Ok, this was the best way I knew to get this letter on here. I am copying and pasting it to my blog. This newsletter comes to me from Thom Hartmann, and it is very detailed in explaining why the Military Commissions Act is something that we as a nation cannot allow to remain in place. Also, I'm sorry if the formatting of his letter has changed due to my pasting it here. However, if you are interested in seeing it with the links to more specific language in this Act, please send me a comment on this blog, and I will forward the email to you. Enjoy, and I hope you are inspired to act just as I am.
Repeal the Military Commissions Act and Restore the Most American Human Right
by Thom Hartmann
"The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."
-- Winston Churchill
The oldest human right defined in the history of English-speaking civilization is the right to challenge governmental power of arrest and detention through the use of habeas corpus laws. Habeas corpus is roughly Latin for "hold the body," and is used in law to mean that a government must either charge a person with a crime and allow them due process, or let them go free.
Last autumn the House and Senate passed, and the President signed into law The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, which explicitly strips both aliens and Americans of the right of habeas corpus, the right of recourse to the courts (as provided in the Fifth through Eighth Amendments to the Constitution), and denies appeal through mechanisms of the Geneva Conventions to those designated to lose these rights by the President.
As the most conspicuous part of a series of laws which have fundamentally changed the nature of this nation, moving us from a democratic republic to a state under the rule of a "unitary" President, the Military Commissions Act should be immediately reversed. When a demi-tyrant like Vladimir Putin begins lecturing the United States, as he did just a few days ago, on how our various behaviors over the past five years have "nothing in common with democracy," we should pay attention.
This attack on eight centuries of English law is no small thing. While the Republican's (and 13 Democrats in the Senate) purported intent was to deny Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp detainees the right to see a civilian judge or jury, it could just as easily extend to you and me. (Already two American citizens have been arbitrarily stripped of their habeas corpus rights by the Bush administration - Jose Padilla and Yasser Hamdi - and there may be others.)
Section 9, Clause 2, of Article I of the United States Constitution says: "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
Alberto Gonzales testified on January 18th before Congress that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is [only] a prohibition against taking it away."
While there are many countries in the world where all power and all rights are reserved to the government, and then doled out to the people by constitutional, legislative, or executive decree, the first three words of our Constitution clearly state who in this country holds all the power and all the rights: "We the People."
Our Constitution does not grant us rights, because "We" already hold all rights. Instead, it defines the boundaries of our government, and identifies what privileges "We the People" will grant to that government.
When Gonzales suggested we have no habeas corpus rights because the Constitution doesn't grant them, his testimony betrayed a breathtaking ignorance of the history and meaning of the United States Constitution. And, because his thinking probably reflects that of his superior, George W. Bush, Gonzales' testimony demonstrates the urgency with which Congress must act to repeal the many laws, signing statements, and executive orders that have been issued by this administration.
But particularly, and first, with regard to habeas corpus.
Abraham Lincoln was the first president (on March 3, 1863) to suspend habeas corpus so he could imprison those he considered a threat until the war was over. Congress invoked this power again during Reconstruction when President Grant requested The Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871 to put down a rebellion in South Carolina. Those are the only two fully legal suspensions of habeas corpus in the history of the United States (and Lincoln's is still being debated).
The United States hasn't suffered a "Rebellion" or an "Invasion" since Lincoln's and Grant's administrations. There are no foreign armies on our soil, seizing our cities. No states or municipalities are seriously talking about secession. Yet the Attorney General says we have no rights to habeas corpus, and the Military Commissions Act now backs him up.
The modern institution of civil and human rights, and particularly the writ of habeas corpus, began in June of 1215 when King John was forced by the feudal lords to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede. Although that document mostly protected "freemen" - what were then known as feudal lords or barons, and today known as CEOs and millionaires - rather than the average person, it initiated a series of events that echo to this day.
Two of the most critical parts of the Magna Carta were articles 38 and 39, which established the foundation for what is now known as "habeas corpus" laws, as well as the Fourth through Eighth Amendments of our Constitution and hundreds of other federal and state due process provisions.
Articles 38 and 39 of the Magna Carta said:
"38 In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.
"39 No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."
This was radical stuff, and over the next four hundred years average people increasingly wanted for themselves these same protections from the abuse of the power of government or great wealth. But from 1215 to 1628, outside of the privileges enjoyed by the feudal lords, the average person could be arrested and imprisoned at the whim of the king with no recourse to the courts.
