What I Believe

I believe in global peace and harmony, first and foremost. That seems such a simple and straightforward thing. So much so as to invite smirks and parody. Doesn’t everyone believe in global peace? Unfortunately, no. Far too many human beings believe in destruction and predation. This is why people find it so easy to go to war and so difficult to build a peace. I speak out against those who believe that war and aggression are the natural order of things, and who seek to justify their own aggression on this basis. Human beings are free to create their own order. Peace or war are matters of choice, not naturalistic imperatives.

There is no good war. War devastates and brutalizes both the victor and the vanquished. Do we admire the Romans any more because they salted the ruins of Carthage? Do we detest the Nazis simply because they lost the war? Sixty years after the fact who really won the war in the Pacific? I don’t believe human beings should seek to secure an uncertain future at the cost of intermittent orgies of self-annihilation.

I am an unapologetic one-worlder. Borders are a holdover from a more primitive, feudal time. I think it foolish to contemplate travel to distant worlds when human beings insist upon dividing themselves along false sectarian lines. One can only defend borders by excluding others from the human community.

I believe in the necessity for human beings to practice and accept compassion and charity. To turn one’s back on charity in the belief that by doing so a person proclaims some sort of self-dignity is a foolish notion. If only people turned their backs on war and aggression for the same reason. Can you imagine? What if people refused to go to war because it’s degrading? The practice of compassion and charity is perhaps the most important thing human beings can do for themselves and each other to realize a better world.

I am an inveterate humanist. It troubles and astonishes me that the term humanism has taken on a pejorative edge in popular usage. People are responsible for the world they choose to create. It is not thrust upon them by unseen forces as a judgment upon human behavior. There are no gods to woo or mollify with prayers, pleadings, rituals, sacrifices, or self-abnegation. Human beings know right from wrong. They always have. Humans don’t need a book or tablets to tell them how to behave. At the same time I believe humankind must accept responsibility for its behavior. Human beings are free to create a utopia. Surrendering this freedom invites an apocalyptic future.

I believe there is a mystery which encompasses all existence, from here to the edge of creation. This mystery transcends human comprehension, and is not encompassed within any establish religious belief. To paraphrase a Taoist tenet, if you can speak of it, that is not it. Which is why I don’t believe in any god. Ironically, this is probably why many regard me as a person of faith. The mystery of existence is something that is beyond my comprehension, so I can only surrender to it and have faith that my life will resolve itself as it should. I do not pray, I do not petition, I have no expectations. I have no need to humble myself or to become more worthy in the hope of realizing my prayers. All existence is full of wonders. I need only live and all will eventually be made known to me. Or not. But that’s okay, too.

Peace, acceptance, compassion, charity, humanism, and faith in the belief that things will be okay. Pretty much sums it up. I suspect this is not a comprehensive list, but it encompasses the core of my beliefs. I like to leave room for thought.

Why I Am A Democrat

What's that? Why am I voting Democrat? Well, the reason's pretty obvious, really. I just don't believe the other bastards. Plain and simple. That, and I think they're dead wrong about most things. But I guess the two pretty much go hand in hand. I mean, many of them suspect they're dead wrong, and they try to conceal that realization by simply misrepresenting the facts. Lying, in other words.

Yeah, yeah. I know I'm actually an anarcho-syndicalist. But not too many of those are on the ticket. And I do want to make my vote count, after all. As for revolution, well, it's more attractive as a literary conceit than in reality. We've never had a real revolution in this country, you know. What we had was a sort of tiff between the powerful over access to privilege. Just because so many unprivileged were killed didn't make it a revolution by and for the people. That just laid the foundation for the myth that it was some kind of democratic movement. In fact, it was just another "rich man's war, poor man's fight".

You want real revolution you've got to go back to the bloody madness that engulfed France in 1789. Friend, that was a revolution. Or the darkness that descended over Russia in 1917. Whew! Real revolution can be a nasty thing, and it sure doesn't come with a guarantee that justice will prevail. In truth, it simply provides an opportunity for the strongest and most ruthless to succeed.

