The new economics - Post 3

We have turned our very persons into commodities: the accountant, the teacher, the mechanic, the doctor, the professional sports person, the lawyer, the CEO ... and so forth and so on ...

In a real sense we have stopped thinking of ourselves as human beings first: mother, father, lover, son, sibling, ... citizen, neighbor.

In so much of what we do we have internalized our obligation to enhance our own value as a commodity as much as possible. We have swallowed hook, line and sinker the concept that by giving ourselves the best shot at making the most money possible, we are choosing the best means of enhancing the common good. We select the "issues" and the "views" we will publicly support with a careful eye on their impact on our resume. God forbid that we would get arrested in a public demonstration! And dare we be seen at a protest rally ... about anything?

And how do we know if we have succeeded in maximizing our own value? By the wages package we "earn" as the market commodity we have converted ourselves into, of course.

In the process the whole endeavor has morphed into shortest, direct straight shot at getting the most money we can ... and skipping anything between that we can. Winning 100 milion or more in the lottery is the pinnacle of success.

And if we are going to apply ourselves at something, we justify it as a way to increase our earning power. Exercise, education, even repose and rest are not seen as enriching our lives as much as potentially enriching our wallets and purses. We even have the saying of the "trophy spouse" ... a relationship that is designed to make us better candidates for upward mobility in the wage ranks.

Need I tell you ... as the Biblical prophets told the Israelites ... that selling our birthright of humanity—the creative imagination to turn swords into plows, and selfishness into caring for others—will destroy us?

And that it takes generations—the sins of the fathers will be visited on his sons and his sons' sons (in the sexist language of the day)—to alter course?

And we have yet to experience the calamity that will get us to even think of changing course, let alone start the course correction?

The image is of driving full-speed off the cliff and not yet starting to fall ... in a state of denial.

It's time to impeach Bush/Cheney!

To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up [that which is] planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

KJV Ecclesiastes 3:1-3 from www.blueletterbible.org

It is time to impeach.

Vermont Votes to Impeach Bush/Cheney
By John Nicols, March 7, 2007, in The Nation

Here's the Middlebury, Vermont, resolution:

We the people have the power -- and the responsibility -- to remove executives who transgress not just the law, but the rule of law.

The oaths that the President and Vice President take binds them to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." The failure to do so forms a sound basis for articles of impeachment.

The President and Vice President have failed to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" in the following ways:

1. They have manipulated intelligence and misled the country to justify an immoral, unjust, and unnecessary preemptive war in Iraq.

2. They have directed the government to engage in domestic spying without warrants, in direct contravention of U.S. law.

3. They have conspired to commit the torture of prisoners, in violation of the Federal Torture Act and the Geneva Convention.

4. They have ordered the indefinite detention without legal counsel, without charges and without the opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention -- all in violation of U.S. law and the Bill of Rights.

When strong evidence exists of the most serious crimes, we must use impeachment -- or lose the ability of the legislative branch to compel the executive branch to obey the law.

George Bush has led our country to a constitutional crisis, and it is our responsibility to remove him from office.

Pass it on!

"Attacks on Iraq Shiite Pilgrims Continue" ... Dah!

Quoting Lauren Frayer's AP article, March 7, 2007, posted on www.huffingtonpost.com:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Attacks on Shiite pilgrims showed no sign of easing Wednesday with at least 11 people killed by bombs and gunfire as they streamed toward a Muslim shrine ahead of a weekend holiday.

The targeted violence came a day after two suicide bombers exploded themselves among pilgrims lining up at a checkpoint, killing at least 120 people and wounding about 190, police and hospital officials said.

My comment in response:

Our absurd leadership has once again altered the dynamics of the conflict without adequately preparing for the predictable results.

We do not have and never have had and now never will have enough boots on the ground to control the insurgency ... like not being able squeeze the entire balloon, so it pops out wherever there is a lack of pressure ...

So saying we are doing the best we can as people are being killed is absurd especially when what we have done and are still doing is creating the ground of the violence in which they are being killed.

And all this so some general (Petreus) can get his "battlefield command experience" and keep his career on track? 'Cuz if he told the truth--according to his own criteria for fighting an insurgency--and said, "Y'know, this ain't gonna work," he would be canned.

Bush, Cheney, & the Neocons aka The Theater of the Absurd

Quoting from Tom Friedman's column in today's—Wenesday, March 7—NY Times, titled, "Don't Ask, Don't Know, Don't Help", regarding scenes from our own Theater of the Absurd:

"Mr. Bush summoned the country to D-Day and prepared the Army, the military health system, military industries and the American people for the invasion of Grenada."

and ...

"In an interview last Jan. 16, Jim Lehrer asked President Bush why, if the war on terrorism was so overwhelmingly important, he had never asked more Americans 'to sacrifice something.' Mr. Bush gave the most unbelievable answer: 'Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night.'"

This ain't funny, folks. Our best and brightest working class youth are being devoured while the wealthy get tax breaks. Like the late Moll Ivins would ask, "How come we aren't in the streets at least making noise?!"

Libby found guilty!

Well, well, well ... now it's really going to get interesting ...

'Cuz the rule in the CYA crowd is that you start expecting to have your own ass protected when you cover the backside of the person ahead of you ... and Libby was good at his position in the daisy chain ...

So ... does he get a pardon? ... or ... does he out Cheney if he doesn't get a pardon?

I think he will hold strong, banking on the pardon. But I don't think the pardon is a sure thing ... Bush 43 has already started to put some distance between him (B43) and Cheney. This could allow B43 to start pinning the whole fiasco set on Cheney as the Darth Vader to the Emperor.

'Course Libby will stay out of jail on appeal ... so it will be awhile before the rubber hits the road ... but we have the elections of '08 coming up ... and something will have to be done to remove Libby as red meat ... so either the pardon will be done right away so it can get lost in all the other horror stories coming down the pike ... or it will have to wait for the twilight hours of the last day of B43's presidency and after the election ... but that's damn risky, 'cuz Libby will be hanging out there if he actually is out of prison ...

The gentlemanly thing for Libby to do would be to pop into prison sometime before the election and show he's a straight shooter for the boss (Cheney) and the Party ... thereby letting his negatives sorta die down ... then get his pardon for having served enough time.

'Course, I would love to see Libby rat out Cheney to avoid prison. Wouldn't that be fun?

Any way it goes, it's gonna be interesting ...

The new economics - Post 2

Today's—Tuesday, March 6, 2007—Star-Ledger carried an article by Amy Ellis Nutt, Star-Ledger staff, titled, "Study: Canned food has toxic chemical".

Here's the lead paragraphs:

"A plastic ingredient used to line many kinds of food and drink cans may be poisoning pregnant women and infants, according to study commissioned by an environmental advocacy organization.

"Cans of commonly eaten goods, such as soup, fruit, vegetables and soda, were found to contain more than 200 times the acceptable level of bisphenol-A, the study says. BPA is a plastic resin repeatedly linked to a host of health problems including breast and prostate cancer, infertility, diabetes, obesity and asthma."

This is how the so-called "free" market protects us by letting us pay the costs of the mistakes of those who gain the profits.

Why doesn't anyone or any entity have to prove the benign nature of the substances they introduce into our environment? Yes, I can understand the failures of past ignorance ... BUT we have known for some time that a wide array of substances can have harmful effects ... and we STILL have powerful folks trotting out the province of the Invisible Hand as the best caretaker of the common good.

Don't get me wrong, the market can exert a powerful influence for the common good ... but there is nothing absurd about setting rational rules to dampen its obvious harmful excesses. We can simply observe the differences between major league baseball and major league football to learn that concept. I mean George Steinbrenner and the Yankees are grotesque, don't you think?

Hillary, dillary ... is going down the drain

Hillary enlists Bill to try to halt her campaign from going down the proverbial tubes. It may get a blip, but it won't change the outcome ... and that's because Hillary has so many visceral negatives she never will be elected President ... and MOST real small "d" democrats know this.

The good ol' USA as the Theater of the Absurd

The USA as theater of the absurd ... where down is up ... the Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass effect.

The latest two examples are (1) sending properly trained and equipped troops is somehow NOT supporting the troops, and (2) the problems—in this case Building 18 at Walter Reed Hospital—the military faces are the result of the grunts as a few bad apples ... or the media not focusing on the positive issues of the day.

This is continuing evidence of the mantra that I best serve the common good by serving my own self-interest. You know, the world where the common good is guided by the Invisible Hand ...

Seems I remember an old story—one that the neocon idiots should be familiar with since it comes from the Old Testament—about the harm that is done by selling one's birthright (core values) for porridge (personal benefit).

"These people" at the top are tripping all over themselves to preserve their personal perks ...

The other iconic image of our generation is Thelma and Louise driving off the cliff ... with a little twist to the motivation, I can picture us having shot off the proverbial cliff ... and because we are still flying, we think we are doing great.

