Responsibilities of Caring, Loving People

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Can we truly claim to be caring, loving people--the people of Love and compassion-- if we play "ostrich," and bury our collective head in the sand?

No way! It is our responsibility to discuss events and situations wherever and whenever people are being hurt, neglected, or murdered. But what if these actions are "political"? That changes absolutely nothing. Let us not be frightened by words.

Any issue that affects people, and other living things, is an issue of spirituality (Love). Love is interwoven with, and inextricable from, many "political" issues that are moral or ethical. It would be unloving, and thus, antispiritual, to say that an important event or issue is "political," and hence, to imply that it is somehow "outside" of spirituality. For spirituality is life, and everything in life, that has to do with justice, fairness, the poor, society, the nation, and the
world.

So, when a compassionate person sees the betrayal of people, the abandonment of Love, she is called by Love to expose that ignorance. Loving and conscientious people all throughout history have spoken against tyrants, warmongers, greedmongers, and other corrupt types, especially those in power.

Jesus said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, but give God's things to God." One thing that we correctly owe to the gov is our voice, our opinion. Another is a repeated demand for justice, fairness, and "morality"-- a word that means "goodness."

So, in these pages, we have dissolved the artificial line between life and spirituality, between the government and everyday life of the people. Why? Because Love has demanded that we do so. Love has forced social, and political, commentary. To ignore the call of Love is unthinkable, and to respond inevitable. So, in issues of the uld to come, we will follow the Way of Love into social or political commentary when necessary, or wherever else it leads.

We will also be using pieces written by people more expert than ourselves. The following, for example, is a small article by Chris Floyd, forwarded by our hyperactive friend Mick Gallagher:

The problem we face is bigger than this maladministration. It is the war by the wealthy elite [against] the entire concept of the "common good" and public institutions.

But as culpable, criminal, and loathsome as the Bush Administration is, it is only the apotheosis of an overarching trend in American society. It has been gathering force for decades: the destruction of the idea of a common good, a public sector whose benefits and responsibilities are shared by all, and directed by the consent of the governed. For more than 30 years, the corporate Right has waged a relentless and highly focused campaign against the common good. It has sought to atomize individuals into isolated "consumer units." Their political energies have been kept deliberately underinformed by the ubiquitous corporate media. This is so that these energies can be diverted into emotionalized "hot button" issues (gay marriage, school prayer, intelligent design, flag burning, welfare queens, drugs, porn, abortion, teen sex, commie subversion, terrorist threats, etc.). These never threaten Big Money's bottom line.

Again deliberately, with smear, spin and sham, they have sought to poison the well of the democratic process. And they have succeeded. They have turned it into a tabloid melee where only "character counts." The rapacious policies of Big Money's bought-and-sold candidates are completely ignored. As Big Money solidified its ascendancy over government, pouring billions - over and under the table - into campaign coffers, politicians could ignore larger and larger swathes of the people. If you can't hook yourself up to a well-funded, coffer-filling interest group, if you can't hire a big-time Beltway player to lobby your cause and get you "a seat at the table," then your voice goes unheard. Your concerns are shunted aside. (This excludes a few cynical gestures around election-time, of course.) The poor, the sick, the weak, the vulnerable, have become invisible in the media. They are also invisible in the corporate boardroom, "at the table" of the power players in national, state and local governments. The increasingly marginalized and unstable middle class is also fading from the consciousness of the rulers, whose servicing of the elite gets more brazen and frantic all the time.

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"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell