global economy where the plane is going?  More and more it is the same old, same old. 

Going Down the Wrong Road

Going Down the Wrong Road

• I clicked on the spot to get local news. That means the Chicago Metropolitan area.  There were 25 articles for me to read.  17 of them involved killings, violence, tragedy of some sort. It is hard to prove to what extent our endless invasions of third world countries and fighting wars on their terms and values has done to our society, but wherever all this came from we have certainly attained a similar environment enveloping a huge percentage of our own population.

We can blame the victims and we do, but in the last analysis our own society (my generation) is responsible for the conditions established throughout our country. On issue after issue we have permitted huge segments of our own population to have poor schools, poor health care, poor job opportunities, and via our criminal war on drugs (instead of centers to help with drug addictions) allowed the criminal aspects of this war to turn many areas into third world ghettoes with all the attitudes and personal insecurity that comes with such an environment. The amount of money we have spent on military engagements in third world countries simply dwarfs the amount of money those of us with some money (tax payers) have ever spent on our own ghettoes. I guess it all started with the brilliant idea of having local property taxes pay for education, and make recreational drug abuse a police venture instead of a medical problem. I am so glad I chose the right parents, time, and place to be born. Many others simply made poor choices. Two of the articles that I reckon are supposed to be upbeat celebratory in nature are about religious rituals performed en mass by the faithful. Celebrating imagery and faith may be all that is left for many and that, in some sense, is sad too.

I read about all these leeches on society, the ghetto welfare queens/kings, the dead wood, and so on. But in moments of honesty it seems I too am one of the biggest welfare Kings.  For the first 25 years of my life until I left graduate school I was a welfare recipient supported by my parents and the government. I was even awarded a draft deferment from the Vietnam War because I was a graduate student. I have been retired now for like 18 years and it would be a stretch to claim I personally earned the income I now have coming in. I haven’t done the math, but it would certainly be a stretch to say that all this money comes from my contributions to social security, a pension, or health insurance payments over the years. On top of this all the foreign country invasions we had endlessly engaged in over the last 50 years never, in any form or fashion,required any sacrifice by me. We fought these wars on borrowed money and more recently with paid mercenaries (volunteer armies). It is a tad unnerving to realize the biggest handouts are not going to the ghetto welfare queens and kings but to the affluent—and the more affluent the bigger the hand outs. Some millionaires don’t even pay any taxes, and corporate retirement umbrellas, salaries, and pensions, by themselves, are like winning the lottery in terms of handouts. 

Like most, I like to think I achieved my good fortunes the old  fashioned way—I earned them—yet reality dictates that much of what I received in life has involved  good parenting, luck, assistance from many others, and government welfare. Perspective is always humbling. 

•

• 
  

• BMO Harris Bank branch in Austin robbed
  Authorities are investigating a Saturday morning bank robbery at a BMO Harris Bank branch in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side.
  
  WLS 731 mins ago
  
  
• Married couple found dead in Garfield Ridge
  A man and woman both in law enforcement were found dead Sunday morning in the 5300 block of South Austin.
  
  WLS 746 mins ago
  
  
• Chicago shootings: 7 dead, 22 hurt since Friday night
  Seven people have been killed and at least 22 others have been wounded in shootings across the city since Friday evening.
  
  WLS 7
  
  
• Husband and wife -- both officers -- found shot to death in Garfield Ridge home
  A Cook County Sheriff's Office correctional officer and his wife, a Chicago police officer, were found shot to death inside a home in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood Sunday morning, officials said.
  
  Chicago Tribune
  
  
• Transcript reveals confusion over ferry evacuation
  A transcript released Sunday shows the South Korean ferry that sank was crippled with confusion and indecision well after it began listing dangerously, possibly adding to a death toll that is officially at 58 but could...
  
  FOX News Chicago
  
  
• Thousands sign up to work for UberX, other ride-share services
  Reagan Rucker knew she wanted to join the thousands of local motorists hauling strangers around in their cars the first time she took an UBERx ride as a passenger. "I said 'Let me try this,'" said Rucker, 40, who took on a $300 monthly payment for a 2009 Hyundai Elantra (to meet Uber's requirements for late-model, four-door sedans), went through criminal-background and driving-record checks, and ...
  
  Daily Herald
  
  
• Woman wanted for Wicker Park bank robbery
  Authorities are searching for a woman who robbed a bank Friday afternoon in the Wicker Park neighborhood on the North Side.
  
  FOX News Chicago
  
  
• Pope Francis, huge crowd joyously celebrate Easter
  Marking Christianity's most hopeful day, Pope Francis made an Easter Sunday plea for peace and dialogue in Ukraine and Syria, for an end to terrorist attacks against Christians in Nigeria and for more attention to the...
  
