REGARDING THE EXISTENCE OF SPIRITUAL REALITY

A materialistic outlook misses so much. As does an emphasis on concrete reality or causality.

How would you explain love, for starters? Much less admit passion? Why does music move us the way it does? And pain, be assured, is more than a neuro-chemical calculation. Why does social injustice to others spur our own anger? How could those who own all the creaturely comforts ever feel lonely?

The materialistic reaction to these, I suspect, prompts what we call addiction. Though it’s not always to alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, food, or even sex.

For liberation, a spiritual dimension will open. Or else.

SUFFERED ENOUGH?

Time for true conservatives to weigh in.

Take back the GOP.

(From the super-rich.)

(From the off-the-chart far-right-wingers.)

(From the anarchists masked in their midst.)

We’ve already paid enough.

Just run the numbers. The full cost of everything, far beyond war and taxes.

WHERE ARE THEY LEARNING THEIR HISTORY?

Conservatives who don’t know history are dangerous. What are they conserving, anyway? If there ever was a golden era in American history, just consider the years after World War II when the New Deal direction really kicked in. (The “socialist” programs they’ve always derided.) And we’re seeing all of its downsides, as well – sexist, racial, environmental polluting, smug.

As for solutions? It’s safe to bet their ideology would lead to yet another banking meltdown. As I said about history? Bush I and Bush II, or even Harding-Coolidge-Hoover, illustrate that point.

Without banks, there’s no modern economy. (What would you barter for a computer, for one thing?)

Oh, but if you’re truly conservative, what would you need a computer for, anyway? Or anything more than a mattress?

LOOKING DOWN THE MALL FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

America – and the world – needs a Congress that can solve problems.

Not make them. And not pretend they don’t exist.

The public needs to take back the House and Senate and stop marching to the tune of the One Percent.  Or the lunatic fringe. Or the National Rifle Association. What kind of Congress runs scared in the shadow realm as this one does? Denial is not an option when it comes to the real issues before us. (All of us.)

One man can’t do the job alone. No matter how valiantly he’s done in the face of such ill will and obfuscation.

A LAMENTATION FROM THE TOP

Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the “war to end wars.” This was the “war to make the world safe for democracy.” No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason. No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United State patents. They were just told it was to be a “glorious adventure.”

Maj. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC
— from War Is a Racket