True courage

Anybody can start a fight. Just about anybody can get into a fight without really trying: sometimes the wrong place at the wrong time or the wrong facial expression in the wrong situation. There are lots of ways to get into a fight.

If you're really smart or if you are lucky enough to have the gift of gab and can talk your way out of it, you are one of the very fortunate few. For the rest of us, it's fisticuffs. And that, dear reader, is one of the sad facts of life even in the 21st century.

What's worse, this logic applies regardless of whether it is only individuals involved. It could just as well be gangs, football fans, political parties, demonstrators, or even countries. The logic is the same, regardless of the size or the seriousness of the parties involved.

And so, you stand your ground, blow up your chest, you "act like a man", take your knocks, and save your face (more figuratively than literally, of course), but you've preserved your honor. Of course, it really could be countries involved and it could be that there is collateral damage running into millions of lives, or the whole world -- what the hell -- what's important in the end is that I've saved face, I've shown you what I'm made of, I've demonstrated my courage ... or have I?

Truth be told, you're just another one of those sorry, ever-adolescents who either can't or refuse to grow up. You're just another one of those faux bravehearts who think that a black eye and a bloody nose are some kind of badge of honor. They're not. They're mere indications that you'd rather be an actual coward than be called one.
And that's where we are these days: image is much more important than substance (or as the Germans would say, "Schein ist wichtiger als Sein"); appearances are more important than reality and what you think of me is much more important than what I think of myself or what I stand for.

Turn it around. Get out of the mirror. Face up to the fact that it takes way more courage to take a punch in the nose than to give one, that it takes way more courage to say what you think than to say what others want to hear, that it takes way more courage to stand up for what you believe in -- in light of, not in spite of, the consequences -- than just saying something's important to you.

The world as we know it honors violence. The world that we desire will honor courage.

The anathema of caring

People who care have it tough: they're laughed at, derided, criticized, maligned, and, worst of all, ignored. Still, there are not just a few of us who are concerned that the current trajectory of developments may bode ill for us all. No, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist. In fact, most conspiracy theorists aren't ... they're just called that, and then we don't have to deal with them. Truth be told, we're being beaten down by our own silence.

A lot of things in our world are broken, from our economic system to our idea of society, from our idea of community to our notion of something as simple as sharing, or even caring. The world suffers as we sit idly by and lament that there's nothing any of us can do about anything. We couldn't be more wrong.

If you care -- about anything -- you have to know that you will have a tough go of it. Most folks don't care that you care and most folks, when push comes to shove, will try to prevent you from caring. Sometimes it's a simple "it's not your problem", to the more general "you can't do anything about that", to the grotesque "why should anyone think they can live off my dime"? Oh, we love to sift and sort, to pick and choose, to declare these folks are "in" and those are "out", but all we're doing is demeaning ourselves.

We can't solve the world's problems, but we can solve our own and the problems of those near to us, and by this, I just don't mean those related to us. In the English translation of the Bible, there is lots of talk about "neighbors", as in "love your neighbor as yourself" and more. In German, this is translated as "the next one"; that is, the one to whom you are in closest proximity, physically. In other words, your neighbor (and this is clearly laid out in the Parable of the Good Samaritan) is whoever is near you, and, especially, who needs you at any given time.

Popular wisdom will tell you that you'll only be taken advantage of. Most of your neighbors will tell you not to get sucked in by the con. And almost everyone else will tell you that you are a fool for even thinking about caring in the first place. What kind of world is that?

Most people thrive on the acceptance of those whom they care about, be they relatives or actual neighbors. If we want the world to be a better place, we have to get beyond that. Whether you are put down, ridiculed, or looked at askance for helping others in need, doesn't matter in the end. It only matters whether you were willing to stand up and to act because you knew it was the right thing to do.

Personally, I don't care where you start, be it in our own family and neighborhood, or be it in the country in which you live or the world at large. At some point, we all have to care about more than just ourselves, regardless of what others may think. That, of course, takes courage. And you need courage to care. You need even more courage to do something about your feelings.

And I know that most of you feel you are doing your fair share already, but I'm here to tell you that you are not. None of us do enough. All of us are capable of more. And all of us will be guilty, if we don't follow our hearts instead of our brains. The choice is yours

And now a word from our sponsor

That's how commercials were once introduced. It was almost an apology that whatever it was you were watching on TV was not going to be interrupted so that someone who thought they had the right could try to sell you something .. or at least entice you to perhaps buy it the next time you went shopping. Those days -- by no means, the "good old days" are long gone. We're no longer asked, we're told. Times change.