Maybe these grand leaders should study history. It ain't the working class that gets led to the guillotine when comes the revolution ... like when we crash.

Our biggest worry will be to avoid some fascist bastard promising to save us from ourselves.

Support the troops?

Is supporting the troops sending more bodies without body armor? Or sending them without reasonable training or rest before deployment? Or failing to provide adequate mentor support to our returning permanently wounded for navigating the bureaucratic minefield of separation from active duty to the care of the Veterans Administration?

What does "We support the troops" mean?

Does support the military mean stripping the National Guard of soldiers and equipment so we are more vulnerable here at home against any one of the many potential disasters we face? Or does it mean hiding the fact that we are now accepting less than the best and brightest—even by Army standards—into the ranks of those commanded to kill the enemy? Isn't THAT what is truly demeaning our soldiers?

What does "We support the military" mean?

Who now doubts that Bush 43 and Cheney are delusional? As I wrote previously:

If as President Bush said—clearly, by the way—"that Iraq is the central front in 'the decisive ideological struggle of our time,' " to quote Frank Rich in today's NY Times (OpEd, Sunday, December 14, 2007) ... then is "the surge" the last, best chance for victory in the Iraq?

The "decisive ideological struggle of our time" is being paid for with tax reductions for the wealthy? and the blood of the working class's children?

Who does not see the absurdity in this?

Why aren't we, like the late Molly Ivins wrote, out in the streets beating on our pots and pans, making noise?

Have we already driven off the cliff and just haven't started falling yet?

And there are those who say Congressman Murtha has "stumbled"? Are they kidding?

Where do we go from here?

With the wars still raging in Afghanistan and Iraq ... with our own "What? me worry?" King George high horsing it until January of 2009 ... What do we do now? Where do we go from here?

I mean ... who are we kidding? If what Bush 43 and Cheney did in starting a war of aggression against Iraq are not high crimes and misdemeanors deserving of impeachment ... then what is?

But nothing is going to come of it, is it? Because the whole political class is falling all over themselves trying to avoid any kind of direct action that would somehow taint them in anyway with some segment of the electorate that would eliminate them from election or re-election ... because it isn't about serving the people. It's about getting elected because in their minds that is the only way one can effectively serve the people. The hell with calling attention to our core values ... that just gets you assassinated.

When the death of Anna Nicole Smith sucks the oxygen out of the news ... we are in as big a mess as Rome was when the Romans thronged to the circus.

And the egregious violence of 24 Hours as well as our other "entertainment" ... have we become so inured to violence that our youth have no pangs of conscience when the abuses of Abu Garib or Guantanamo unfold on their watch? Isn't that the real story of photos passed from soldier to soldier?

Have we become so caught up in the comfort and wealth of our way of life that we really don't see the irony of changing light bulbs in 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10,000 square foot homes? Or of everyone of driving age in a household having their own Prius?

Have we gone totally insane? Living so deep in denial that we have already soared off the cliff ... and just not started to feel ourselves falling ... yet. You tell me.

Hillary, dillary, dumb ....

Hillary shot herself in the foot in her comments about Geffen ... and Obama.

It's going to be downhill for her from here ... that's a prediction we can come back and track in the months ahead.

Actually, it was downhill from the moment she made it clear that she would not admit that she had made a mistake in voting to authorize the Bush 43's war in Iraq.

Now it will only be a question of how far down she will drag the populist/progressive movement in her attempt to become President.

When we return the Democratic Party to the people, we will win elections. That is what the "corporationists" fear most. Hillary is willing to be a tool of the power elite in order to win the Presidency ... it is all about her ... and very little about we the people.

The Edwards-Richardson ticket

I might as well come right out and say it, "I support John Edwards for President in 2008, and I support Bill Richardson as his running mate."

I mean, get it out there on the table now.

There probably are some folks who question why I support this ticket. Mostly those who don't read this blog ... so, yes, that is like most folks out there.

But on the other hand, these are notes to myself basically ... a journal, a log, a diary of thoughts along the way, that I can go back and look at later ... to see how I evolved, how my world evolved ... and how close to my predictions, to the direction I thought we would take ... or how divergent from the path I predicted ... or planned or hoped we would take.

I am constantly reminded of how small of a group it takes to alter the course of the future. We have the iconic image of Jesus and his twelve disciples meeting in the upper room in Jerusalem. We have the reality of twelve individuals meeting in a small Quaker bookstore in 1783 leading to the abolition of slavery in Great Britain.

