Entering the tribulation- American Born, Addicted to Happiness by Carolyn Baker
Dear Friends,
The atrocities in Iraq give us some idea of the ruthlessness of this administration. The US military is violating every tenet of international law- bombing hospitals, using illegal weapons like napalm and depleted uranium, prohibiting the Red Crescent from bringing aid to the wounded, torturing prisoners, etc.
At home, Bush is busily stripping away our safety net, like Social Security, and preparing Patriot Act II, which turns the US into a proper police state. No doubt the sheep led astray by the false prophets of the rapture cult are expecting Jesus to beam them up any time now.
We have a small window of opportunity left with the Ohio recount, although the press and the Kerry campaign assure us it will make no difference. So let us prepare to live under entirely different circumstances from what we are used to, circumstances of adversity rather than comfort.
Carolyn Baker's excellent article below looks at our psychology and how unready we are to live with poverty and fascism. I also recommend Eliot Pattison's novels, which examine how the Tibetans resist their Chinese occupiers, maintain their grief for what they have lost, and maintain some semblance of the their culture.
Our culture is Judeo-Christian, although religion has been hijacked, along with our government, by neoNazis. Jesus was always for the poor and oppressed. He lived under the brutal Roman emperors, and his followers were fed to the lions for the entertainment of the masses. Jesus and the Compassionate Buddha are very similar, in teaching the nonviolent path, the path with a heart.
Here is a piece of Paul's advice to Christians under the Romans.
May the God of endurance and encouragement
grant you to think in harmony with one another,
in keeping with Christ Jesus.
grant you to think in harmony with one another,
in keeping with Christ Jesus.
Romans 15: 5
If we lose the internet, we'll have to rely on this sort of harmony.
In the name of the Prince of Peace, Carol Wolman
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BAK411C.html
American Born, Addicted to Happiness
by Carolyn Baker
Last week, as I do every November 22, I reflected again on that day in
Dallas forty-one years ago, my second year in college, when John F.
Kennedy was assassinated. After reading Wayne Madsen's fine article on
the increasing inaccessibility to visitors of the grave of JFK in
Arlington National Cemetery in 2004 (www.copvcia.com ), I pondered once
more not only the unresolved and unanswered questions of November 22,
1963, but the lingering, lethal legacy of that moment in history which is
now being visited upon America in the twenty-first century. As an
historian, I am frequently confronted with the agonizing consequences of
human history, including humanity's sins of omission.
I do not wish to re-hash the details of the assassination. Any astute
researcher who is not serving the interests of the Central Intelligence
Agency is forced to conclude that the murder of JFK was a complicated and meticulously organized coup which guaranteed the unscathed longevity of the military industrial complex and the political pre-eminence of the CIA for decades thereafter.
American Born, Addicted to Happiness
by Carolyn Baker
Last week, as I do every November 22, I reflected again on that day in
Dallas forty-one years ago, my second year in college, when John F.
Kennedy was assassinated. After reading Wayne Madsen's fine article on
the increasing inaccessibility to visitors of the grave of JFK in
Arlington National Cemetery in 2004 (www.copvcia.com ), I pondered once
more not only the unresolved and unanswered questions of November 22,
1963, but the lingering, lethal legacy of that moment in history which is
now being visited upon America in the twenty-first century. As an
historian, I am frequently confronted with the agonizing consequences of
human history, including humanity's sins of omission.
I do not wish to re-hash the details of the assassination. Any astute
researcher who is not serving the interests of the Central Intelligence
Agency is forced to conclude that the murder of JFK was a complicated and meticulously organized coup which guaranteed the unscathed longevity of the military industrial complex and the political pre-eminence of the CIA for decades thereafter.
My generation was never sufficiently committed to solving the crime of the assassination. It was much easier for us to protest the Vietnam War, revel in the counterculture we were creating, and convince ourselves that the JFK assassination was only one piece of the pie and that the revolution we thought we were creating would inevitably reveal all of its mysteries.
But the revolution didn't happen, and wounds to the psyche, whether individual or collective, do not simply vanish. As a nation, we paid, and are still paying a price, for the crime for which we refused to demand justice.
What is more, we have repeated history by passively submitting to yet another "Warren Commission" (the 9-11 Commission), as yet another coup d'etat, the U.S. government-orchestrated atrocities of September 11, 2001, fade into distant memory. As Mike Ruppert reminded his audience in his Portland State University lecture of 2001 regarding the Kennedy assassination and the 9-11 hoax, "the bills are coming due, and now it's your turn to pay."
The Bush coup of shamelessly rigged elections in November, 2000 paved the way for illegal mid-term "elections" throughout the country in 2002 and
the most recent chapter in the overthrow of the American republic, the
psuedo-election of 2004. These events ended democratic elections in the
United States and guaranteed that within the next decade we will see the
neocon agenda and all its horrors unleashed on the world and on the
American people. It will be anything but a pretty picture.
"What can we do?" goes the plaintive wail. While I am willing to offer
suggestions, I have come to believe that the most important and useful one
at this point would be: "Become willing to suffer." Now, before you toss
this article and pull the covers over your head, please hear me out. You
will suffer in the next few years, whether you are willing or not, but
your resistance to it can only exacerbate your misery.
I enjoy conversing with individuals not born in the United States. Their
perspective is truly refreshing because almost without exception, their
countries of origin have at some time experienced war, famine, revolution,
corruption, or abject poverty. They have no Declaration of Independence
that entitles them to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Consequently, they are much more open to hearing "bad news" and have
fewer questions about how to "fix" it.
I hasten to add that Jefferson's original phrase in the Declaration was
"life, liberty and the pursuit of property." Let us not forget that the
profits from a capitalist land-conquering, land-holding system, not
happiness, was the original intent of our founding fathers. Like the
founders, the ruling elite of our day find "happiness" in ownership -
hence Bush's Orwellian "ownership society."
Americans, even so-called Progressives it seems, appear to be fixated in
an eternal adolescence that wants to repair adversity as quickly as
possible without living it, or God forbid, learning from it. One facet of
maturity is the awareness that the challenges of human existence are
rarely simplistic, usually fraught with complexity, and typically last
much longer than we ever dreamed we could endure them. As a result, we
inwardly (or outwardly) roll our eyes at the adolescents in our lives who
insist on taking the path of least resistance as quickly as possible.
Yet, like adolescents, we refuse to face the reality that clean, fair,
democratic elections no longer exist in our country, if they ever did.
Like puerile MTV viewers, we demand that the right politician, the right
book, the right motivational speaker, the right spiritual teacher, the
right journalist tell us what to do and make it "all better" so that we
can avoid suffering. We lament that the uninformed populace around us
doesn't want to hear any bad news, but the real truth is, neither do we.
One of the hallmarks of adulthood versus adolescence is the awareness
that mistakes have consequences. Recently, a foreign-born friend of mine
asked why the American people believe that they have the right to expand,
exploit, rape, pillage, murder and conquer every area of the planet. I
could only answer by explaining the history of the United States-an epic
saga of what my friend had just verbalized. Indeed, the bills are coming
due, and unfortunately, it is now time for us to pay.
During the next four years, the Bush Administration plans to screen all
Americans for mental illness. The intent of the Bush mental health
screening plan is not to legitimately diagnose and treat mental illness
but rather determine who needs to be labeled "mentally unstable" or
"subversive" and who needs to be medicated by the pharmaceutical industry from which the administration has added handsomely to its campaign coffers. Moreover, if the administration had the slightest interest in alleviating mental illness, it would have to begin with Lunatic In Chief, George W.
The Bush coup of shamelessly rigged elections in November, 2000 paved the way for illegal mid-term "elections" throughout the country in 2002 and
the most recent chapter in the overthrow of the American republic, the
psuedo-election of 2004. These events ended democratic elections in the
United States and guaranteed that within the next decade we will see the
neocon agenda and all its horrors unleashed on the world and on the
American people. It will be anything but a pretty picture.
"What can we do?" goes the plaintive wail. While I am willing to offer
suggestions, I have come to believe that the most important and useful one
at this point would be: "Become willing to suffer." Now, before you toss
this article and pull the covers over your head, please hear me out. You
will suffer in the next few years, whether you are willing or not, but
your resistance to it can only exacerbate your misery.
I enjoy conversing with individuals not born in the United States. Their
perspective is truly refreshing because almost without exception, their
countries of origin have at some time experienced war, famine, revolution,
corruption, or abject poverty. They have no Declaration of Independence
that entitles them to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Consequently, they are much more open to hearing "bad news" and have
fewer questions about how to "fix" it.