  FOX News Chicago
  
  
• Clergy see Easter sermon as way to entice more faithful
  Pews fill up so much for Easter the faithful have to show up earlier than usual to find a parking space, and some churches even tack on extra services to accommodate the crowds.
  
  Times of Northwest Indiana
  
  
• Valparaiso mother lived for family
  Sandy Sievers was a quiet, kind woman who always put her family as her first priority, said her niece, Dena Rae Hancock.
  
  Times of Northwest Indiana
  
  
• Swimming, hiking, history, ecology all highlight the Indiana Dunes
  A well-planned visit to the Indiana Dunes region could start at the Indiana Dunes Tourism Visitor Center at 1215 N. Ind. 49, Porter, just north of Interstate 94 and the Indiana Toll Road.
  
  Times of Northwest Indiana
  
  
• Man killed in crash on Dan Ryan Expressway near Chicago Skyway
  A 22-year-old man was killed in a crash Saturday morning on the Dan Ryan Expressway. The dead man was identified only as Deante Dillion, who was pronounced dead shortly before 5 a.m. at Stroger Hospital.. The crash happened near the Dan Ryan’s merge with the Chicago Skyway, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s …
  
  Chicago Sun-Times
  
  
• Algonquin girl becomes face of national parks
  Aida Frey knew she wanted to be a park ranger ever since her first visit to a national park. Three years later, the 13-year-old from Algonquin has visited 163 national parks and historic sites with her family, and earned about 300 badges, pins and medals as part of the National Park Service's Junior Ranger program. "I don't have a favorite because each national park is special in its own way ...
  
  Daily Herald
  
  
• Breaking down the Bulls-Wizards season series
  Here's a closer look at the regular season games between the Bulls and Washington. The Wizards won two out of three, becoming the only team in the East to win a season series against the Bulls this year.
  
  Daily Herald
  
  
• Geneva kayak trip turns fatal
  A kayak trip down the Fox River in Geneva turned into tragedy Saturday afternoon for a group of friends from downstate Bloomington when one of them drowned after losing control of his kayak, authorities said.
  
  Chicago Tribune
  
  
• Man drowns after kayak falls from Geneva dam
  A 26-year-old man died on Saturday after getting caught in the boil at the Geneva dam, Geneva Fire Lt. Todd Loomis said.
  
  Kane County Chronicle
  
  
• 2 South Side teens killed over Facebook dispute, mom says
  Two Chicago teenagers were shot to death Saturday over a dispute on Facebook, the mother of one of the victims said Saturday night. Sixteen-year-old Jordan Means and an 18-year-old friend whose name authorities were withholding pending notification of his family were found dead just after 10:30 a.m. Saturday in an apartment in the 8200 block of South Houston Avenue on the South Side, according ...
  
  Chicago Sun-Times
  
  
• Boy, 16, shot on South Side
  A 16-year-old boy who police said has gang ties was shot multiple times late Saturday afternoon in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.
  
  Chicago Tribune
  
  
• Baby Boy, Wrapped In Bag, Found Dead In Gangway
  About 8:30 a.m., the boy — described as a newborn — was found in a gangway in the 2700 block of North Hamlin Avenue.
  
  CBS Chicago
  
  
• Geneva woman dies in Plato Township motorcycle crash
  PLATO TOWNSHIP – A 54-year-old Geneva woman died Saturday when the motorcycle she was driving went off the road and struck a guardrail on eastbound Route 20, west of Switzer Road, according to a news release from the Kane County Sheriff's Office.
  
  Kane County Chronicle
  
  
• Man dies after kayak falls from Geneva Dam
  A 26-year-old man died on Saturday after getting caught in the boil at the Geneva Dam on Saturday, said Lt. Todd Loomis of the Geneva Fire Department.
  
  Kane County Chronicle
  
  
• One Dead, One Rescued In Kayak Accident On Fox River
  Two young men in the kayak were plunged into the river; one young man was ejected from the kayak and the other young man was stuck inside.
  
  CBS Chicago
  
  
• Ministers Lead Ant-Violence Protest In South Chicago
  South Chicago ministers lead an anti-violence procession through the neighborhood, on the Saturday before Easter.
  
  CBS Chicago
  
  
• Blackhawks give up late goal, lose in OT; Seabrook will have hearing Sunday
  ST. LOUIS — The post-whistle skirmishes grew larger and more vicious. The hits were harder and more dangerous. The conversations between captains Jonathan Toews and David Backes and referee Brad Meier grew longer and more animated. Gradually, the game was unraveling. Suddenly, the Blackhawks’ season might be, too. The St. Louis Blues took a 2-0 series lead with Saturday’s 4-3 overtime victory ...
  