Circumstances don't. We still get broadcast all that we need to know, that much is true, but while the machine spews forth unceasingly, those of us "down here", are having trouble swallowing it all. After all, there's only so much you can allow through your craw, whether you like it or not.

There was a time when news was news and commercials were commercials, but those times are no longer. Now we get commercials for news (that is, what we're supposed to think) as much as we get commercials for what we should buy. The content should be different, but it isn't. The reactions thereto and our own behavior should also be different, but it isn't.

A dear friend recently asked me what I thought of the so-called "refugee crisis" here in Europe (and Germany) in particular. He figured I wouldn't be opposed, given my disposition toward others and life, and he was right, but I suspect that he truly wanted to know how I could still remain positive in light of a situation that was, well, by all standards, threatening. He was right about the threatening part and he was right about my reaction.

Truth be told, the crisis with which we are confronted is a pseudo one, a contrived one, a made-up one, not a real one. Oh, there's no denying that millions of people are on the move, looking for safe havens in times of imminent and life-threatening danger. But, as is so often the case, it's the "little people" who have to suffer when the "big people" (the "important" people) decide the world should be a certain way.

Neither I nor anyone I know believes that all those fleeing towards Europe are really refugees, in the traditional sense of the word. Some are really so-called "economic refugees", people looking for a way out of their current hopeless morass. Some are hopefuls, looking for half a shot at something "better", whereby what that means differs from case to case. Some of them are truly asylum seekers, fleeing from inhuman and violent conditions, simply trying to save their own lives and that of their children. And, whether we like to admit it or not, some are subversives, simply using the current situation to further own personal, religious or political agendas. That's just the way it goes. That's the reality of the situation, but it's not the actuality.

All these people streaming toward Europe are not taking on these hardships because they have nothing better to do. If we -- and by "we" I mean all of us in the Western industrialized world -- were serious about what we say we believe, we never would have created the situation that forces these people to flee. Given half a choice, just about everyone would rather stay where they are than move, but our "leaders" have decided what is better for us -- and by default for others -- is best, and now we've got this situation.

Don't blame those who flee. Blame those who make them flee. But, it is always easier to side with those in power than with those who have been victimized by it.

Summer's almost over

Summer was a much bigger deal when I was a kid and it was also a much bigger deal in the US. Three months of summer vacation is nothing to scoff at (especially when you consider that Europeans get a mere six weeks), but once you leave school and find a job and start working for a living, well, summer becomes more or less the hot time of year when you have to work. Nothing exciting about that, even if we tend to pack in more power-weekends at this time of year, just to convince ourselves that our lives are not completely in vain.

Hint: if you have to power-weekend at all, your life's pretty much in vain.

This was just another summer and not all that much out of the ordinary: a bit too hot, a bit too dry, a bit too short, and a bit too time-consumed by everyday life. We all tend not to really appreciate what we have while we have it, and I'm pretty sure that come November, I'll be thinking back fondly of these very days which will have been made better than they actually were because there has been time between now and when I will think of them again. That's pretty much how our minds work. We don't appreciate enough of what we have when we actually have it. Yes, most of us in the West have been firmly conditioned to want "more", or at a minimum to be dissatisfied with what we have.

That's pretty sad when you stop to think about it. Yes, there is definitely one thing that you cannot, you may not, be in a capitalist economy, and that's satisfied. Where would we be if everyone were satisfied? Consumerism and consumption is predicated on the idea that you can never, ever be satisfied. That's not only sad, it's downright unhealthy. What kind of a world have we made for ourselves?

But those days of lazy reflection are just about over. Kids are back to school. Our daily and weekly routines have normalized themselves. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the days are going to get noticeably shorter and the light is going to start fading. It's going to get cooler, then colder, and we're going to start getting a bit more precipitation than we like, so we'll grumble more, complain more often, be more dissatisfied than usual and, well, all the more "motivated" to go out and buy stuff we don't really need, because it's the only therapy we're willing to submit to. That's pretty sad, too, when you stop to think about it.

But once summer is over, we can at least act as if we're busier than usual and with the weather turning bad, no one's going to be coming along with extraordinary plans or demands. We can just get busy and do our thing, and start yearning for those crazy, lazy days of summer, which are so far off, and so beyond our reach.