Then, in 1627, King Charles I overstepped, and the people snapped. Charles I threw into jail five knights in a tax disagreement, and the knights sued the King, asserting their habeas corpus right to be free or on bail unless convicted of a crime.
King Charles I, in response, invoked his right to simply imprison anybody he wanted (other than the rich), anytime he wanted, as he said, "per speciale Mandatum Domini Regis."
This is essentially the same argument that George W. Bush makes today for why he has the right to detain both citizens and non-citizens solely on his own say-so: because he's in charge. And it's an argument now supported by the Military Commissions Act.
But just as George's Act is meeting resistance, Charles' decree wasn't well received. The result of his overt assault on the rights of citizens led to a sort of revolt in the British Parliament, producing the 1628 "Petition of Right" law, an early version of our Fourth through Eighth Amendments, which restated Articles 38 and 39 of the Magna Carta and added that "writs of habeas corpus, [are] there to undergo and receive [only] as the court should order." It was later strengthened with the "Habeas Corpus Act of 1640" and a second "Habeas Corpus Act of 1679."
Thus, the right to suspend habeas corpus no longer was held by the King. It was exercised solely by the people's (elected and hereditary) representatives in the Parliament.
The third George to govern the United Kingdom confronted this in 1815 when he came into possession of Napoleon Bonaparte. British laws were so explicit that everybody was entitled to habeas corpus - even people who were not British citizens - that when Napoleon surrendered on the deck of the British flagship Bellerophon after the battle of Waterloo in 1815, the British Parliament had to pass a law ("An Act For The More Effectually Detaining In Custody Napoleon Bonaparte") to suspend habeas corpus so King George III could legally continue to hold him prisoner (and then legally exile him to a British fortification on a distant island).
Now, the Military Commissions Act and Alberto Gonzales say that George W. Bush may similarly detain people or exile them to concentration camps on distant islands. Except these people are not Napoleon Bonaparte. "They" could even be you or me.
The Founders must be turning in their graves. As Alexander Hamilton - arguably the most conservative of the Founders - wrote in Federalist 84:
"The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus ... are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it [the Constitution] contains. ...[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious [British 18th century legal scholar] Blackstone, in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital:
"'To bereave a man of life,' says he, 'or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore A MORE DANGEROUS ENGINE of arbitrary government.''' [Capitals all Hamilton's from the original.]
The question, ultimately, is whether our nation will continue to stand for the values upon which it was founded.
Early American conservatives suggested that democracy was so ultimately weak it couldn't withstand the assault of newspaper editors and citizens who spoke out against it, or terrorists from the Islamic Barbary Coast, leading John Adams to pass America's first Military Commissions Act-like laws, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. President Thomas Jefferson rebuked those who wanted America ruled by an iron-handed presidency that could - as Adams had - throw people in jail for "crimes" such as speaking political opinion, or without constitutional due process.
"I know, indeed," Jefferson said in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1801, "that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough.
But, Jefferson said, our nation was "the world's best hope," and because of our strong commitment to rights like habeas corpus, "the strongest government on earth."
The sum of this, Jefferson said, was found in "freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
"The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civil instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."
When I was working in Russia some years ago, a friend in Kaliningrad told me a perhaps apocryphal story about Nikita Khrushchev, who, following Stalin's death, gave a speech to the Politburo denouncing Stalin's policies of arbitrarily arresting people and throwing them into prisons or mental institutions without the rights of habeas corpus. A few minutes into Khrushchev's diatribe, somebody shouted out, "Why didn't you challenge him then, the way you are now?"
The room fell silent, as Khrushchev angrily swept the audience with his glare. "Who said that?" he asked in a reasoned voice. Silence.
"Who said that?" Khrushchev demanded, leaning forward. Silence.
Pounding his fist on the podium to accent each word, he screamed, "Who - said - that?" Still no answer.
Finally, after a long and strained silence, the elected politicians in the room fearful to even cough, a corner of Khrushchev's mouth lifted into a smile.
"Now you know," he said with a chuckle, "why I did not speak up against Stalin when I sat where you now sit."
