Helen Thomas Stands up to Power

Helen Thomas stands up to power and confronts Bushniks about torture! More power to Helen!

A thinking reporter asking independent questions... how refreshing. But where are the rest?

The problem is that our media are run by the corporate entities that own them. Open worldwide communication is our ally in all that we wish to change and accomplish. Economics and the protection of bottom-line profits rule global economics and governments around the world. Media around the world are owned by the same mega-entities that push the global economic agenda.

Conflict of interest?

Awareness and communication can change the world. The fight for independent media is worth every moment of the effort. And the establishment of alternative forms of open global communication is our most powerful tool to prevent complete shroud.

Tibet as World Heritage

Tibet, the people of Tibet, the culture of Tibet, the Buddhism of Tibet, the mountains of Tibet and the waters of Tibet are heritage for the World. For over 1000 years the Tibetans studied Mind and took that study of people and our interactions in the world farther and higher than every done in the history of humankind. When the Chinese invaded Tibet and began to destroy the monasteries and Tibetan knowledge and culture they had no idea what they were doing. They were blinded by the ideals of their Cultural Revolution.

From information that has come to light, now Tibet is stuck between the struggling powers of the world. As with the U.S. plan to stop any potential enemy from controlling oil resources (witness Iraq), so Tibet is involved in the struggle for water and mineral resources. This is not simply a fight over the land mass of Tibet. It surely is not a fight for the hearts and minds of the Tibetan people, as China is attempting to overrun the population and culture with immigrants and Chinese traditions. China would like to see the Tibetans disappear. They are systematically practicing genocide. No this is a fight for the roof of the world!

The water resources of Tibet are the greatest in the world. Tibet is the headwaters of most of the major rivers of Asia. These rivers supply water to more than 1/2 the people of Asia, which is approximately 1/3 of the world population. This may be the biggest reason that China holds so strongly to Tibet. Knowledgeable organizations and individuals predict that water will be the forefront of our global wars over the coming decades (and perhaps centuries).

And power thinks forward. That is how power retains and expands power. That is the reason for the iron hand of China and the desire of the U.S. to wrest power from that hand. Tibetans should hold fast to the power of their roots, Buddhism… and use its power to recover their land and culture. Buddhism does not advocate surrender. The holy home must be protected! Siding with any enemy will create enemies within.

Tibet is a great opportunity for the human race to come together and begin to create a positive future. By recognizing the value of the Tibetans, their culture and the waters at the roof of the world (and water connects all humanity and all life on the planet), we can make a giant step in this direction. To this end, we should propose to create a new World Heritage Site.

The Tibetan protests must continue but China will never willingly hand these resources to any potential adversary. The world must join the Tibetan protests and encourage China to take the lead in establishing a neutral World Heritage Site in the disputed territory… a place where the culture and studies of Tibet can flourish and a place where the water resources are protected for humanity and shared by the people of Asia. In this way, China can mitigate some of its horrible actions toward the Tibetans and raise its world status. Our problems… and their solutions are global. We are all World Citizens.

Oil and Water

We can argue forever about which country or region is best suited to deal with the upcoming crises of water and oil. And we can also add in the impacts of climate change. Some will be better suited and others less suited. But regardless of who is in a better position to respond we will all be facing the same problems of war and destruction, fear and hate.

All of our wars through history have been fought over territory and resources, whether those resources are oil, metals, minds or bodies. Global economics push our governments and our politics to follow in directions that support the entities in their pursuit of resources and territory, which directly translates to money and power. We can continue this game or we can radically examine the playing field upon which we find ourselves.

There are plenty of all of our resources to go around if we use the resources sanely and conservatively. The problem lies in the continual push for greater and greater consumption of resources, which is continually and vehemently encouraged by the economic system that is ruling (and has ruled) the world. We are constantly encouraged and driven to buy more and more and use more and more so that the economic giants can make increasing profits. Our governments are obsessed with GNP and the economic milieu forces those in business to always expand.

In these ways we are on a path to disaster because the economic entities will push on and on until there are no more profits to be made at which point there will be little left for any of us to use for survival.

Our problems and their solutions are global and for us to address the upcoming crises with oil and water and climate and population and disease we must deal with these issues as a connected world. Otherwise we will keep repeating the same mistakes over and over... whether exactly the same or as rhymes of our previous failures.

We can have enough food and enough water and enough energy if we change our thinking from expansion to comfortable management. We can satisfy many of these needs on local and regional bases and conserve time and energy. And to boot we can begin to rebuild local flavor and culture.

Not that isolationism will help us at all. For us to act as a race we must communicate as a race and our global communications can do that for us. We are all World Citizens first and foremost. When we communicate globally we can recognize and address our global needs and wants. By looking carefully at our histories and working to change that past through our present purposefully redemptive actions we can make a future that is bright for all of us.

Call me a dreamer. But it is only by dreaming and pulling ourselves up to our dreams that we can move beyond the status quo... which is getting bleaker with each passing year.