This is chaos theory at work. A small pebble can alter the course of a boulder as starts to roll down the mountain.

I have no excuse for not trying to guide the course of my nation in keeping with what I believe are its core values: social, economic, and legal justice for all under the rule of law.

The new economics - Post 1

"Free" markets don't exist and are impossible to implement universally.

"Fair" markets don't exist and are impossible to implement universally.

In both cases success of any player immediately unbalances the market unless the player as buyer is equally rewarded as the player as seller in that they both achieve an optimum objective of present value in the transaction. One major problem is that all future assignable costs incurred by the total process of bringing goods and services to market and selling and buying and then consuming them, are NOT covered by the sale/purchase transaction. Note: We do not transfer the liability of future costs as easily as we transfer the potential for future profits when we transfer "ownership". These externalities—such as secondhand smoke from cigarettes—create imbalances in markets. There are others, but beyond the purposes of this comment which is to simply point out that "free" and "fair" markets cannot exist universally.

We need to implement "rational" markets. These are markets that monitor and regulate transactions and their processes before, during, and after the actual "transfer" of ownership by the simple physician's dictum, "First, do no harm."

I will discuss the concept of a rational market in terms of a "fair" market underlying or forming the level playing-field/foundation for a "free" market to operate with minimum impediments to market forces. Raise the foundation for all, with access to the sky for those who can build strong structures least likely to fall over on us.

Well, it's clear ... isn't it?

While the insurgency in Iraq was rearing its head in June, 2003, our prescient leaders where going all out trying to quell the claims by critics of the decision to go to war that the intelligence in support of that decision was cooked up by Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.

So instead of doing something concrete about the growing insurgency, they did something covert about their critics ... and stonewalled any investigation right up until the seating of new Congress this January, three-and-a-half years later ... with the Republican Congressional members now claiming it is "old news".

The Republican Party was hijacked by neoconservatists and now they are trying to blame Democrats for the mess they created ... are they kidding us? They should not only be voted out of office, they should be laughed out ... riding on a rail, covered with tar and feathers ... for they have sold us out for personal gain within their clique ... at a time when we could use some rational conservatism to weigh in on our progress.

Is "the surge" the last, best chance for victory in Iraq?

The surge ...
The escalation ...
The augmentation ...

If as President Bush said—clearly, by the way—"that Iraq is the central front in 'the decisive ideological struggle of our time,' " to quote Frank Rich in today's NY Times (OpEd, Sunday, December 14, 2007) ... then is "the surge" the last, best chance for victory in the Iraq?

And Bush and his cohorts like Senator Lieberman keep saying there is no viable alternative plan ... what about the Baker-Hamilton Commission's report outlining a series of concrete and defined steps to resolve the conflict?

But the question is, if this is "the decisive ideological struggle of our time" then is throwing 21,500 more troops ... bringing the current total to something less than the highwater mark in this war ... an appropriate response? Of course it isn't. 50,000 more troops wouldn't work ... and what is more worrisome, our soldiers will now stay in the conflict zones as embeds in the Irag military, rather than withdrawing to secure areas for rest and and renewal.

And that is the duplicity of this step ... for it does little if anything to end the civil war now raging in Iraq, while making our soldiers easier targets ... but it does take us closer to the Battle of Armageddon ... the dream of the neocons.

On the eve of President Bush's latest proposal for victory in Iraq ...

For the forseeable future it is in our—the United States'—interest to have a stable Middle East in which oil can be provided to the world as a commercial commodity. Yes, there are caveats to that statement, but in the general sense it expresses my point of view.

How do we achieve that starting from where we are?

My primary assertion is that it is only in the interests of fundamentalist ideologues to have instability. Notice I don't say "terrorists", and I don't say "fundamentalists". I say "fundamentalist ideologues". Because it is the fundamentalist ideologues of all stripes who are using the cover of chaos to advance their ideology and its objectives ... whether they be Christian Rapturists, Neocons, Zionists, violent jihadists, or skinheads, for that matter.

It is in the interest of most people and their leaders in the region to have some form of stability that allows them to pursue what is for them a normal existence in a secure community.

Therefore, it would seem to me, that the wisest path to negotiating regional and national stability for secure communities to exist for the people, would be to bring all major groups in the region to the table and explain the facts, which are that the major powers of the world cannot afford to let the region descend into the kind of chaos that would interrupt the supply of oil as a commercial commodity—clear and simple. If it comes to that, we will have a world war, and nobody will win then, and some will lose more than others—go figure ... so we had better figure out a solution before that happens.

The problem with this approach, as I see it, is not with the lessor powers in the region, but with the United States. We are not behaving objectively or rationally as the world's superpower. Which is to say that we do not have a set of rules that we ask everyone—including ourselves—to live by. And as long as we treat different parties to the conflict differently, we will never achieve stability in that or any other region. In fact, we have no strategy of carrots and sticks to get everyone on the same page. We have a strategy to keep everyone except ourselves and our allies off our page ... and we do very little to make it benefit the others if they comply. Mostly we have tried to make our strategies work to benefit us.

International engagement does not have to be a zero sum game. Dah!

And escalating the war in Iraq by sending in more U.S. soldiers without initiating a regional peace process is delusional. We will still have too few troops to control the outcome of the civil war now raging, so we don't have a real stick. And our carrots don't feed peace. President Bush is obviously too caught up in an some kind of an oedipal emotional reaction to act rationally.

I mean, we have a war machine thrashing about with no clear objective possible ... and we can't pull the plug?!

First things first ...

Some musings ...

There is variation in the cosmos ... the cosmos being everything, and the universe being everything we know about.

If there were no variation in the cosmos, there would be uniformity.

Therefore there has to be "at least two states" of whatever there is.

Let us call the first state of the "at least two states", "on" and represent it with the value "1" or "one". Lets then call the second state of the "at least two states", "off" and represent the value "0" or zero.

Ah yes, binary math ... if we can combine 1's and 0's ...

Let us surmise that there is no way to combine or alter the relationship between the separate states of the "at least two states". Then there would be no activity in the cosmos.

Therefore there has to be at least some way to combine or alter the relationship between the separate states of the "at least two states".

If at any time their ceased to be a way to alter the relationship of whatever states existed of the "at least two states", activity would stop.

Whenever the conditions exist for the "at least two states" to alter their relationship, they do -- having the potential of becoming something different. If, in fact another "new state" is formed, than the above statements hold true for this "new state" and it's relationship to the prior existing states of the "at least two states".

If the forming of a "new state" eliminated variation in the cosmos, uniformity would exist and activity would stop. Therefore we can surmise that multiple items in "at least two states" exist simultaneously. And that being in one of "at least two states" applies to a set of items having that characteristic. Thus we have a transcending characteristic across multiple items.

We can surmise that "new state" and its relationship with the "at least two states" -- a set of which the "new state" is now a member -- can form new patterns of states and new patterns of relationships that did not exist prior to the existence of the new states -- even though the potential existed for their existence to be realized in their coming into existence.

We can also surmise that the cosmos has not reached its limit of altering relationships between multiple items with variations in being characterized as one of "at least two states", thereby creating new items with a "new state".

In this process, existence builds upon itself.

And as the 0 and 1 of binary math has the potential for expressing all real numbers, existence has the potential of all that is real.

Note: I will be working on this for awhile ...

----------------
Footnotes:
surmise v. an idea or thought of something as being possible or likely.

surmise. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/surmise (accessed: December 25, 2006).

The narrative of existence ...

Our awareness creates and the stores a narrative of our existence in our brain. This narrative is given us by the those we turn to as children for information. It's "purpose" (utility for survival) is to allow us to connect the sensory and other forms of "information" we receive in the present to some pattern set, providing a means of classifying and coordinating the present ... and thereby organizing our lives coherently.

This narrative of our existence has become a key component in evolution's struggle for survival, for the ongoingness of human life ... and conceivably with the unleashing of nuclear energy, of life itself on this planet.

Different groups of human beings have different narratives encoded in their brains. We are watching the cataclysmic clash of different narratives in Iraq as this is being written.

The shear absurdity of thinking people are born with a narrative for democracy and freedom as defined by Western Capitalism encoded in them, is ... well, is so far beyond rational thought that only an ideologue would put forward the concept.

Our whole recorded history demonstrates the importance of encoding the conventional wisdom of a culture in the children of that culture WHILE they are still children, and recognizes the difficulty in changing that encoded narrative later in life.

More to come ...

As a Christian Transcendental Existentialist ...

Disclosure ... I think of myself as a Christian transcendental existentialist ... who does NOT believe in the necessity of a supreme being in the Biblical (King James Version - KJV) sense of that identity.

Let us begin ...

I believe my interpretation of John 1:1-4:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

... which is that the potential of existence existed at the beginning, whatever that "beginning" was (is?)

... which deals with the idea that "what is" came out of "what was" and "what will be", will come out of "what is" ... which of course is the "transcendental" part ...