  Chicago Sun-Times
• 
  
  
• Man, 25, faces armed robbery charges
  A 25-year-old man behind a string of armed robberies in and near Palos Hills was charged Friday after officers stopped him outside a pantry he allegedly robbed two weeks earlier, police said. Nicholas Koliopoulos, of Palos Hills, faces two counts of armed robbery, a Class X felony, one count of felony aggravated robbery and one count of felony reckless discharge of a firearm. Officers arrested ...
  
  SouthtownStar

Enough is Never Enough Classic example:

Enough is Never Enough Classic example:

“When Harry Truman left the White House in 1953, historian David McCullough records, "he had no income or support of any kind from the federal government other than his Army pension of $112.56 a month. He was provided with no government funds for secretarial help or office space, not a penny of expense money."

One of the reasons Truman and his wife moved back into their far-from-elegant old house in Independence, Missouri, "was that financially they had little other choice."

Nevertheless, Truman refused to cash in on his celebrity and influence as a former president. He turned down lucrative offers, such as the one from a Florida real-estate developer inviting him to become "chairman, officer, or stockholder, at a figure of not less than $100,000." He would not make commercial endorsements, accept "consulting" fees, or engage in lobbying.

"I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable," Truman later wrote, "that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency." He did sell the rights to his memoirs for a handsome sum to Life magazine. But he turned down every other enticement to trade on his former position for private gain.

Half a century later, Truman's rectitude seems as quaint and obsolete as George Washington's wooden teeth.

We learned last week that in the six years since Bill Clinton left office, he has pocketed a staggering $40 million in speaking fees. Tirelessly working the lecture circuit, he has delivered hundreds of speeches, often at a price of $150,000 and up. Two-thirds of his speaking money has come from foreign sources, according to the Washington Post, including a Saudi Arabian investment firm and a Chinese real estate development group run by a local Communist Party official.

The scale of Clinton's post-White House earnings is known only because financial-disclosure rules require his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, to report them. (They don't include the additional millions his speeches have raised for the William J. Clinton Foundation, his nonprofit charity.) But he is hardly the only former president to leverage the prestige of the presidency for big bucks.

This shabby practice began with Gerald Ford, who accepted high-paying board memberships at companies like 20th Century-Fox, Primerica and American Express. Ronald Reagan accepted $2 million to deliver two 20- minute speeches in Japan shortly after leaving the White House in 1989, and both George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter have lectured widely for pay.

The elder Bush in particular seems to be Clinton's model. The Wall Street Journal reported a decade ago that "in the four years since he left office, Bush, already a wealthy man, has earned millions of dollars speaking publicly." Charging $80,000 to $100,000 per appearance, "Bush generally restricts himself to giving speeches and rubbing shoulders with corporate executives and high-level government officials."

Such post-presidential avarice might be more understandable if presidents were still leaving office the way Truman did, with nothing from the taxpayers but a fond farewell. But that hasn't been the case since the passage of the Former Presidents Act in 1958.

Today former presidents receive a lavish pension — $186,000, increased yearly — payable as soon as they depart the White House, regardless of their age. In addition, former chief executives are granted hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual staff, office and travel allowances. For fiscal year 2007, Clinton will receive approximately $1.16 million from the U.S. Treasury — his telephone stipend alone will come to $77,000. All former presidents are also entitled to free, round-the-clock Secret Service protection for themselves and their families. The cost of providing security for previous "first families" is estimated at $20 million a year.

According to the National Taxpayers Union, Clinton will reap a lifetime pension payout of more than $7 million, assuming a normal lifespan. The senior George Bush can expect to bank more than $3 million; for Carter, the total will likely top $4 million.

Clearly the age when former presidents could find themselves in dire financial straits is long gone. Sadly, so is the sense of integrity and propriety that once kept men like Truman from devoting their post-presidency to money- grubbing. It wasn't only the buck that stopped with the 33d president. The avarice did, too.”

By Bill W. (a comment to an internet news article). 

When we read information like this it is enough to want a law passed to simply outlaw any more political speeches—especially when these speeches are written by professional speech writers with all the disingenuous patriotic and ethical lofty phrases—-all of it everyday, every year , ad nausea.  No wonder more people in more countries across the globe now declare the United States to be the greatest threat to world peace and global prosperity. Maybe 1958 will go down in history as the infamous date when America gave up any pretense as an altruistic leader of anything. For the record, Lincoln, who is considered the greatest of all Presidents, came into the White House poor, left Washington only twice during his Presidency, and gave a total of 18 speeches during his Presidency. Maybe he was the last President busy all day being President. He essentially had no vices and no addictions.  All this came to my attention when I read the following internet article:  http://news.yahoo.com/uruguays-leader-declares-322-883-132648036.html

Addiction as Delusional Access to Contentment

Addiction as Delusional Access to Contentment

From our earliest age we begin to search for ways to become somebody, to matter, to enjoy life and be contented. Good behavior brings reward, but the rewards don’t last; getting our way on matters brings pleasure but it doesn’t last—and our experimenting often fails. There is a song I remember from my youth which had the lyric :

