[Mb-civic] FW: The latest from "Swami Beyondananda"

[George R. Milman]

Some wisdom from a funny guy.

 

 

The latest from "Swami Beyondananda":

1.  The Silence of the Lambs or Wither the Democrats?
2.  Happy Columbo's Day

1. The Silence of the Lambs, or Wither the Democrats?
By Steve Bhaerman

At a time when the Bush regime has been gravely wounded by its own policies
and players, the Democrats seem to have been caught with their plans down.
In two scathing pieces, one by Cindy Sheehan and the other by Ralph Nader,
two folks who see through the scam are wondering very loudly whether the
Democrats have finally outstripped the Republicans in the "obsolete
political party" sweepstakes.

The biggest issue seems to be that Democrats are afraid to boldly imagine a
policy for peace, justice and transparency in the world, something that
millions and millions of the rest of us can just about taste.  The sad fact
that our entire government is a fully-owned subsidiary of the
military-industrial complex doesn't help either.  So Democrats who want to
remain viable, credible -- and fundable -- must confine their criticism to
peripherals and puff themselves up in righteousness and declare that they
would do a better job at domination than the current gang would.  Sorry,
Joes Lieberman and Biden, but nobody is going to believe that.  And while
Hillary and Karl Rove going mano-a-mano in an HBO mud-wrestling special
would make great TV, it ain't gonna help the Democrats.

So, what would?  Well, first of all let's think of the Democratic Party
leadership as a wayward brother with a life-threatening addiction to
gutlessness and powerlessness.  Let's also consider that this gutlessness
and powerlessness habit is mighty expensive.  Think about all that money
True Majority and MoveOn.org raised last year from people like you and me
just so that John Kerry could end up not questioning the very questionable
discrepancy between the exit polls and voting results in Ohio and other key
states.  I say it's time for an intervention.

The "Empty Envelopes for Empty Promises" Campaign

What if we stopped enabling their powerlessness habit by no longer funding
it?  I don't know about you, but I get three to five emails a week from some
branch of the Democratic Party asking for donations.  What if we not only
didn't send them anything but instead sent the Democratic National Committee
empty envelopes for the next two months?  I would call this the "Empty
Envelopes for Empty Promises" campaign, and it might hit the Democrats where
they live -- in their pocketbooks and their constituency.

Instead of money in the envelope, there should be a note saying, "Sorry, but
I no longer choose to financially support your addiction to powerlessness.
I will withhold any contribution until you check yourselves into a program."
(More about  possible program a couple of paragraphs down.)  Meanwhile, I
would indicate in this note that the contribution heretofore meant for the
Democrats is now going to another group.  I would recommend the Progressive
Democrats of America (PDA), who are doing the work the Democrats really
ought to be doing but are hopelessly underfunded.  If you consider 100,000
people who were going to send the Democrats ten bucks each now shifting that
to PDA, you can see the huge leverage point there.  The Democratic
leadership -- who probably urinate more than the PDA spends -- would still
feel the hurt.  But the PDA could turn the shoestring it currently operates
under into an entire string of shoe stores!  Another good alternative:  You
can donate money to afterdowningstreet.org to help them raise money for a
public opinion poll on impeachment.  (More below.)

Seriously.  There were somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 people who
physically showed up for the peace march in Washington two weeks ago.  Last
I looked, more than 600,000 had signed the petition calling for George
Bush's impeachment.  What if the Democratic Party received 100,000 to
600,000 empty envelopes with the aforementioned note or something like it?
What if they experienced a precipitous drop in individual contributions
accompanied by a "declaration of independence" from the Democratic Party?

Yes, that's right.  A declaration of independence.  Less than a week after
Kerry's defeat last November, Rabbi Michael Lerner, speaking at the Green
Festival in San Francisco, made a very cogent point:  Those on the left were
so determined to defeat George Bush that they supported John Kerry without
asking for a thing from him, least of all integrity.  While they defended
Kerry against the "flip-flopper" charges, they fully expected him to
flip-flop once elected and change his position on the war!  Yes, I know.  I
voted against Bush too, and urged others to do the same.  As I said at the
time, when we fail to choose the lesser of two evils we end up with ... the
greater evil.

But now that we've had an opportunity to see the Democrats "inaction" since
that time - particularly in the all-important area of presenting a truly
compelling alternative vision -- we can now see that the greatest "evil" we
now face is putting our faith, work and resource into a political party that
disempowers us.  Time to tell the Democrats that their party is over ...
unless.

Unless they agree to hold a new leadership conference next spring where the
leaders of the party listen to some real new thinkers (I could suggest
dozens) who can point us towards a future worth living in.  This could
re-infuse the mid-term elections in 2006 with a lot of new energy and a way
to test the new ideas on the American public.  For one thing, I could see
the Democratic Party finally breaking away from its positionality and
offering breakthrough policies where, for example, environmentalists and
industry could work together in the light of transparency and public
scrutiny to develop a win-win plan for the future.  (If you think this is
impossible, you aren't paying attention.  There are people throughout all
levels of government and the corporate world who see the bigger picture and
want to serve the "Big Me" instead of the small one.  All that's been
lacking is a movement and a context.  But that's for a subsequent article.)