The question for our day is who will speak up against Stalinist policies in America? Who will speak against the man who punishes reporters and news organizations by cutting off their access; who punishes politicians by targeting them in their home districts; who punishes truth-tellers in the Executive branch by character assassination that even extends to destroying their spouse's careers? And why is our press doing such a pathetic job that in all probability 95 percent of Americans don't even know that our Attorney General says we have no rights to habeas corpus?
As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Number 8:
"The violent destruction of life and property incident to war; the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty, to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they, at length, become willing to run the risk of being less free."
We must not make the mistake that Jefferson and Hamilton warned us against. We must not remain silent, like Khrushchev's people did. We must speak out.
Contact your U.S. Senators and members of the House of Representatives (the Capitol's phone number is 202 225-3121) and tell them to stop this assault on eight hundred years of legal precedent by repealing the Military Commissions Act and thus restore the most fundamentally American human right of habeas corpus.
Thom Hartmann is a three-time Project Censored Award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of nineteen books and, for the past four years, the host of a nationally syndicated noon-3 PM ET daily progressive talk show which will, starting on February 19th, replace the Al Franken show on Air America Radio radio stations from coast-to-coast and on Sirius Satellite Radio. His website is at www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "What Would Jefferson Do? A Return To Democracy" and Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It.
Friday, February 16, 2007
God and the Military Commissions Act
Hello All: I ask that you please not disregard this communication.
Many of us claim to be Christians or believers in God or a higher power. Now, it is time for us to put our money where our mouths are. We have stood long enough for an administration (monarchy) that rules through fear of "its subjects." It is now the moment for "WE THE PEOPLE" to let our voices be heard before we have given away all of the God-given rights that the founders of this country worked so hard ensure we had knowledge of.
So, then, what do our beliefs have to do with this? Everything. If we claim to have faith in an all-powerful God, then we simply cannot accept the fear-based reactions of our country and this administration to the terrorists - who, by the way, are getting exactly what they wanted. If we claim to live within the unfailing Love and Peace of God, then we are hypocrites if we are then afraid for our earthly lives to the point that we would punish others - even sacrificing many innocent others - simply to protect these bodies. This is exactly what we as a nation are agreeing to by silently allowing the Military Commissions Act to remain a law (see below).
Nobody would agree with you faster that what we see in this world is horrific. Just earlier this week, a gunman entered a Salt Lake City, Utah mall and opened fire, killing and injuring innocent by-standers. God is asking us with each incident such as this - with each brutal terrorist attack: "What will you choose now? Will you choose more death and destruction? Or will you choose Me and My Love?" My friends, we have been choosing the former much more often than the latter, which accounts directly - DIRECTLY - for the horrific violence, fear, and lack of compassion we see every which way we turn. Through our desire to exact revenge on or to become afraid of or even to ignore those who move through this world spreading their fear and darkness wherever they go, we have created this life of misery and pain.
Yet, we still sit idly by (some of us are even waiting for God to save us; here's a revelation: She won't save us. God waits for us to choose. God gives us what we choose for ourselves. This is what Free Will is all about, and the sooner we wake up to this, the sooner we will stop waiting for someone or something to save us and the sooner we will decide to save ourselves) while this administration laughs at having us right where it wants us to feed the power trip of its leader - George W. Bush - and his crony corporations (which by the way love the violence and hatred - love having us believing it's an us against them world). With our apathy, we have created ignorance, and our ignorance has allowed us to be bamboozled.
This administration, and many Americans - like the terrorists who commit such heinous acts of violence -live with the most selfish of fears. These fears have been perpetrated and spread to the extent that we are now willing to give up our God-given rights to make even the simplest statement of disagreement with those we elected to serve US. We can actually be imprisoned if the President deems us to be a threat (for whatever reason he or she chooses) without any of the protections of Habeus Corpus that our intelligent founders were careful enough to document in our Constitution.
Of course, we will first start using this against the Muslims who live in America because we are certain they all want us gentle, white Americans dead, but I can assure you that when it comes to feeding the incessant need for power exhibited by the grotesque violations of the constitution perpetrated by this "leader" (and future presidents and administrations to come) it will not stop there. Before long, even one of us could wind up accused, arrested, and locked away without any recourse simply for believing something contradictory to our dictator. You have to make it this real for yourself in order to begin to comprehend the implications of this. Why should even one person have to be sacrificed to our boiling fear? And who are we to decide who must be sacrificed?