Why beliefs trump reality

Before anyone gets the wrong impression (whereby I'm fairly sure that this plea comes a bit late), I would like to reiterate something I never tire of saying. I am not just beating up on my home country. I am merely using them as an example, for in many cases, the USA is simply the best example of what I'm talking about. The root causes, the root feelings, the root beliefs and the root reactions are evident across the entire world, both West and, mutatis mutandis, East. We're all human beings and no one is exempt. We all have similar moral potential, and we all have inherent weaknesses. That's what makes us human. But it is always easier to ignore than to acknowledge, let alone accept.

It just so happens that I agree with Einstein that patriotism is an infantile disease. We are born where we are born by virtue of an inexplicable cosmic accident. To use that as a basis for unquestionable allegiance to one's birthplace is, in my mind at least, just silly. We are made into unswerving loyalists, we weren't born that way, so when you place your own country, for example, above all others, it is not a fact, it is simply a belief that you have taken on for any number of reasons, some perhaps OK, others questionable.

The point I really want to make is that we buy into this belief because it makes us feel good, it makes us feel worthwhile and it makes us think we have a purpose. We want to believe we are the good guys, that what we do is good and right and proper and admirable. And, there is nothing essentially wrong with any of this, as far as it goes. The problem is, however, that it goes much farther and deeper.

When confronted with evidence that contradicts this most fundamental view of the world that we have, we become fearful and insecure. We simply don't want to believe that things are different than the way we want to think they are. We will do everything in our power not to look these facts and this possible evidence in the eyes. Why? I don't know for sure, but one reason is certainly because we think we will no longer be the person we once were. That may be true, but it's not bad. Sure, it may be unpleasant, even painful, but closing one's eyes to reality doesn't make it go away. No one ever said the truth would make us happy, but it is truly the case that it is the truth which sets you free.

FDR once noted that we really have nothing to fear but fear itself, and he had a point. Whether you like his politics or not, he still had a point. I believe that now, more than at any other time in my short life, we are being called upon to face our fears. We can't give in ... or can we? Fear is more often that than not the root cause of hate, and when you begin to hate on the basis of your beliefs, for whatever reason, you have removed yourself from the world of reason. Hate is a powerful emotion, one of the most powerful in fact, but it is destructive, not only for others but for oneself. Hate is a poison that destroys one from inside every bit as much as the actions it calls forth wreak destruction on everyone and everything toward which it is directed. And, I must say that it saddens me to see and hear as much hate being spread about as I do these days.

As cynical as I may be, I would still like to think that we're better than that.

How to win a Holy War

Instead of the usual blah-blah-blah you may be used to, I decided to let someone else speak today.

Why?

Because the man has something to say that's worth listening to ... and I think he's on the right track.

So, How to win a Holy War.

Lest we forget

Make no mistake: the events of September 11, 14 years ago, were unnecessary, tragic, shocking, damnable, disgusting, and devastating. There is no way that anyone can "justify" what happened. It was an destructive and frightening act of terror.

We should remember, though, that we still don't know who was responsible. We were told who was responsible, and this was different people or organizations at different times, but we do not know with any certainty. There are, to this day, too many unanswered questions. I'm anything but a conspiracy theorist or practitioner. I yearn for clarity, for transparency, for uprightness, and for honesty. Things that I'm sure many of you would agree are lacking today.

Almost 3,000 people lost their lives, needlessly on one single day. Death tallies like that are normally the result of war, but war was "declared" on "terror" in the wake of those events. And that, my dear reader, is what is so troubling.

The government has spent years trying to convince us of who was behind the attacks, but their arguments and proof are unconvincing. The commission report is laughable and contradicts itself. Nevertheless, we attacked Afghanistan, which was not behind the attacks, even if they were allegedly sheltering Bin Laden. We attacked them for revenge. The country was in chaos before and after the Russians were forced to leave. It wasn't Pakistan, our ally. It wasn't anyone with whom we had friendly relations, but we had a bone to pick with Saddam Hussein and that was the "trump card" eventually played. We attacked Iraq only a few years later, a second act of revenge. We may have been threatened by Al Qaeda or some similar organization, but we attacked countries ... out of revenge.

Since time heals no wounds, as yesterday's Facebook activity will attest, what is it that we have actually done? We've killed, maimed, wounded, traumatized, more than one million human beings. A few of them were from "our side" (about 7,000) if you count 9/11 itself. But the remaining 999,993,000 were "them". No more, no less. Just "them". We weren't defending ourselves, we weren't being attacked. We were attacked once. We, on the other hand, have been attacking ever since.