“How many times have you heard someone say
"If I had his money, I could do things my way"
But little they know that it's so hard to find
One rich man in ten with a satisfied mind

Money can't buy back your youth when you're old
Or a friend when you're lonely or a love that's grown cold
The wealthiest person is a pauper at times
Compared to the man with a satisfied mind

When life has ended and my time has run out
My friends and my loved ones will leave, there's no doubt
But there's one thing for certain when it comes my time
I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind”

It sounded insightful back then, but youth is rarely satisfied by good advice. Experience trumps advice most of the time. So off we go searching for something we are good at, something we can be a success at. It would help, for sure—we are sure, if we could live in a more wealthy family, or be attractive enough to have endless sexual conquests, or be smart enough to get all A’s in school, or have such a dynamic personality that we are very popular socially, or be a good enough athlete to be well known, or be able to sing so well that huge audiences would come to hear us, or just even to be so slick that we could fake it until we make it. What complicates youth is the need for excitement—the more intense the better.  Even should the particular adventure result in pain of some sort, if the excitement attained was good enough, it was worth it. We got a ticket for driving 100 miles per hour on the highway but it was exhilarating.  We got detention at school for something, but the recognition and laughs we got from other students let us stand out amongst the crowd. 

At some point in time these momentary bouts of recognition and ‘fame’ begin to wear thin, and we realize when all is said and done, usually more said than done, there is no permanence to these off the cuff performances, and certainly nothing of lasting value. Few things are more pitiful than to see post adolescents still pulling off the same old tired antics to gain public attention.  And the next day, after they crash, they know it too. 

At some age, which varies, almost all of us decide we need to get serious about achieving some contentment in life.  The options are all attractive—MONEY, THINGS, SEX, MARRIAGE, FAME, TITLES, POWER, WISDOM, FRIENDS, SHOPPING, TRAVELING, and the list goes on.  All of these have value—excellent value—up to a point. The goal is to acquire an innate sense of when ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. 

When enough is never enough contentment cannot be reached.  We keep trying and end up in various sorts of addictions. Addictions are rarely, if ever, a good thing. This has been noted plenty enough by plenty enough notables in the past. Below are some examples: 

“There are in fact four very significant stumbling-blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, long standing custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.” Roger Bacon (English philosopher, scientist)  Long standing custom can be another phrase for addiction to something.

“Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glitters, gold.” Thomas Gray (British Poet)  What we are addicted to is the glittering gold.

“When a small child....I thought success spelled happiness. I was wrong. Happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away.” Anna Pavlova (Russian Ballet dancer) Again, success here could be substituted for addiction to something.

“The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life.” Carl Gustav Jung (Swiss psychologist, psychiatrist) The false possessions is another way to describe an addiction.

“I am richer than E. H. Harriman, I have all the money I want and he hasn’t.” John Muir (American Naturalist) This is another example of enough is enough succeeding as an example of how to reach contentment.  

“Incompetence is vanity and PR and people who talk about ‘massaging’ or positioning’ or ‘spin control’. It’s a society that celebrates style over substance, image over reality, credentials over experience; a society that embraces the credo of the Philadelphia sheriff John Green---’Fake it till you make it’; a society devoted to consuming and acquiring, to self-fulfillment and self-indulgence, a society infatuated with money, power, sex, and drugs; a narcissistic, solipsistic, materialistic society saturated with advertising, dominated by entertainment, and living only for the here and now.” Art Carey (American editor and author) Style over substance, image over reality are other ways to characterize addictions while everything else highlighted are examples of addictions.

“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” Unknown.  In other words, after you achieve being addicted to something, you are still unfulfilled after the momentary high. 

“we still spend millions of dollars on aspirin and psychiatrists and tissues to wipe away the tears of anguish and uncertainty that result from our confusion and our emptiness....The closed circle of pure materialism is clear to us now---aspirations become wants, wants become needs, and self- gratification becomes a bottomless pit. All around us we have seen success in this world’s terms become ultimate and desperate failures. Teenager and college students, raised in affluent surroundings and given all the material comforts our society can offer, commit suicide. Entertainer and sports figures achieve fame and wealth but find the world empty and dull without the solace of stimulation of drugs. Men and women rise to the top of their professions after years of struggling. But despite their apparent success, they are driven nearly mad by a frantic search for diversions, new mates, games, new experiences---anything to fill the diminishing interval between their existence and eternity- --the way to serve yourself is to serve others; and that Aristotle was right, before them, when he said the only way to assure your- self happiness is to learn to give happiness.” Mario Cuomo. (U.S. Governor)  This is such an apt description of the result from meaningless addictions.

