January 23, 2002


Hell to Pay, a new Five Star Piece, may be too hot to handle, but I am a sizzly sort. I mostly stay away from conspiracy-tinged items. The probers who are in positions to discern the truth will do so – the Internet can't suppress that. I save my attention in this category for matters where I have personal knowledge. (I am dealing with my own little corner of suppression with what the government is doing to the crop circles, which I do try to do something about because I know the truth. Read the latest news about the government's shady dealings to discredit the startling developments this summer on my crop circle page. If you don't know anything about what happened this summer, start with the "contact" story.") However, Hell to Pay, by William Rivers Pitt, got me. I have this feeling that Enron will not be our Whitewater, as some think, but our Watergate, as is suggested in this piece, which hits my jackpot in laying out a possible path to Bush's demise. If anyone wants to scream in protest, email me and I'll be all ears for where I may have gone too far.

But do wait until you read another new starring piece, Crime in the Suites, by William Greider. Of all the pieces written about Enron, I think this is the quintessential one that explains what happened. You will come away with an education about the corruption inherent in our market economy, which creates the climate in which terrorism flourishes.

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind, however, about the content of a brilliant history lesson in another Five Star Piece we've recently posted, Muslims and the West After September 11, by Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor in Islamabad. It is nuanced thinking that we desperately need to grapple realistically with the complex realities of our day. It argues that terrorism cannot be resolved simply through military domination, but that a critical re-examination of US imperial arrogance and Islamic religious fanaticism is imperative if the roots of terrorism are to be fully understood and an imminent "Century of Terror" to be avoided. It's conclusion – that the way to go is neither related to religion or to nationalism, but to coming out of belief systems and into "principles of logic and reason" – is consonant with my advocacy, where I'm inviting a wisdom council to consider the work of Joe Simonetta. The conversation with him continues to be lively as we circulate his book, Seven Words That Can Change the World, as fodder for exploring the nature of reality and what it is to be human. My thinking is that when you get some number of highly evolved people to be in alignment around a new idea, you can change the world – we need a new organizing idea, and this conversation could be a place to arrive at such a thing.

See what we've archived of our Featured Columnists between our last update and this one – Geov talking about the time bomb of the inequity between the rich and the poor, as illustrated in how we're dealing with the situation in Argentina; about the domino effect that may bring the world down if, in a policy of conquest, we invade Iraq; about how corporate favoritism is bleeding the world; and Arianna digging into the underbelly of business as usual, when usual gave rise to the mess we are in.

And have a look at our most recent quotes, for more of "the best of Enron," which spotlights this administration's unpropitious ideology of crony capitalism and world domination. This, plus the other subject you'll find in the quotes, of our disregard for civil liberties, illustrates how the government is undermining the basic values America rests on.

Also, there's new material that's been added to all but the second of our Current Conversation Topics, which are among the most interesting pages on the site. Love to hear what anyone else might want to chime in with.

On a personal note, useful to any readers with small children, one of my smart daughters, clinical psychologist Dr. Dana Chidekel, has just written her first book, Parents in Charge. After her appearance on the Today Show, on January 17, Amazon ran out of books, as she went from a 200,000 ranking in their hourly computed sales statistics, to number 3. And Today wants her to come back as a regular!!!



December 30, 2001

We seem to have fallen back into old patterns, shopping quite comfortably (see Arianna Huffington for the "fly for our country" aspect of this) as our partisan government returns to its familiar ways (Arianna gives us a good look at the spin we are in with A Child Left Behind). However, I can't stop being appalled at warring being ordinary boy games while people in an impoverished land die in droves (I bet you can't read our new five star piece, The Innocent Dead in a Coward's War, and not weep). And at no longer having some of our inalienable rights (see Geov Parrish re critics of our policies being branded unpatriotic, a new five star piece about how fascistic our American populace has become, and a couple of good pieces on this topic from which we've excerpted quotes on our December quotes page), not to mention the magnitude of the Enron debacle not diminishing Bush's unprecedented popularity. (Arianna has a say on Enron and Geov has a piece about the stranglehold of corporate power where drug company influence peddling could endanger us.)

NO!!!! That's what I say. We are in deep shit. This government only knows how to blast our enemies, but the ones we've got now NEVER will be eliminated that way. Not in "years." Not in "a very long time." NEVER.

Now what? We will not be safe unless we address what else we possibly could do. Car bombs will become nuclear blasts and Agent Orange will become smallpox – GUARANTEED – unless we do something that's different from what we are doing.

All I know is that you create reality by consensus. Something new could spark even by your responding to me here. Just say yes to saying NO. Put your name in the pot. That's something, not nothing. If you have ideas for anything outside the incendiary box we live in, express them. Somehow, some way, we can change reality.

I have not written this with an agenda, but getting something from Joe Firmage in my email which offers something radical enough to actually change everything is what prompted me to go from internal seething into writing this.

That email concerns the UFO situation, something about which I know no more than others who wonder what the truth could be, who are certain that the public is not being told what our government knows. That takes no more than the awareness that the government not long ago attempted to put 50 years of curiosity to rest, telling us that what crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, was not an alien craft, but a weather balloon – only those balloons were not developed till some years after 1947. Start from there. Then have a look at what Joe Firmage is telling us about UFOs and the National Security State, a new book by Richard Dolan.