Thus, we come back to God or the Source or Christ, or whatever you experience in your personal spiritual experience. Love (which I think we can all agree is what God Is) would never and can never submit to fear. Love would never and can never agree to do anything or obtain anything (such as security) at the expense of another human being or living thing. Make no mistake about it: We are being given a choice right now that will direct the future course of humanity, a choice that will decide whether we move upward and onward as a species or whether we stagnate and cease to exist. Love will take us to higher and more wonderful expressions of ourselves and fear will end us. It is this simple.
So, I hope now that you will get all the information you can about this fear-based law that we have submitted ourselves to. Then, I ask that you do your part to help the world choose Love. It does not take everyone to make a difference. Even a few of us (even one of us) can bring about great changes and correct injustices. Look at Christ, look at the Buddha, look at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., look at Martin Luther, look at Ghandi. These people have told us, "Look at me and see what YOU can do as well." Yet, these people, each person, made great changes in the world through Love. None of these men were violent. None of these men yelled at others or forced others to submit to their will. They simply said, "I have another way," and then gave us the chance to see Love in the way they offered.
Choose Love. Choose even to Love our oppressive, fearful president so that even he has the opportunity to choose Love once again. He is only afraid. We will not shout. We will not hate. We will not return the violence and injustice. And WE WILL NOT BOW DOWN TO FEAR. We will be persistent with our Love, knowing that the very moment in which we find ourselves is the moment in which we can turn everything completely around. We Are That Powerful When We Choose Love. But you have to try it to believe it. You must teach what you would learn, and now you have given yourself (with this very email) this opportunity to experience the truth of it for yourself.
Send a letter or call your respresentive in Congress, your Senator, and let them know that we choose another way besides fear to create and express our lives. Let them know that what we as a nation have made a new choice about the appropriate "reaction" to those who live in and perpetrate fear. Let them know that we choose Love and that we will prevail against those who hate only through unconditional acceptance and recognition of their dark, misguided presence, which will heal the world.
Thank you for your time and energy in this effort to free the world from fear.
Love,
Paul
P.S. See the letter from Thom Hartmann - an extraordinary man bringing his own energy of Love to our freedom quest - that first inspired this blog. He gives very specific information about this law as well as links to the specific wording of the law, and I saw no need to try to replicate it. My entry here is more of an impassioned plea for us to stop being satisfied with comfortably destroying our planet and species.
Many of us claim to be Christians or believers in God or a higher power. Now, it is time for us to put our money where our mouths are. We have stood long enough for an administration (monarchy) that rules through fear of "its subjects." It is now the moment for "WE THE PEOPLE" to let our voices be heard before we have given away all of the God-given rights that the founders of this country worked so hard ensure we had knowledge of.
So, then, what do our beliefs have to do with this? Everything. If we claim to have faith in an all-powerful God, then we simply cannot accept the fear-based reactions of our country and this administration to the terrorists - who, by the way, are getting exactly what they wanted. If we claim to live within the unfailing Love and Peace of God, then we are hypocrites if we are then afraid for our earthly lives to the point that we would punish others - even sacrificing many innocent others - simply to protect these bodies. This is exactly what we as a nation are agreeing to by silently allowing the Military Commissions Act to remain a law (see below).
Nobody would agree with you faster that what we see in this world is horrific. Just earlier this week, a gunman entered a Salt Lake City, Utah mall and opened fire, killing and injuring innocent by-standers. God is asking us with each incident such as this - with each brutal terrorist attack: "What will you choose now? Will you choose more death and destruction? Or will you choose Me and My Love?" My friends, we have been choosing the former much more often than the latter, which accounts directly - DIRECTLY - for the horrific violence, fear, and lack of compassion we see every which way we turn. Through our desire to exact revenge on or to become afraid of or even to ignore those who move through this world spreading their fear and darkness wherever they go, we have created this life of misery and pain.
Yet, we still sit idly by (some of us are even waiting for God to save us; here's a revelation: She won't save us. God waits for us to choose. God gives us what we choose for ourselves. This is what Free Will is all about, and the sooner we wake up to this, the sooner we will stop waiting for someone or something to save us and the sooner we will decide to save ourselves) while this administration laughs at having us right where it wants us to feed the power trip of its leader - George W. Bush - and his crony corporations (which by the way love the violence and hatred - love having us believing it's an us against them world). With our apathy, we have created ignorance, and our ignorance has allowed us to be bamboozled.