“Success has made failures of many men.” Cindy Adams (American gossip columnist and writer)  Another way to say that success at becoming addicted has made a failure to become contented.

“A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.” Unknown  He who finds enough is enough gets a tomb as does those for whom enough is never enough. The end game is death.

“The rich have a passion for bargains as lively as it is pointless.” Francoise Sagan (French playwright and novelist)  Pointless is a nice word describing addiction.

“He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.” Benjamin Franklin (American author, printer, politician, scientist) Again, reworded this could be ‘he does not possess an addiction, it possesses him’.

“Poverty is a bitter thing; but it is not as bitter as the existence of restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellectual flabbiness, to which those doom themselves who elect to spend all their years in that vainest of all vain pursuits---the pursuit of mere pleasure as a sufficient end in itself.” Teddy Roosevelt. (American President) The pursuit of mere pleasure is the motive for an addiction.

“We now communicate with everyone, and say absolutely nothing. We have reconstructed the Tower of Babel. and it is a television’s antenna (and lots of other gadgets). A thousand voices producing a daily parody of democracy, in which everyone’s opinion is afforded equal weight, regardless of substance or merit. Indeed, it can even be argued that opinions of real weight tend to sink with barely a trace in television’s ocean of banalities.” Ted Koppel (American broadcast journalist) This is an apt description of a whole society filled with aimless babble as an addiction.

“The command of one’s self is the greatest empire a man can aspire unto, and consequently, to be subject to our own passions is the most grievous slavery. He who best governs himself is best fitted to govern others.” John Milton (English poet) To be subject to our own passions is another way to describe addictions.

“Enough’s as good as a feast.” Scottish Proverb This is the rationale for not becoming addicted

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” Ralph Waldo Emerson (American essayist and poet) A foolish consistency is another clever way to describe addiction.

“Resolve to be thyself: and know, that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery.” Matthew Arnold (British poet and critic) Finding himself is another way to express not becoming addicted.

“We would rather be ruined than change. We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die.” Wystan Hugh Auden (British born American poet)  The illusion here would be our addictions.

“Nothing can bring your peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.” Ralph Waldo Emerson (American essayist and poet)  The triumph of principles is what replaces addictions.

“Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty. But learn to be happy alone. Rely upon your own energies, and so not wait for, or depend on other people.” Thomas Davidson (Scottish-American philosopher) Depending too much on others is a kind of addiction.

“I often compulsively pursue happiness no matter how bad it makes me feel” Unknown.  A good description of the result of an addiction.

“Cocaine isn’t habit forming. I should know - I’ve been using it for years.” Tallulah Bankhead (American actress) Clever play on words.

“The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken .” Samuel Johnson (English author)  Excellent description of how addiction works. 

“The time will come when humans can do almost everything with the technology and still one thing remains impossible, releasing addiction on technology.” Toba Beta (Indonesian author)  This identifies a modern addiction. 

“Sexual addiction is the fastest growing addiction in the United States. It’s based in part on the fact that obtaining sexual literature, pornography, is so convenient today. It’s more readily available. It is there at the click of a finger.” David Bird (British bridge writer)  Addiction to visual images to replace actual sex with a partner is,  like most all matters of sex, a difficult habit to analyze. Does someone who has orgasms often via visual images have a more active sex life than a couple who have sex a few times a month? Little about sex is ever very clear and mostly very personal. 

So how can a society protect citizens from the tragedies which are subsequent to addictions?  Basically, education about addictions are a start. This needs to be followed by medical addiction centers across the country, to help people deal with addictions of any sort. Then we have to change recreational drug addiction from crimes to medical problems.  Most addictions are not clear cut. Clearly if you have a glass a wine with your dinner you are not an alcoholic.  But just when are you? Part of the problem is the individual variation as to when something is addiction. Take shopping. Most everybody likes to shop and purchase things.  And if we are able to, we kind of know when enough is enough.  Preventing and beating addiction is essentially a preventive medicine program. The right professionals could write up questionnaire type exercises to help people figure out if something has become an addiction. A different questionnaire would be needed for each kind of addiction. 

It is best to understand that too much of anything can harm you—and that includes food, oxygen, water, exercise, gambling, sex, wealth, power, and the list goes on and on.  Part of education is to know when enough is enough of just about anything. A slice of pizza is good. Eating the whole pizza is not. 

Addictions are insidious medical conditions. All of them are. Addictions start when we start down the wrong road to attain some contentment. We may take heroin to relieve the ‘pain’ associated with a part of our life—physical or mental. Heroin and morphine don’t remove the sensation of pain, but they enable the brain to care less about the pain. In other words heroin blocks the pathway of pain that leads to our emotional centers but not the pathway which leads to the sensation of pain. Remove the source of the pain and a person will care less about taking heroin or morphine. 

