It seems when you introduce contrarian ideas, you generally draw blood. That seems to be the case with my March 31 column.
Late in life, I have been examining the spiritual side of things from the point of view of a carpenter from Nazareth. What I find is he took the long view on most things and eschewed politics and corporatism altogether, as did all the prophets before him and after in all the world’s great philosophies.
Jesus concentrated on talking to and teaching those who were the least of his times, the poor and the outcasts. My column was premised on the idea of the value of the statement, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” which Jesus espoused in his teachings.
Contrary to what other people think, there were not two different versions of his teachings, one for personal use and one for “political or corporate use.” His philosophy was all-purpose and one-size-fits-all. The difference is his ideas for living life truly are for all people and all things.
His teachings are not unique. The essence of them can be found in all of the world’s great life philosophies, including Islam.
We live in a fear-based society, focused on those who would take our way of life from us. These folks are caricatured as “our enemies.” As far as knowing who my enemies are, that is easy: I have none. There may be some folks who I have a difference of opinion with and even some who represent, in my mind, the wrong people in positions of leadership for the majority of folks and for the future of our planet. But none of them are my enemies.
I think of them when I play with my grandchildren, and I am hoping these people play with their grandchildren, too. Anyone who loves children wants a safe future for them. I pray for them. When I teach, I hope they are teachers also, for anyone who teaches is invested in the future and in the students who represent that future.
If I have reservations about anything, it is in what constitutes the “national interest.”
The idea of our national interest has changed in the past 130 years. “National interest” in that segment of time has generally coincided with the interests of those multinational corporations (MNCs) who, for convenience, not loyalty, fly an American flag. If you scrape away the hubris of the politicians, you will find a corporate logo somewhere.
Unfortunately, that takes more than 30 seconds, the length of time within which most people in our society get their information. It definitely takes longer to discuss the “blowback” from our government’s adventures looking for a new frontier: Mexico, Haiti, Chile, Angola, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, the Caribbean, Pakistan, India, Southeast Asia, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Over the past 110 years this has caused our country to be mistrusted and “feared” by the people of the world.
Some people might say being feared is a good thing. But in the long term it is that “fear” that turns into hate, hate that is manipulated and twisted by others and can result in people flying planes into buildings. The bottom line for our search to find that new American frontier was usually adorned with a corporate logo of some kind: the United Fruit Company, ITT, Anaconda Copper, American Arabian Oil Company, Shell, Standard Oil, Gulf, General Dynamics, Boeing, Martin Marietta, Lockheed Martin and so on.
These companies were taken to task for being too greedy by the people in whatever country they were mingling. It is for that reason we spill, with too much frequency, the blood of our best and brightest in those desolate climes and spend too much of the hard-earned treasure of our people on preserving the hold of MNCs on the “global economy.”
As a young man, I, too, answered the call to serve our country and did not have a clue of the reason. It is for this reason, and for the love of our young people sent into harm’s way as instruments of this “national interest,” that I happily present another view that is honest, sincere and reviled by many in our society.
“And that is all I am going to say about that.”
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