This administration, and many Americans - like the terrorists who commit such heinous acts of violence -live with the most selfish of fears. These fears have been perpetrated and spread to the extent that we are now willing to give up our God-given rights to make even the simplest statement of disagreement with those we elected to serve US. We can actually be imprisoned if the President deems us to be a threat (for whatever reason he or she chooses) without any of the protections of Habeus Corpus that our intelligent founders were careful enough to document in our Constitution.
Of course, we will first start using this against the Muslims who live in America because we are certain they all want us gentle, white Americans dead, but I can assure you that when it comes to feeding the incessant need for power exhibited by the grotesque violations of the constitution perpetrated by this "leader" (and future presidents and administrations to come) it will not stop there. Before long, even one of us could wind up accused, arrested, and locked away without any recourse simply for believing something contradictory to our dictator. You have to make it this real for yourself in order to begin to comprehend the implications of this. Why should even one person have to be sacrificed to our boiling fear? And who are we to decide who must be sacrificed?
Thus, we come back to God or the Source or Christ, or whatever you experience in your personal spiritual experience. Love (which I think we can all agree is what God Is) would never and can never submit to fear. Love would never and can never agree to do anything or obtain anything (such as security) at the expense of another human being or living thing. Make no mistake about it: We are being given a choice right now that will direct the future course of humanity, a choice that will decide whether we move upward and onward as a species or whether we stagnate and cease to exist. Love will take us to higher and more wonderful expressions of ourselves and fear will end us. It is this simple.
So, I hope now that you will get all the information you can about this fear-based law that we have submitted ourselves to. Then, I ask that you do your part to help the world choose Love. It does not take everyone to make a difference. Even a few of us (even one of us) can bring about great changes and correct injustices. Look at Christ, look at the Buddha, look at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., look at Martin Luther, look at Ghandi. These people have told us, "Look at me and see what YOU can do as well." Yet, these people, each person, made great changes in the world through Love. None of these men were violent. None of these men yelled at others or forced others to submit to their will. They simply said, "I have another way," and then gave us the chance to see Love in the way they offered.
Choose Love. Choose even to Love our oppressive, fearful president so that even he has the opportunity to choose Love once again. He is only afraid. We will not shout. We will not hate. We will not return the violence and injustice. And WE WILL NOT BOW DOWN TO FEAR. We will be persistent with our Love, knowing that the very moment in which we find ourselves is the moment in which we can turn everything completely around. We Are That Powerful When We Choose Love. But you have to try it to believe it. You must teach what you would learn, and now you have given yourself (with this very email) this opportunity to experience the truth of it for yourself.
Send a letter or call your respresentive in Congress, your Senator, and let them know that we choose another way besides fear to create and express our lives. Let them know that what we as a nation have made a new choice about the appropriate "reaction" to those who live in and perpetrate fear. Let them know that we choose Love and that we will prevail against those who hate only through unconditional acceptance and recognition of their dark, misguided presence, which will heal the world.
Thank you for your time and energy in this effort to free the world from fear.
Love,
Paul
P.S. See the letter from Thom Hartmann - an extraordinary man bringing his own energy of Love to our freedom quest - that first inspired this blog. He gives very specific information about this law as well as links to the specific wording of the law, and I saw no need to try to replicate it. My entry here is more of an impassioned plea for us to stop being satisfied with comfortably destroying our planet and species.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Hey Man, Slow Down
I'm in Orlando right now. It seems every interstate has a 55 miles per hour speed limit here. I drive the 55 mph, and I am consistently rushed upon from behind by my fellow drivers and then rushed around by these same drivers as they continue on their way, unless, of course, they choose to teach me a lesson by riding inches from my rear bumper at this speed, which means any sudden brakage by me and I will be involved in a life-threatening wreck.
I'm back home in Salt Lake City right now. It seems every interstate has a 65 miles per hour speed limit here. I drive the 65 mph, and I am consistently rushed upon from behind by my fellow drivers and then rushed around by these same drivers as they continue on their way, unless, of course, they choose to teach me a lesson by riding inches from my rear bumper at this speed, which means any sudden brakage by me and I will be involved in a life-threatening wreck. My children are nestled in the backseat oblivious to how close to death they sit in this moment. Yet, they soon find out as they are rushed away from their forms in the instant the speeding van collides into our small hatchback "trunk." At least they've now been schooled in the art of senseless brutality. Is it possible to cry yourself to sleep for the next 40 years of your life? Maybe I should contact the Guiness Book of World Records as I'm well on my way to reaching that milestone.