Addictions not only reduce personal contentment, but affect whole families, work responsibilities, social relationships, economic well being, and health well-being.  A society will fare best when the Golden Rule is the basis of ethics and ‘enough is enough’ understood as the best restraint operative to overcome addictions.  

STRICT CONSTITUTIONALISM

Strict Constitutionalism

It is held by some that nothing should be read into the constitution which is not there. Period. Others argue that times change and the Constitution should too. Fine, say the former, but that requires a Constitutional Amendment. This sounds logical at first, but then we need remember that the Constitution is not about majority rule as King, but about a balance of powers with the Courts having a primary role of protecting individual rights. 

We revere the ‘founding fathers’ of our country and it is well that we should. What they did is START a form of governance that unshackled people from Kings, dictators, and other such ilk, into governance based on responsibility to those governed—including minorities of all ilk. The best of men could hardly to be expected to create a perfect Constitution on the first try. To sort of deify these men we attribute all sorts of invented notions about them and their times. 

Many colonists may have escaped Europe for religious freedom, but that is quite different from meaning they then established freedom of religion in the colonies they governed. In most cases they did not. The Puritans, for example, were hardly tolerant of differing religious beliefs. And the punishments were severe. Even Roger Williams, who was driven out of his community for his differing beliefs about his own religion, and then founded Rhode Island with a firm separation of church and state, was hardly tolerant of other religious beliefs. He wanted complete separation of Church and State because he wanted to be sure the State could not corrupt the pureness of his own beliefs. 

The bill of Rights was inserted into the Constitution to protect the personal rights of the people. But we need be careful who ‘the people’ really were back then who were protected.  They certainly were not the blacks. They certainly were not, in many respects, women. They certainly, in many respects, were not the non land-owning males. They certainly were not the Catholics or the Jews. These portions of ‘the people’ had to be included via constitutional amendments and Court decisions. I don’t personally have the legal background to explain the difference between a constitutional amendment and a change via Court decision. My impression is that the conservative right would say that change via Court decisions were wrong; that change has to come from Constitutional Amendments, not ‘revisionism’ of the existing Constitution. 

HOWEVER, people’s rights cannot be determined by majority rule or the religious beliefs of some.  At a given time, some may have had to sit in the back of the bus. Clearly those that did, did not have rights others had. To say majorities should always rule is to admit that some minorities may never gain rights others already have. For this to be true, the Golden Rule has to be trashed. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you would never allow anyone to grant a basic right to themselves which they are not willing to grant to others. 

When the Constitution was first written it was pretty much land owning white male Protestants who were covered by the Bill of Rights. They were granted all sorts of privileges not granted to certain others at certain times and places in our history. Let us never use the present to twist the past. The early years of our country were ripe with laws and feelings against immigrants, blacks, women, Catholics, Jews, gays, and the poor.  This list is probably not complete. It took time for fairness and the Golden Rule to weasel their way into our Constitutional law. There are many today who are still not too keen about immigrants, blacks, women, certain religious sects, gays, and the poor. Fortunately for these disliked groups the courts exist to protect them from majority abuse. 

None of the above diminishes the respect anyone should have for the Founders of our country. They did good. Better than good.  They started us down a path which gave power and protection to people——at least in theory. For us to make fun of them for any limitations would be no different than making fun of Henry Ford for his model T compared to the cars of today. The same holds true for trying to compare athletes of the past to today’s athletes. There is nothing to compare. In my short lifetime humans have gotten taller, stronger, and faster. That’s evolution. In my short lifetime more and more groups have gotten rights long denied.  That’s evolution.  In my life time, while the belief in God is mostly sustained, the notion that moral behavior is determined by inheritance and strict interpretations of inherited scriptures written ages ago by those who once knew a prophet of old is diminishing. That’s ethical evolution.

To declare the constitution a document etched in stone is as ludicrous as the phrase ‘History repeats itself’. Anyone with any remote knowledge of history knows ever so well that history does not very often repeat itself. Anyone who understands the important role change plays in the evolutionary process understands history does not repeat itself. Anyone who thinks the way to fight  World War II is a blueprint for fighting wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, etc is, and was, in for a surprise. When conservatives say the old and tried ways of the past are always the best, this simply reveals the fatal flaw in their political and religious beliefs. The very word progress means change, and the goal is almost always to take a product of the past and make it even better today. 

Naturally, all change is not better. Thus the question with any change is whether it is for the better or for the worse. The problem is, too many people view the answer to this purely on a self serving basis. When NFL owners and the labor union meet to work on contracts they could care less about anyone or anything except their own greed. When the wealthy use their wealth to push through Congress all kinds of tax cuts, tax shelters, tax exemptions, on and on, they could care less how this affects the non wealthy. Ironically, they are very short sighted. All this wealth they want comes off the backs of others. Since the poor are poor, this additional wealth can’t come from the poor, so it has to come from the middle class. When it comes from the middle class, this pushes more of the middle class into poverty. It has gotten so bad, this economic divide between the rich and the rest of society, that social and economic implosion is likely just around the corner. 