I hasten to add that Jefferson's original phrase in the Declaration was
"life, liberty and the pursuit of property." Let us not forget that the
profits from a capitalist land-conquering, land-holding system, not
happiness, was the original intent of our founding fathers. Like the
founders, the ruling elite of our day find "happiness" in ownership -
hence Bush's Orwellian "ownership society."
Americans, even so-called Progressives it seems, appear to be fixated in
an eternal adolescence that wants to repair adversity as quickly as
possible without living it, or God forbid, learning from it. One facet of
maturity is the awareness that the challenges of human existence are
rarely simplistic, usually fraught with complexity, and typically last
much longer than we ever dreamed we could endure them. As a result, we
inwardly (or outwardly) roll our eyes at the adolescents in our lives who
insist on taking the path of least resistance as quickly as possible.
Yet, like adolescents, we refuse to face the reality that clean, fair,
democratic elections no longer exist in our country, if they ever did.
Like puerile MTV viewers, we demand that the right politician, the right
book, the right motivational speaker, the right spiritual teacher, the
right journalist tell us what to do and make it "all better" so that we
can avoid suffering. We lament that the uninformed populace around us
doesn't want to hear any bad news, but the real truth is, neither do we.
One of the hallmarks of adulthood versus adolescence is the awareness
that mistakes have consequences. Recently, a foreign-born friend of mine
asked why the American people believe that they have the right to expand,
exploit, rape, pillage, murder and conquer every area of the planet. I
could only answer by explaining the history of the United States-an epic
saga of what my friend had just verbalized. Indeed, the bills are coming
due, and unfortunately, it is now time for us to pay.
During the next four years, the Bush Administration plans to screen all
Americans for mental illness. The intent of the Bush mental health
screening plan is not to legitimately diagnose and treat mental illness
but rather determine who needs to be labeled "mentally unstable" or
"subversive" and who needs to be medicated by the pharmaceutical industry from which the administration has added handsomely to its campaign coffers. Moreover, if the administration had the slightest interest in alleviating mental illness, it would have to begin with Lunatic In Chief, George W.
Tragically, the nation is as mentally ill as its president, not only because the population has been entranced by the psuedo-Christian fascist paranoia of the religious right, but because overwhelmingly, most of us are pathologically "addicted to happiness." As the psychologist Carl Jung noted, "The foundation of all mental illness is the avoidance of legitimate suffering."
Before anyone calls me a masochist, please hear me out. We live in a
painful, uncertain, dangerous, heartless world. I hear the reader saying:
"I have already suffered and hold many badges of courage or at the very
least, survival, and I really don't want to surrender to further
suffering because I have had quite enough, thank you very much." But let
us also remember that as Americans, we do not have the perspective on
suffering that most other citizens of the world have, nor will we until
we experience similar adversities.
Our children are unlikely to demand an end to a perpetual war on
terrorism until they hold draft cards in their wallets which have been
sucked dry by that war's astronomical debt. We may never cherish our
communities until we and our neighbors have to depend on each other for
food and basic necessities of life. The preciousness of our resources
will not be fully appreciated until they disappear or become very
difficult to acquire.
People often ask me if I plan to leave the country. My answer: "There's
nowhere to go." Within the next decade we are likely to see a nuclear
exchange, a dirty bomb exploded in the U.S. as well as in other parts of
the world, the return of the draft, the criminalization of abortion and
women who have them, the suspension of the Constitution, a full-blown
police state, the end of health care entirely except for the very
wealthy, and an economic catastrophe in America that will make 1929 look
like a cornucopia of abundance. Add to this every form of pollution
humankind has created within the past century, the end of clean air and
water, and intolerable climate changes resulting from global warming.
I noticed on November 3, 2004 that we were no longer living merely in the
territory of political solutions or issues of social justice, but had
crossed a watershed moment in history into the landscape of collective
anguish that might test our mettle as a people and as individuals like
nothing Americans have previously experienced.
Throughout history, citizens of nations in torment have responded in a
variety of ways. Some quite naturally want to die and escape the pain.
Others prefer to "fiddle" as long as possible while Rome burns. Others
join resistance movements or become healers or teachers.
Surely by now, some reader is screaming: "But where is the hope?"
I can't answer that question at this moment. That is to say, I can't give
you hope. Hope is something we all must construct in the laboratory of our
own suffering.
What I do know is that as Americans, we are "hooked on hope" but
generally unwilling to confront the suffering that allows us to find hope.
Genuine hope is never found when we feel comfortable, affluent, safe, and
secure. Ask Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, or Rosa Parks.
Perhaps the poet, T.S. Eliot, said it best:
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting,
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought;
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
As we enter the dark time of year, and perhaps one of the darkest times
in modern history, we celebrate in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the
coming of the light. Darkness has never been able to unequivocally
obliterate it. All great traditions and spiritual teachers declare that
human existence is largely comprised of adversity interspersed with
moments of light, beauty, and joy.
They have also admonished us to remember that without suffering, there
will never be transformation. The days of simply applying Band-Aids to
America's deplorably corrupt and unjust political, economic, and social
institutions are over.
It appears that nothing less than total transformation is being demanded
of us.
My wish for every American in 2005 is that we recover from our addiction
to happiness-our refusal to hear, ponder, and struggle with "bad news",
and with informed, illumined minds and hearts, allow the darkness to be
our teacher.
That very "un-American" path may be our only hope for creating a new world.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Carolyn Baker is a professor of history living in New Mexico
Before anyone calls me a masochist, please hear me out. We live in a
painful, uncertain, dangerous, heartless world. I hear the reader saying:
"I have already suffered and hold many badges of courage or at the very
least, survival, and I really don't want to surrender to further
suffering because I have had quite enough, thank you very much." But let
us also remember that as Americans, we do not have the perspective on
suffering that most other citizens of the world have, nor will we until
we experience similar adversities.
Our children are unlikely to demand an end to a perpetual war on
terrorism until they hold draft cards in their wallets which have been
sucked dry by that war's astronomical debt. We may never cherish our
communities until we and our neighbors have to depend on each other for
food and basic necessities of life. The preciousness of our resources
will not be fully appreciated until they disappear or become very
difficult to acquire.
People often ask me if I plan to leave the country. My answer: "There's
nowhere to go." Within the next decade we are likely to see a nuclear
exchange, a dirty bomb exploded in the U.S. as well as in other parts of
the world, the return of the draft, the criminalization of abortion and
women who have them, the suspension of the Constitution, a full-blown
police state, the end of health care entirely except for the very
wealthy, and an economic catastrophe in America that will make 1929 look
like a cornucopia of abundance. Add to this every form of pollution
humankind has created within the past century, the end of clean air and
water, and intolerable climate changes resulting from global warming.
I noticed on November 3, 2004 that we were no longer living merely in the
territory of political solutions or issues of social justice, but had
crossed a watershed moment in history into the landscape of collective
anguish that might test our mettle as a people and as individuals like
nothing Americans have previously experienced.
Throughout history, citizens of nations in torment have responded in a
variety of ways. Some quite naturally want to die and escape the pain.
Others prefer to "fiddle" as long as possible while Rome burns. Others
join resistance movements or become healers or teachers.
Surely by now, some reader is screaming: "But where is the hope?"
I can't answer that question at this moment. That is to say, I can't give
you hope. Hope is something we all must construct in the laboratory of our
own suffering.
What I do know is that as Americans, we are "hooked on hope" but
generally unwilling to confront the suffering that allows us to find hope.
Genuine hope is never found when we feel comfortable, affluent, safe, and
secure. Ask Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, or Rosa Parks.
Perhaps the poet, T.S. Eliot, said it best:
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting,
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought;
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
As we enter the dark time of year, and perhaps one of the darkest times
in modern history, we celebrate in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the
coming of the light. Darkness has never been able to unequivocally
obliterate it. All great traditions and spiritual teachers declare that
human existence is largely comprised of adversity interspersed with
moments of light, beauty, and joy.
They have also admonished us to remember that without suffering, there
will never be transformation. The days of simply applying Band-Aids to
America's deplorably corrupt and unjust political, economic, and social
institutions are over.
It appears that nothing less than total transformation is being demanded
of us.
My wish for every American in 2005 is that we recover from our addiction
to happiness-our refusal to hear, ponder, and struggle with "bad news",
and with informed, illumined minds and hearts, allow the darkness to be
our teacher.
That very "un-American" path may be our only hope for creating a new world.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Carolyn Baker is a professor of history living in New Mexico
posted by carol wolman @ 4:55 AM
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