I am travelling on the Native American turnpike in Oklahoma on my way to Texas right now. It seems this road has an 80 miles per hour speed limit here. I drive the 80 mph, and I am consistently rushed upon from behind by my fellow drivers and then rushed around by these same drivers as they continue on their way, unless, of course, they choose to teach me a lesson by riding inches from my rear bumper at this speed, which means any sudden brakage by me and I will be involved in a life-threatening wreck. I take comfort as I breathe my last breath from this accident in the fact that I have learned my lesson: don't drive the speed limit in a world of unconsciousness.
I am at work right now and my fellow co-workers and human beings are fluttering about - to and fro - rushing to retrieve files, flying around cubicle corners on their ways to forgetting what they are on their ways to getting, typing themselves hurriedly into dark and eerie carpal tunnels. I walk in slow motion through the chaos around me, and I am summoned into the corporate courtroom office to be judged for my disloyalty to company priorities and fired for demonstrating a lack of ambition. I am told that, if I only looked around me more often and observed and mimicked and copied and imitated the fearful scrambling in circles exhibited by the best, most kiss-ass boss's bitches working for the company, I had the potential to be one of the superstars in the biz, the industry, the economic machine that powers the country. Now, the company founders turn their eyes away when they see my bearded form living vagrantly on the cold, winter streets of Utah.
I am waking up right now. There are a million things to accomplish this day and in the many days that are guaranteed to come, and I know that in order to even have the slightest chance to get it all done and experience the pleasurable relief of ending this struggle to survive just this day, then I have to speed through each moment unaware of all that the moment holds because it holds nothing that can alleviate my fears of being left behind by all of life. I wake my daughter, I give her an ulcer from pushing her quite literally in the middle of her back from one task to the next as she readies for school. I tell her to go potty, get her clothes on, eat breakfast - faster Faster FASTER! WE ARE OUT OF TIME! WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR SCHOOL AND WORK! It's not possible that she's choking on her Cheerios right now as I rush to save her from entering into the quiet calm of the soul so that she can live and die longer in a mad world full of stark-raving lunatics running on their way to nowhere. For just a second, the most frightening idea I have ever had towers over my mind: perhaps it would be better for her to leave this all behind. Leave behind the incompetence of a father who cannot comprehend the damage he does each time he stressfully declares, "We've got to go, we're running behind!" Maybe I would have been better off had some such appropriate-to-the-situation fate befallen me when my own father was rushing me off to the next....
What? I'm not sure, but I am certain that if I don't get to whatever and whereever it is at the optimal speed possible, then I will not be worthy of whatever pleasure awaits me there. Ah, yes, I remember, it is the pleasure of having this anxious monkey pried off my back so that a larger, more ferocious gorilla can be sat upon me in its place as I scurry off under attack to the next destination that promises still fiercer demons of despair.
I am on vacation right now, but I must not take the time to stare at the sky or notice the sound of the smooth flow of the river down the mountainside as I walk up the mountainside because the goal is to get on top and then tumble back down so I can bumble determinedly to the next amusement part or even mountain and see less but do more in order to have more stories to tell more people who don't even care because they have their own adventures to fly through and past in the blink of an eye so that I can experience that I am someone who has a life.
Here I sit across from you at some restaurant, and I have absolutely nothing to say to you. Apparently, you too are at a loss for words, but I promise to you right now that my thoughts are moving at break-neck speeds, bumping and colliding into one another, debunking the debunkings of the debunked ideas of what I can say to you to make this frightening silence end. All these constructions of the racing mind tumble at the slightest wind of doubt expressed by the architect of such airy designs. Predictably, I die as you never call me again, and I search in futility for the boring self engulfed by your rejection. He is, after all, all I know.
Did you ever wonder what we are all rushing so fiercely toward? Then, my friend, that is a start. However, the further you explore this doubt in the intelligence of such a behavior, the more you find that it is a mistaken question. The question that allows you to receive real, enlightening answers is, "What are we all rushing so fiercly from?" For any momentary observation of it all clearly reveals that we are all rushing toward nothing except an illusion of relief from the current mental state that has us rushing. Thus, we have to dig deeper to the cause of the rushing to begin with. The cause is not getting to the meeting on time or knowing that one might miss his/her flight, or even that one must keep up with the Wilderses. Did you ever notice that you drive much too fast and scramble around much too frantically even when nothing in particular is going on, even when you do not have a "time-limit" on when you arrive or what you accomplish? You see, my friend, the cause of our collective rushing to the grave is never, ever any outside circumstance or event or situation.