   Now that the Supreme Court has declared Corporations are people, a Corporation can use the money derived from the people to buy votes to get new laws, or sustain old laws, which enable them to corner even more of the national wealth. With this greedy mentality they are setting themselves up to be hung out to be dried. This is the stuff of which revolutions are made, and when revolutions happen, the Have’s, with so much to protect, lose to the Have Not’s with so little to protect. No society can last long with too much wealth accumulated in the hands of the wealthy. When enough is never enough, and Trump(y) greed rampant, the collapse is never far behind. 

It is not the written Constitution which is etched in stone but the principles embodied in that wonderful document. These principles are human rights for all citizens, protection for all citizens, opportunity for all citizens, and respect for others. When the principles embodied in our constitution, and the universal moral principle of the Golden Rule prevail, there will be few people starving, few homeless, few persons dying from curable diseases, responsible reproduction accepted as a social responsibility, no religious wars, no capitalism without reasonable regulations and limits—and all of this is dependent on humans understanding when enough is enough in most every aspect of their life. There will never be equality of wealth, physical appearance, athletic ability, intelligence, fame, titles, etc because God’s evolutionary process depends on diversity to move forward. Humans have the innate ethical understanding to understand that we can individually, and collectively, make the playing field more level for the less fortunate, and when everything in this paragraph evolves to become reality, then maximum contentment will be achieved for the maximum number of people.

Illusions—Here, There, and Everywhere

Illusions—Here, There, and Everywhere

I live in a world of rambling around, most often not very far, pondering what I see, using past experiences and learnings to sort out complex issues, situations, and happenings, as part of a terminational stage of life hobby. The goal, I guess, is to finish a personal life jig-saw-puzzle before the obligate leap into the great unknown.

Mostly what we learn in any such attempt is just how much over our head we are in such a task. In one sense we can step back far enough to see the forest instead of the trees, and this expansive view of this evolutionary life process here on earth gives reason to relax—since given time, the process will continue—eventually—to even greater complexity and marvel-ment. None of us were around for most all of the process and there is no reason really to believe we will be around in any form or fashion for the rest of it. We really have no idea whether evolution will ever end, the same as we can never understand how it all began. Some matters are above our pay-grade. 

It is hard to completely understand most things in life. Some of the things most precious to us in life are clearly not exactly precious to the evolutionary process itself—like our pets, our friends, or our families. Eventually, if we can bear a degree of honesty with ourselves, we realize our own family, friends, and all sorts of others, are not exactly major players in this phenomenon called life either.  That is a hard concept to accept, but any illusions otherwise just make contentment in life elusive.  It is estimated by those who calculate such things that there are 8.75 million species on earth. We are one of them. But our species is now responsible for a 6th great extinction event, because of human activity.  Within a century, 75 percent of these species will be extinct.  Most of us, of course will not believe this any more than most take serious climate change, the Golden Rule, or own death. Maybe we need feel embarrassed about what we are doing, but then again most species which have lived on our planet have vanished and most of these vanished species had nothing to do with any activity by humans. Thus, mass extinctions, for varied reasons, have been occurring periodically for millions of years. 

In some sense, the big picture is more understandable than any tunnel vision focused on many matters to which we give a lot of attention.  Sometimes it seems our understanding of an issue is simply temporary until, with more input, we alter our understanding. When these alterations of our understanding cease we may as well be dead. To some extent we kind of give up—whatever will be will be. I kind of view my own demise in that fashion. All these years of trying to be more important, powerful, wealthier, titled, and so on—only to realize, at some point, that none of this matters much in the long run. Like many older people I don’t really seek a lot of adventure anymore—at least not the kind that drives up  blood pressure, or is too daring, or any adventure being chased after with any kind of intensity. Been there, done that, is kind of a creeping aspect of longevity. 

Recently I have been thinking about why the United States is 26th on the happiness poll of countries around the world. We used to lead the way, albeit that is a supposition on my part. I guess endless smart bombs, missiles, drones, tanks, invasions, troops, and most of our great wealth concentrated in the hands of a small single digit percentage of the citizenry, does not generate widespread contentment.  According to the poll, communism and dictatorship fail to produce widespread contentment either. And we are way ahead of them. 

I began to admire Bhutan where the government announced it would pursue gross national happiness as the goal of government. The leaders stated that “economic growth needs to be balanced against the need to protect the mountains, the forests, the culture and good governance.” Then later I became aware that in the recent decade hundreds of thousands of Nepali-speaking Bhutanese have been driven from the country. Why? Not surprisingly religion, as so oft the case, is the cause. These expelled are Hindu and the majority of Bhutanese are not. Thus, the real question becomes, just whose happiness are we talking about?  About 70,000 of these people have found refuge in the United States. All’s well that ends well I guess. Except all is not exactly well. The expelled refugees, in Bhutan, all had land, houses, they grew things themselves, they were independent. After two years in refugee camps in Nepal, they were sent elsewhere, including the U.S.  When they arrived in the United States most them did not even know how to hold a pencil, to read, and they never went to school. The culture shock was genuine shock.   

Many of them relocated to places like Manchester, New Hampshire. Well, there is always something good about a success story. Except maybe success is not the right word. When an article about them appeared in the local paper the letters to the Editor were overwhelmingly letters of outrage.  One responder stated: “If YOU are a taxpaying citizen of this nation then YOU are the ones getting fucked by these bleeding heart leeches.’  Another one said, “Diversity=Division=the breakdown of America.” Well, there’s a point to consider. Except, that after three years almost all of the Bhutanese ‘freeloaders’ had jobs, were less likely to be on welfare than the Manchester population as a whole, and their children were graduating from high school a a far higher rate than the native-born population. Something doesn’t seem right here. 

So why do so many of the less fortunate in our own country not manage the same sort of success statistics? They speak the language, they are living in a familiar culture, and they attend schools.  Perhaps there is a difference being poor and independent, owning your own house and land, and living off the land than being poor, dependent, living behind barred windows and doors, in an essentially dog eat dog environment. 

In the last analysis, these urban, suburban, and rural ghettoes in our own country have been created by our own culture and politics. As is often the rule, “we have met the enemy and it is us”.  It is not coincidence that the woes of any country are often blamed on minorities. We tend to see minorities, these ‘different-from us’ walled-off misfits as the reason for whatever problems exist in our society. And if they fuss, sometimes louder than us even, well—if they don’t like it here they can leave. 

I taught for many years in a university which derived many of it’s students from an urban ghetto. Granted that the worst kids of any ghetto will not be found in a university setting---nevertheless, many of these students were among the most honest, hard-working, dependable, conscientious, pleasant natured young people, to be found at the university. Generalizations always have limitations, but the least appealing students to have in class were those most spoiled by their parents. These were often the students who were aloof, resentful, least likely to share or help other students, never assume blame for any of their failures, and are disdainful of diversity. They simply felt uncomfortable outside their long standing protective family cocoon.

The happiness index is hard to figure, whether for individuals or for a country as a whole. Most of what we tend to figure is needed for personal happiness is not found in the end product. If we make a list of the most contented and happiest people we have known, rarely is their happiness related to huge material wealth, impressive titles, personal attractiveness, athletic prowess, vocation, family values, intense religious sectarian beliefs, political bent, climate, and so on. Health does seem to be involved although not in any precise way. Clearly a lot of what we chase in life is illusionary. Perhaps we expect too much, are too self serving in our pursuits, fail too often to appreciate the role of diversity in God’s evolutionary laws, go too fast through life and fail to smell the roses, and fail to understand our own nature well enough to meet our own particular needs. 

Just recently I read about this student who got accepted at all 10 Ivy league colleges. He has almost a perfect score on the SAT. What stood out to me was that he was a first generation black American from Ghana. Then I remembered about these first generation Americans from Bhutan who arrived here just a few years ago not even knowing how to hold a pencil, illiterate, no command of the English language, and yet a greater percentage of them were graduating from high school and off welfare than the home-grown population. Clearly, much of life we are all mired in illusions of endless sorts. It’s annoying. Like someone is toying with us all our life, and we have been sent after disappointing goose chases all our life. The world goes round and round, but there are times when we feel, “Stop the world, I want to get off”. Of course, having been born is a fatal hap-pence and we will have to depart the world some day.  

Mario Como may have said it best:  “We have built rockets and spaceships and shuttles; we have harnessed the atom, we have dazzled a generation with a display of our technological skills.  But we still spend millions of dollars on aspirin and psychiatrists and tissues to wipe away the tears of anguish and uncertainty that result from our confusion and our emptiness…The closed circle of pure materialism is clear to us now—-aspirations become wants, wants become needs, and self-gratification becomes a bottomless pit.  All around us we have seen success in this world’s terms become ultimate and desperate failures.  Teenager and college students, raised in affluent surroundings and given all the material comforts our society can offer, commit suicide.  Entertainer and sports figures achieve fame and wealth but find the world empty and dull without the solace of stimulation via drugs. Men and women rise to the top of their professions after years of struggling.  But despite their apparent success, they are driven nearly mad by a frantic search for diversions, new mates, games, new experiences—-anything to fill the diminishing interval between their existence and eternity—the way to serve yourself is to serve others; and that Aristotle was right, before them, when he said the only way to assure yourself happiness is to learn to give happiness."