Basically, what we the people need to do is to give the Democrats an
ultimatum:  Either develop a compelling program for the new millennium and
stand by your stand, or we're out of the relationship.  Two months of
severely dropped contributions should have some impact.  If it doesn't, then
we know the Democrats are truly wed to being the "loyal opposition" -- loyal
to the Republicans and military industrial complex, that is.  Nobody likes
ending a relationship, especially one with such rich history and great
nostalgia.  But we can't propel ourselves into the 21st century on fumes
from the New Deal.  It may be time to say "thanks for the memories," and
we're moving on.

What is being called for is an evolution, and if we want anything to change
for the better, we the people must evolve with or without the Democratic
Party.  Should the party fall into line behind the people, then that in and
of itself indicates they are ready to lead us into the new millennium.
Should they not, we should be prepared to create a Third Force for 2008 with
some repercussions for 2006.  Just as I once suggested that the Green Party
hand out "green stamps" of support for Democrats or other candidates who
resonated with their views, for 2006 this Third Force -- whether it's the
Greens or someone else -- can offer endorsements of those who support these
new paradigm policies.

Change is not easy, but it is required.  Resistance is to be expected.  As
the Swami has said, "we cannot expect an entire culture to just turn on a
paradigm."  But at some point, we need to move past the protest and
complaining and move the constructive conversation forward.  We can't keep
pretending the Democrats are worth supporting just because they aren't
Republicans.  Nothing could be more disempowering.  Time for those of us who
can see a better world to put up or shut up -- and invite the Democratic
Party to do the same.



2. Celebrate Columbo's Day and Help Solve an Unsolved Mystery

Well, here we are at another one of those shadow holidays -- Columbo's Day.
I must mean Columbus Day, right?  Well, it's Columbus Day for some who
believe that Columbus discovered America.  But last year in the wake of the
election fraud in Ohio, many, many Americans discovered Columbus -- and saw
America's shadow.  And this has given birth to a new shadow holiday --
Columbo's Day -- named after the great TV detective, who (according to
Wikipedia) "inevitably solved his cases through close attention to tiny
inconsistencies in a suspect's story, hounding them until they confessed."
I say the time is right for we the people to emulate Columbo, scratch our
heads, and ask unasked questions and question unquestioned answers:

"Just one more thing.  Help me on this one.  Exit polls have been used for
years by election observers to determine the integrity of elections.  If the
polls and the voting results don't match, they call it fraud.  A contingent
of university statisticians concluded that the odds of the discrepancy that
actually did occur in 2004 being accidental was a million to one.  Hmm.  A
million-to-one shot comes in, and it doesn't even make the sports pages.
Was that some kind of fraudian slip?"

"I'm a little confused.  Let me see if I have my facts straight.  Some
schlemiel in a Piper strays off course and two fighter jets are on him
before he can say 'Sky King.'  Meanwhile, four passenger planes actually
reverse course without any communication and none of them are stopped.  Nah.
That can't be right.  I must be making that up."

"Here's something that's been puzzling me.  This country is led into war
under false pretenses, and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians are
condemned to death by shock and awe.  So, karmically-speaking, who exactly
gets charged with those murders -- is it our government for fooling us?  Or
us for letting ourselves be fooled?"

This Monday, let's "celebrate" Columbo's Day by calling our news agencies
and reporters and TV and radio stations -- not to mention friends, family,
neighbors and associates -- and asking some of these questions.  Whatever
did happen to the anthrax investigation?  How about the trillion dollars
that disappeared from the Defense Department?  Make up your own question.
Guaranteed that the more we question, the more questionable their answers
become.

This massive movement for truth doesn't even have a name yet, but already
they're hiring a polling service to find out what percentage of Americans
favor impeaching the President.  To find out more and contribute to this
campaign, click here.  As you may or may not know, a similar Zogby poll --
privately funded -- just over a year ago revealed that nearly 50% of New
Yorkers believed then (and maybe more do now) that the Administration knew
about 9/11 and purposely let it happen -- or actually facilitated it.

 And while we're hiring outside agencies, here is a thought for Columbo's
Day.  It's a classic noir theme.  A suspicious husband or wife hires a
private eye to shadow a spouse they suspect of cheating on them.  OK.  I
think millions and millions of Americans now have this gnawing suspicion
that our government is cheating on us.  So why don't we pool our resources
-- let's say a million suspicious Americans kicking in $10 each -- and hire
some investigators to shadow the shadowy dealings of our "public servants?"
You know, I am only partly kidding.

With each passing day, it's becoming more and more clear how we the people
have been disenfranchised from our own government.  The Administration no
longer even tries to hide the cronyism and sweetheart deals, and the hints
are becoming even broader that the ultimate use of our military is to
protect the American government from the American people.  The good news is,
more and more people are awakening from the American dream and facing the
potential American nightmare.

But if the awakening is to result in a true evolutionary breakthrough, we
have to get it and get it clearly:  There is no one up there in political
power-land who is going to save us.  Leadership from the top down will only
get us "fooled again."  The name of the game now is leadership from the
grassroots groundswell up -- and that's nobody but you and me, and hundreds
of thousands and soon-to-be millions who are having the same realization.
Our task is simple, but formidable:  To recapture the heart and soul of the
"progressive" party in America (or build a new one, and quickly), and to
encourage those in corporate media who haven't yet been "ethically-cleansed"
to do right by the spirit of Ed Murrow.  Otherwise, for American democracy
and freedom, it's "good night and good luck."
    
Steve Bhaerman/Swami Beyondananda
http://www.wakeuplaughing.com/

 

 

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