Ralph Ellison said in his extraordinary novel, Invisible Man, "Keep this nigger boy running." The narrator of this book, who was haunted by dreams in which his grandfather gave him an endless succession of enveloped correspondence that opened to reveal this quotation, and one suspects Ellison himself, experienced firsthand the pain and suffering, the bumps, bruises, and breaks, the utter discombobulation that is inherent in this lifestyle so cherished by our culture. This nameless protagonist, in his earnestness, does not realize what a fool he makes of himself - not that others make of him by expecting him to live up to their expectations of him - until he stops this incessant running. We have all created fools of ourselves.
Yet, this is not a criticism or judgment. It is an observation of a man who has himself been the idiot puppet of the collective insanity of anxiety that is bred at birth into us all, and who is now, in each moment, making a conscious effort to "stop and smell the roses." Yet, before I could allow myself to do this, I had to challenge the greatest lie of my ego; I had to doubt that it was others (who did indeed teach me this very unnatural behavior) who were making me into a psychotic masterpiece of deceptive mind; I had to question the impulse to want to run into and through any driver who dared to drive too slow when I was late for whatever future happening that was clearly more important than their right to live; in short, I had to dare to be haunted by this profound question:
From what am I rushing so desperately?
Can you ask yourself this question the next time you find yourself in the midst of some speed-demon hell in which Life Itself is quite secondary to this incessant desire to get away from the present moment?
Of course you can.
The real question (we must always dig ever deeper for the real question) is
Will you?
I'm back home in Salt Lake City right now. It seems every interstate has a 65 miles per hour speed limit here. I drive the 65 mph, and I am consistently rushed upon from behind by my fellow drivers and then rushed around by these same drivers as they continue on their way, unless, of course, they choose to teach me a lesson by riding inches from my rear bumper at this speed, which means any sudden brakage by me and I will be involved in a life-threatening wreck. My children are nestled in the backseat oblivious to how close to death they sit in this moment. Yet, they soon find out as they are rushed away from their forms in the instant the speeding van collides into our small hatchback "trunk." At least they've now been schooled in the art of senseless brutality. Is it possible to cry yourself to sleep for the next 40 years of your life? Maybe I should contact the Guiness Book of World Records as I'm well on my way to reaching that milestone.
I am travelling on the Native American turnpike in Oklahoma on my way to Texas right now. It seems this road has an 80 miles per hour speed limit here. I drive the 80 mph, and I am consistently rushed upon from behind by my fellow drivers and then rushed around by these same drivers as they continue on their way, unless, of course, they choose to teach me a lesson by riding inches from my rear bumper at this speed, which means any sudden brakage by me and I will be involved in a life-threatening wreck. I take comfort as I breathe my last breath from this accident in the fact that I have learned my lesson: don't drive the speed limit in a world of unconsciousness.
I am at work right now and my fellow co-workers and human beings are fluttering about - to and fro - rushing to retrieve files, flying around cubicle corners on their ways to forgetting what they are on their ways to getting, typing themselves hurriedly into dark and eerie carpal tunnels. I walk in slow motion through the chaos around me, and I am summoned into the corporate courtroom office to be judged for my disloyalty to company priorities and fired for demonstrating a lack of ambition. I am told that, if I only looked around me more often and observed and mimicked and copied and imitated the fearful scrambling in circles exhibited by the best, most kiss-ass boss's bitches working for the company, I had the potential to be one of the superstars in the biz, the industry, the economic machine that powers the country. Now, the company founders turn their eyes away when they see my bearded form living vagrantly on the cold, winter streets of Utah.