What does that say about us? About us as a people? About us as a civilization? The old Kabbalistic adage states it clearly: you become what you hate. And we hate. Over 1,000,000 people have lost their lives directly because of this event, another 1,000,000 are in the process of being killed, more than 50,000,000 people are fleeing for their lives, and we have the cold-hearted audacity to glorify the killing, allegedly in the name of the killed. What has become of us?

Two (or more) wrongs have never made a right, and they never will. We gave up our moral high ground long ago, but we still refuse to acknowledge that we're not a damn bit better than those whom we despise, detest, and hate. I'm sorry I have to say it, but for all you so-called good Christians out there screaming the loudest at the Muslims, don't forget that, by your own standards, you will be judged by what you have done, and not by what you have said.

If we want to maintain that Life (whatever you may perceive that to be) is somehow sacred or of high value, then it is time we started acting like it. You can turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the crying and anguish of the suffering, but there's not enough pathetic (in the sense of unjustified pathos) patriotism to cover it over or tune it out. You can act like you are in the right, but to find glee, happiness, or pleasure in the suffering and death of another human being is sadism, pure and simple.

And that, dear reader, is something I don't think we should try to forget.

The case of the unchecked clerk

Some things simply boggle my simple mind. OK, I spend more time on Facebook than I should, but it's like driving past a nasty road accident: you know you shouldn't look, you might even have to throw up, but you just can't turn away. Yeah. I know. _mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_.

But ... lately I've seen so many things, especially comments, that almost leave me speechless. The most vitriolic, nonsensical, uninformed, hateful, spiteful, vociferous, and, well, ignorant ones have had to do with the county clerk down in ol' Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples because it violated her religious beliefs.

Now, for those of you who have lost your watches or calendar, we're writing the 2015. You'd think we might have learned a thing or two by now, but apparently not. It just so happens that the Supreme Court of the United States, of all institutions, recently ruled that same-sex marriages are allowable and that laws forbidding them are unconstitutional. That's their job, which -- I'll be the first to admit -- they don't often do very well, but that's what they decided. When they say you can't forbid something, that's all it is: what you did wasn't right so it doesn't count. That's not legislating, that's judging, and that's what why they are there whether we like it or not. What's more, it's a completely secular institution, as are the legislative and executive branches of government, not just in the United States but pretty much worldwide these days.

Our not-so-friendly county clerk refused to issue the licenses by arguing that it violated her personal, religious beliefs. Now, in case you didn't know, I'm a big fan of personal, religious beliefs, even if they are bothersome, and even though some folks are favored in theirs over others. (That's a topic for another time, so forgive me if that's all I have to say about that here.) However, However, she is (apparently) an elected public servant and she gives personal reasons for not being able to do her job. After all the back-and-forth, a judge, who had directed her to fulfill the public responsibilities associated with her job, finally decided that since she still refused, she had to go to jail. That is, as far as I can tell, the so-called "facts of the case" (described, I hope as neutrally as possible).

So, here's my question: why is this such a hot-button issue? We don't have more important things to concern ourselves with (anybody happen to see the picture of the lifeless, Syrian three-year-old on a European beach)?

I know it is difficult for people with strong religious beliefs to realize that not everyone is as religious as they are. I know it is difficult for some people to realize that with us here in the West, there is some kind of separation between "church and state", or more properly the religious and the secular. I know it is hard for a lot of people to come to terms with the fact that standards and values and even what we consider to be moral -- as a society -- changes over time. I know that we humans are fallible and don't always make the best decisions when it comes to legality and morality (e.g., slavery, Jews in Nazi Germany, blacks in America prior to the civil-rights accomplishments). And, I know that it takes courage, fortitude and dignity to accept that we have to deal with what we have, not with what we would like to have as a society.

Still, that's the least we can expect of you as a citizen of today's world in this day and age. And that's why we expect it. Grow up.

The case of the classified data

Recently, and not for the first time, conservative heads were exploding because emails from/to Hillary Clinton were discovered that contained classified information. Some things simply make me chuckle.

First, a disclaimer: I could care less that Hillary Clinton is involved. I'm not convinced she's presidential material (her husband proved he wasn't) and she hasn't really ever accomplished anything that makes me think she could handle the job in a respectful and humanly decent manner. (The last US President who managed that was Jimmy Carter, but we all know how his administration has been spun. End of digression.) So, this isn't about her, it's all about the accusation, and I don't care who's making it.