Food Power

Food prices and food scarcity are global problems like over-population, infectious diseases, climate change, air and water pollution, mega-corporations and WAR. We will continue to be plagued with these problems until we begin to think like a globally-connected race and start working together globally to solve our global problems. These problems will continually re-emerge in different areas with increasing intensity. Welcome to the 21st Century!

Economics driven by bottom-line decisions aimed at making short term profits without looking at long-term solutions control governments and rules the world. This is not the forum to solve global long-term problems. Only by open worldwide communication and the refusal of us all to support the mega-entities that control the world can we begin to think like World Citizens and work together on world problems.

While people around the world suffer with food shortages and high food costs there are the elite few who are grinning wildly and soaking up massive power and profits for themselves. Our global economics control governments and government policy around the world. And the global economy is controlled by mega-corporations. And the mega-corporations are run strictly on bottom line logic with no appreciation, consideration or support for long-term sustainability. That is a fact driven by the desires of corporate officers, corporate boards and stockholder investors. Make money. The other aspect of their management decisions is to create a sustained and growing consumer base to buy their goods (whether it is good for the consumer or not).

However in our globally connected world, these decisions affect every person on the planet. Locally produced and controlled goods and services are anathema to the corporate goals. Thus around the world, the World Bank, WTO and other industry driven entities work very hard to break local markets and force people and countries into the global bottom-line driven economy.

And these entities will never willingly give up their power and stranglehold. The only way that we the people of Earth will break this system is for all of us to dedicate our dollars and minds to local sustainable non-corporate food alternatives as much as we possibly can. Even if local prices are higher, we will all save in the long-run. Wal-Mart ‘lowest price policy’ eventually leads to ‘only price policy’. If we don’t return to local focus, we will lose our options and choices and ultimately our freedom. Food is one of our most basic needs. Control of food is control of life. Making responsible decisions for our food is our best approach to break this oppressive history. And awareness cultured by way of global communication is our strongest ally.

The Violence of Words

Violence in the world is natural. There is no escaping that fact. Humans however, take it to a new level. I think that the difference is the tendency of humans to group together and to identify real and potential enemies of the group as ‘bad or evil’. The wolf kills the sheep, but in reality the wolf loves sheep. She wants sheep to continue to populate the land. But in human malignant violence, we often identify the entire other group as enemy and seek their destruction. The group may be another nation, race, religion or even sexual orientation.

And I believe strongly that we are not fixed. We are continually involved with the creation of ourselves and the world. That gives us great power and makes our actions that much more important. Awareness brings power and responsibility. So for us to be better people and make a better world, we must treasure our awareness and use it compassionately to better the world.

Language shapes our consciousness and can limit our capabilities. Connection with place is a very basic way of identifying with the world of which we are an intimate part. Sometimes living in bustling concrete can make us forget that we are part of place. We become so enamored with the things that we humans do and make that we forget our origins. I love place and thoroughly enjoy exploring and identifying with place. That is part of the wonder of travel.

I also feel strongly that the encapsulation of God or spiritual force in words is demeaning. It brings what is beyond what we are into our own frame of reference. And we are really simple creatures trying to grasp at the wonder of life and the world around us. And bringing down those concepts into our feeble word systems, simultaneously creates the notion of the opposite (satanic/evil) in our thinking. This simplistic dichotomy has been our bane throughout history.

We hold our entire history within and through our present actions create the future of the universe.

We are Nature

Human beings are part of nature. Many of our problems arise when we think of ourselves as not part of what is around us. But we are made of the same carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen as everything else and we continually exchange our molecules with all that is around. It is arrogance to think that we are apart of or different than our world. And part of the world is what we consider to be supernatural... but that just refers to something that we can't explain the why and wherefore.

Science is a collection of theories that attempt to, and appear to explain what is around us. But these theories can only see as far as the limits of the box in which they sit. They are bounded by the terms used, which are bounded by our understanding to put things in terms. Though they continually expand it is a never-ending process. We continually expand and rewrite our science.

There is nothing that is not natural. From Merriam Webster:

1 a: the inherent character or basic constitution of a person or thing : essence b: disposition, temperament2 a: a creative and controlling force in the universe

When an ape makes a tool it is natural. When we build bridges or fly airplanes we are simply using more advanced tools… though we are sometimes stupid enough to use our tools to destroy our home and lives.

Moral value at its most basic level arises out of survival. We learn to protect what is ours and close to us. We use concepts like, “Thou shall not kill, steal, or usurp”, looking at our behavior toward people. But the concept of ethics changes dramatically when we envision ourselves as an integral part of all that is around. When we come to see that everything that we do affects everything, and that we are part of that everything, ethics and morality rise to a new level.

We have enhanced awareness that allows us to see consequences far beyond what many other animals can comprehend, which makes our decisions much more difficult. We experience many things that cannot be described within the view of the world that we currently have. In this way all we can do is philosophize, nothing is absolutely certain and there is room for anything and everything.