I am waking up right now. There are a million things to accomplish this day and in the many days that are guaranteed to come, and I know that in order to even have the slightest chance to get it all done and experience the pleasurable relief of ending this struggle to survive just this day, then I have to speed through each moment unaware of all that the moment holds because it holds nothing that can alleviate my fears of being left behind by all of life. I wake my daughter, I give her an ulcer from pushing her quite literally in the middle of her back from one task to the next as she readies for school. I tell her to go potty, get her clothes on, eat breakfast - faster Faster FASTER! WE ARE OUT OF TIME! WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR SCHOOL AND WORK! It's not possible that she's choking on her Cheerios right now as I rush to save her from entering into the quiet calm of the soul so that she can live and die longer in a mad world full of stark-raving lunatics running on their way to nowhere. For just a second, the most frightening idea I have ever had towers over my mind: perhaps it would be better for her to leave this all behind. Leave behind the incompetence of a father who cannot comprehend the damage he does each time he stressfully declares, "We've got to go, we're running behind!" Maybe I would have been better off had some such appropriate-to-the-situation fate befallen me when my own father was rushing me off to the next....
What? I'm not sure, but I am certain that if I don't get to whatever and whereever it is at the optimal speed possible, then I will not be worthy of whatever pleasure awaits me there. Ah, yes, I remember, it is the pleasure of having this anxious monkey pried off my back so that a larger, more ferocious gorilla can be sat upon me in its place as I scurry off under attack to the next destination that promises still fiercer demons of despair.
I am on vacation right now, but I must not take the time to stare at the sky or notice the sound of the smooth flow of the river down the mountainside as I walk up the mountainside because the goal is to get on top and then tumble back down so I can bumble determinedly to the next amusement part or even mountain and see less but do more in order to have more stories to tell more people who don't even care because they have their own adventures to fly through and past in the blink of an eye so that I can experience that I am someone who has a life.
Here I sit across from you at some restaurant, and I have absolutely nothing to say to you. Apparently, you too are at a loss for words, but I promise to you right now that my thoughts are moving at break-neck speeds, bumping and colliding into one another, debunking the debunkings of the debunked ideas of what I can say to you to make this frightening silence end. All these constructions of the racing mind tumble at the slightest wind of doubt expressed by the architect of such airy designs. Predictably, I die as you never call me again, and I search in futility for the boring self engulfed by your rejection. He is, after all, all I know.
Did you ever wonder what we are all rushing so fiercely toward? Then, my friend, that is a start. However, the further you explore this doubt in the intelligence of such a behavior, the more you find that it is a mistaken question. The question that allows you to receive real, enlightening answers is, "What are we all rushing so fiercly from?" For any momentary observation of it all clearly reveals that we are all rushing toward nothing except an illusion of relief from the current mental state that has us rushing. Thus, we have to dig deeper to the cause of the rushing to begin with. The cause is not getting to the meeting on time or knowing that one might miss his/her flight, or even that one must keep up with the Wilderses. Did you ever notice that you drive much too fast and scramble around much too frantically even when nothing in particular is going on, even when you do not have a "time-limit" on when you arrive or what you accomplish? You see, my friend, the cause of our collective rushing to the grave is never, ever any outside circumstance or event or situation.
Ralph Ellison said in his extraordinary novel, Invisible Man, "Keep this nigger boy running." The narrator of this book, who was haunted by dreams in which his grandfather gave him an endless succession of enveloped correspondence that opened to reveal this quotation, and one suspects Ellison himself, experienced firsthand the pain and suffering, the bumps, bruises, and breaks, the utter discombobulation that is inherent in this lifestyle so cherished by our culture. This nameless protagonist, in his earnestness, does not realize what a fool he makes of himself - not that others make of him by expecting him to live up to their expectations of him - until he stops this incessant running. We have all created fools of ourselves.
Yet, this is not a criticism or judgment. It is an observation of a man who has himself been the idiot puppet of the collective insanity of anxiety that is bred at birth into us all, and who is now, in each moment, making a conscious effort to "stop and smell the roses." Yet, before I could allow myself to do this, I had to challenge the greatest lie of my ego; I had to doubt that it was others (who did indeed teach me this very unnatural behavior) who were making me into a psychotic masterpiece of deceptive mind; I had to question the impulse to want to run into and through any driver who dared to drive too slow when I was late for whatever future happening that was clearly more important than their right to live; in short, I had to dare to be haunted by this profound question:
From what am I rushing so desperately?
Can you ask yourself this question the next time you find yourself in the midst of some speed-demon hell in which Life Itself is quite secondary to this incessant desire to get away from the present moment?
Of course you can.
The real question (we must always dig ever deeper for the real question) is
Will you?
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