At the beginning of my working career, I ended up being an intelligence analyst at the edge of the Free World (5 km as the crow flies from the Iron Curtain) at the height of the Cold War. I wore civilian clothes and was primarily charged with gathering intelligence from any and all sources, even exploiting my contacts, whenever and wherever possible. In a sense, I was the "spy who was out in the cold". An important part of my "job" was conducting "liaison" with local national agencies in order to gather, what I was told was highly sensitive information that was vital for the national security of the US of A. Fair enough.

At least once a week, my partner and I would travel out to the railroad crossing point between East and West to get the word on what was slipping over and across the border. The border police were great guys: friendly, helpful, always positive, appreciative of the fact that we could speak the local language, and they were generous. They went through every train that came out of the Eastern Zone and gathered up all the newspapers, for example, that the travellers left behind (litter-leavers know have no national allegiance). We dutifully took these back to our office, where the miraculous happened.

Our "product", so to speak, were "intelligence reports": the more you submitted, the higher you were rated, and we were no slackers, I can assure you. Out came the "form" (everything in the military has a form), the key data was filled in (in triplicate, of course), and the newspapers were simply attached. Everything, however, that left our office was, by policy, classified SECRET. And so, the form was stamped SECRET at the top and bottom of every page, and each and every page of the attachments (i.e., the newspapers) were stamped SECRET as well. This was all bundled together into a double-enveloped package, stamped appropriately, then paper-taped across every edge of tape and on every seam before being taken up to the mailroom for sending to our "customer", the translation detachment at our next-higher echelon of authority. There, once received, droves of translators translated every single headline and word and stamped every page they produced with SECRET on top and bottom of the page. And the translations were reworked as well into "reports" all of which were classified at least SECRET, though those reports in which the analysts believed to see something "important" were classified at higher levels. It would take a total of about 40 years for our newspapers to eventually be unclassified, but in the interim, the national security of the USA would not be compromised.

Yeah, I love it when journalists play the "classified" card. They have no idea what it means. I have some idea and I can tell you that most of what I saw classified were things anybody anywhere with even the slightest amount of interest could have collected for themselves.

But they didn't. Why? Because the "secrets" weren't worth the paper they were written on.

The absurdity of neoliberalism, period

Sometimes I don't know if are progressing, in any sense of the word, or if we are regressing, almost in every sense of the word. The signature value of the small vignette I presented last time still haunts me. It is precisely the attitude of two of the most revered political figures of the 20th century: Thatcher and Reagan.

They were absurdists in their own right. Thatcher openly asserted in absurdity that society doesn't exist, and Reagan, the actor in the role of president, thought Milton Friedman was a brilliant man.

For those of you who may be unaware, Friedman wrote the neoliberalist bible, Capitalism and Freedom, though I doubt that many of you have ever read it (I have, but I would like the time back). It's one of those "classic" texts that uses a whole lot of words to say, well, absolutely nothing, which is as much as trickles down from his trickle-down approach to economics ... or "voodoo economics", as it was called before it became "respectable". Thatcher, Reagan, Friedman are mere examples, just like the liberal-arts college president from last time, share one primary characteristic in common: they may be in charge, but at heart, they're know-nothings.

But, know-nothings are nothing new in the United States, at any rate. Mid-19th century they made a name for themselves and a bit of political splash, short-lived as it deservedly was. But what goes around, comes around and it's apparently back in fuller force again. The run-up to the Republican nomination for president is one example; but our college president, too many "educational reformers" on both sides of the Atlantic, the Troika or Quadrika, as they like to call it these days since the Eurogroup is now involved (yes, an informal association with no formal authority and not legitimized in any way is now playing an "important role" in the European debt crisis. It would seem the absurdity has gone full bloom.

We have non-economists implementing nonsensical economic theory and non-educationalists implementing irrelevant educational policy. We have millionaires trying to show how well they relate to common folk. There are experts of all sizes, shapes and colors who love going on TV to show us how little they know, but so many believe them anyway. We have union-busters going on about right-to-work, polluters and fossil-fuel fetishists denying climate change (and getting away with it), and it all boils down to the simple fact that if you can't but a monetary value on it, it has no value at all.

Stated differently, the only value that counts is money value. A step forward? A step backward? Even a step at all?

As usual, the real answer is my favorite, "e) None of the above".

I refuse to accept that as an option. I refuse to acknowledge that money is the measure of all things. I refuse to adjust to a world that is too ignorant to discuss any more. I continue to resist the temptation to just throw up my hands and say, all those absurdities make sense. They don't, and they never will.

The long and short of it all, if you think economics is primary and neoliberalism is the only reasonable approach to the world, you're not part of the problem, you are the problem.