I haven't read this "exhaustive and ruggedly-balanced overview," which Joe says gives a "phenomenal elucidation of the import and context of the modern UFO drama," and I don't intend to, even though he says, "It is a book that every student of science, government, philosophy and history must read." I'm not going to read it because he's read it, and from his reading he convinces me that my answer is NOW to his question, "When will we band together, demanding relief of security oaths for those with first-hand knowledge to testify in open hearings before the United States Congress and the people of Earth?"

Joe writes, "If you take the time to absorb Dolan's exhaustive and ruggedly-balanced overview, you may find yourself seriously considering three conclusions I now hold: (1) we are not alone in the Cosmos, (2) an incredible chapter in the book of Nature is sealed from public view, and (3) the community of science may be the only force on Earth strong enough to unlock that seal...and wise enough to know how to do so."

Of the "40 Questions for Scientists Who Care About Truth," that are in Joe's email, I was particularly struck by these 3, which deal with salvation from the environmental disasters that were lapping at our heels before 9/11, and with the ESSENCE OF OUR SALVATION coming from the awareness of what is beyond the narrow scope in which we have guns trained on one another:

25. If the music industry can align all powers in its possession to obliterate Napster's liberation of songs, what might vastly larger interests have done with energy and propulsion technology that would liberate electricity and transportation...and global politics?

26. How might human civilization have evolved if Faraday's discovery of the principle of induction was made not in the public domain, but in a secured facility, deemed a 'national security threat' by virtue of its power to revolutionize steam locomotion and oil-based lighting infrastructure, and kept secret for half a century?"

30. Do you believe that the revelation of past contact with extraterrestrial life forms could profoundly transform our world for the better, giving us all an inspiring, unifying perspective of the grandeur of the Cosmos from which we spring, and pointing to new technologies that could dramatically reduce humanity's environmental footprint on Nature?"

I think that such a revelation, which I have seen coming most readily from humanity opening its eyes to the crop circle phenomenon, is indeed the greatest hope for what could transform our world. (See a new interview with documentary filmmaker, William Gazecki, who, with my participation, is making the first major film about the circles.)

For another revelation of sorts, THE MOST CHANGEFUL THING I've seen in a very long time is a paradigm busting small book written by Joe Simonetta, with whom I'm having a conversation. To cut to the chase, get on the Amazon site for Seven Words That Can Change The World, where I've written one of the reviews.

And a blessing to help us see through the haze of all the complexity in which we are mired and to get a clear bead on vital actions our government could and should be taking, see the best compilation I've come across: Seven Keys to a Safer Nation, from the Center for the Advancement of Nonviolence.





December 7, 2001

I went to a town meeting last night, produced by Students in Search of Peace, at Crossroads High School, in Los Angeles, where there was an illustrious panel of well-informed progressives who are in the media as producers and writers. What I came away with was the inside story that no progressives know what to do, nor is there uniformity in the government camp – everyone is shaking and quaking, as opposed to what happened during Viet Nam, where a divided America was solidly in two camps. We are all in the soup, and, although no one on the panel gave anything like a green light to what the government is doing, with all decrying the policies of the political elite that have heretofore so under-served us (see some quotes about Enron) and a government that had its head in the sand about terrorism, there was more scrappiness than uniformity amongst them about what to do now. But, as Arianna Huffington, whom we've just added to this site as a featured columnist, said, in the face of the over-arching agreement on the panel about the misguidedness of our politicos, "Let those in Washington govern; let the people lead." It is up to "us" in terms of coming up with what's better than what we've got, and how to do that is our challenge. This site is one attempt to weave the new world – as in the verse by Edna St. Vincent Millay that heads our Five Star Pieces page, "Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill... Is daily spun, but there exists no loom...To weave it into fabric..." Please look at the conversation topics here for an opportunity to cross connect with the smart people who are posted here and with others who have responded to them. If you have any thoughts about how to "let the people lead," the conversation headed Figuring Out the New Way Together would be a good place to share them.

What's becoming THE story these days, when we are not having to pick ourselves up off the floor from civilian bombardment, is how we don't need an enemy to destroy us – at the current rate of the Bush regime's violation of the fundamental tenets of democracy, we are so much as destroying ourselves – see our new five star piece by Martin Lee. Also, see a new "Featured Conversation" with Mario Martinez, which arose from what he said on our Quotes page, for something to calm the souls of those who abhor violence at the same time as they employ it in self defense.





December 2, 2001

If I wasn't in total terror before, I am now, after reading a report by Jerry White that you won't see in our media about the slaughter of Taliban prisoners that is happening with our participation, our blessing, and our encouragement. How far into hell can we go and not expect to burn ourselves? The other thing I saw today that disgusted me was a report in the Los Angeles Times on an Afghan refugee camp, where conditions are worse than they were in German concentration camps, which, on page three, is juxtaposed to ads for luxury items at the most expensive stores in Beverly Hills that fill page two. What has happened to this country after the magnificent heroic response of its citizens to the tragedy that befell us, as this bogus government moves ruthlessly to serve the interests of its fattest cats? We wave our flags to cheer our great military victories, but anyone with a discerning eye can see that it is democracy that is being defeated.

In stark contrast to how I felt about the above is the profound wisdom I received, from a Buddhist perspective, that could turn everything around. We've had two five star pieces up for awhile, by David Loy and Thich Nhat Hanh, and I just added something new from Thich Nhat Hanh. It makes such a cogent case for understanding being what's required for peace to emerge, that I actually could envision Bush reading it and getting it.

Another thing that gives me solace is the crop circle phenomenon, which I think is the single situation which could shift the consciousness of all of humanity. I've added a good rundown on how to access information about it in the addition to the conversation with David Loy that I've just posted.