But I digress. Simply put, the Democrats embody most closely those values with which I agree. Peace, acceptance, inclusion, social equality, and the use of government to foster those ends. The Republicans stand for war, exclusion, whup-ass mindless jingoism, and making the rich richer while screwing everybody else. All of which they try to prettify with the iconic imagery of American flags blowing in the wind, and resolute bald eagles staring off in one direction or another.

"Oh!" people say. "But aren't you afraid of terrorists?" Frankly, no. At least, I wasn't until the American electorate handed over the reins of power to an imperialistically-inclined coterie of right-wing Neocons who have only managed to embroil us in a perpetual, futile conflict that has garnered us a guaranteed supply of suicidal enemies for the foreseeable future.

And, please. Don't talk to me about victory in Iraq. There will be no "victory" in that country as long as there remains one dispossessed member of any religious sect who believes the American-backed government is responsible for his / her plight. What troubles me is that there are right-wing types who actually believe that in such a case America can solve the problem by simply killing that person. In other words, the right (which the Republicans by and large represent) has no fundamental problem with genocide. They've demonstrated this to a degree in the administration's approach to the question of torture. To them, it's all a matter of legalese.

And the wall. I've got a problem with that. I don't believe in walls. America has to protect itself by building a wall along its southern border? How paranoid is that? Will we have to endure the laughable sight of president Putin standing beside the wall in Matamoros saying, "Mr. Bush, tear down this wall!" Walls have never protected any nation. They are harbingers of stagnation and national decline. Viz. the Great Wall of China and the Iron Curtain. The one remains only a quaint tourist attraction, the other is gone.

Family values? Someone define this for me, please. Otherwise, I must regard it as just another of those simplistic catch-phrases of convenience used by the unthinking to justify their self-defeating obstinacy in voting for the Republicans. I mean if this refers to large, closely connected families then why are Republicans so adamant about excluding those nationalities who have far stronger family values than most Americans? Like Mexicans. Mr. Bush, tear down this wall!

Oh, I could go on. Taxes? I don't care! I'll pay the damn things as long as they help provide the services the American people have a right to expect. Don't throw my tax dollars away on disposable military hardware that doesn't feed, house, or clothe anyone. Let's be more concerned with caring for our people, and less concerned with showing the world we can bomb the crap out of anyone we want.

Religious values? Look, you have yours, let me have mine. If someone thinks something is wrong, they simply shouldn't do it! Problems arise when people use their religious values to dictate behavior to others. That's largely why people have slaughtered each other over religions throughout the ages. Of course, one could say that the real reason for this bloodbath has been and continues to be politico-economic dominance. Which makes the religious issue something of a lie. Which means that anyone voting Republican because of religious values would be deluding themselves.

Now, don't get me wrong. There are good, decent Republicans. People of principle who actually believe their party wants to pursue policies which will truly bring good to the many. The John McCains. Maybe I should include the William F. Buckleys, although I think he's just plain wrong despite the verbiage. But for now the party, as well as the administration, is the playground of the likes of Pat Buchanan, Phyllis Schlafley, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and others too numerous to mention. Contrary to the Neocon mythos the right-wing conservatives are the ones who really control the media. Try finding a liberal station on the radio dial. Other than NPR, I mean.

Of course, the liberal camp is not really taking it totally lying down. People who speak out for a more humanist agenda have taken a page from the Neocon manual and discovered the value of an aggressive riposte. Individuals such as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, and Arianna Huffington. Of course, we all know the liberal humanists have taken over the internet (the Neocons will never forgive Al Gore for this). Where would we be without our Daily Kos or AlterNet?

Finally, I would be remiss were I not to mention those two great spokesmen for social justice, Howard Zinn and George Seldes. Antiauthoritarianism vincit!

Anyway, you get my drift. I'm voting Democratic because I really do believe there's a war going on. And it's going on right in the streets of this nation. It is a true cultural war between those who would seek to impose the terms of people's lives upon them, and those who believe people should be free to make their own lives. They are Republican, we are Democrat. They are the bad; we are the good. Darkness and light, baby. Simple as that.