Pause

Though we perceive existence (are aware of -- "awareness" relative to "existence" is important to existentialists ... like in which comes first, the chicken or the egg?) as ongoing -- past, present, future -- the reality of the cosmos does not HAVE to be in that "form". It could be like the infinity symbol and we are (I am?) simply passing along it's endless band ... or multiple bands with or without multiple dimensions.

However ... I experience my existence as ongoing -- past, present, future ... in a universe that is ongoing.

And -- this is my interpretation of Kierkegaard's leap of faith -- I choose to believe that my existence and that of the universe has meaning in its unfolding "ongoingness".

I am engaged in a search for that meaning.

From Luke 17:20-21 (King James Version, New Testament): Note: "He" is Jesus.

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

I find the meaning of my existence, including my awareness of experiencing my existence, within myself. I come to "understand" that meaning by sharing my awareness with others as they share theirs with me.

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Matthew 18:20

If the sharing of experience is done in the spirit of pursuing the truth (as in the blind men and the elephant) it frees us from the mistakes of our past.

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32

More to come ...

ncswede

Footnotes:

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kierkegard

As tiny url:

http://tinyurl.com/ymdrru

All Biblical quotations are taken from:

http://blueletterbible.org/

Pause

Putting aside the issue of dealing with our mistakes for a moment ...

Fear ... how do I conquer fear?

As a child I drew close to a parent or my older brother as I walked through the forest at night.

Now when I have time to think, I "assess" the situation ahead and "calculate" whether or not I can handle it ... then continue or turn aside.

When caught up without warning, the adrenalin kicks in and I react. (One of the reasons I love the Interior Alaska wilderness ... the adrenalin high is awesome because I have not been there long enough to have being in that environment become "normal". The individuals I REALLY admire are like the mountain climbers, and the rock climbers. I can get another shot of adrenalin simply by taking another step further into the bush.)

But what happens to a person in the devastation of a disaster such as a hurricane, a drought, an earthquake, ... war ... when the person is caught up in something so vast and consuming that every last vestige of hope in it ever getting better again is taken from him/her?

Or something close and personal and singular like the death of one's child ...

What then?

What rekindles the flame of the human spirit, what rekindles hope?

For me it is faith ... faith that "this to", whatever it is ... will have meaning as I (we) go on.

And I do not mean that in the sense that it is "a lesson to be learned" ...

And it does not mean that I could or would retain my faith if I were in the middle of a seemingly unending disaster ... I can't say because I have lived such a "blessed" life.

I can only discuss these issues from the perspective of my perception ... which is NOT the whole elephant by any means.

But faith was instilled in me as a child ... and it has never left me.

Now I don't believe in some Supreme Being acting as producer and director of the "Show On Earth" ... mostly because it ain't "the greatest" for whole bunches of people.

But I do choose to believe that what is happening/unfolding (living) has meaning in its becoming what it does become ... and that what I do now does affect the outcome ... (as in chaos theory of the small pebble being able to alter the course of the boulder as it starts to roll down the hill ... or as Jesus taught, "if you have the faith of a mustard seed you can move a mountain"[sic].)

And in this process of living, I make mistakes ...

Pause

I'm going to defer my discussions of "mistakes" (sin?) for now ... again.

I was reading in Gilson, Langan, & Maurer's RECENT PHILOSOPHY: Hegel to the Present last night in bed about the emergence of Existentialism with the works of Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche.

"Nietzsche's greatness lies in his discovery of the individual existent as the unequivocal "lieu" of historical Being's coming-to-be"

This is to me the incredible excitement of existentialism. "I" and my awareness of "I" comes out of existence. Existence does NOT come out of awareness.

I reject the nihilism of Nietzsche by accepting faith, not specifically in God as Kierkegaard did, but in meaning ... and not in coming out of a past purpose but going toward a future in which I can and do participate meaningfully (as chaos theory demonstrates) out of my awareness ... by choosing what I believe ought to be and acting to make it what is.

And that choice is mine to make, as a result of searching for meaning within my own experience ... that I validate in concert with others to the extent that I am willing to be truthful (honest) about my own experience.

I find the roots of this incredibly exciting point of view in the teachings of Jesus ... which itself has roots in other teachings ... but I came to my point of view by believing that what Jesus taught has relevance for my life ... and exploring Jesus' meaning relative to my experience.

An aside: Y'know ... that almost 6,000 mile journey across the North American continent taught me one thing ... I have enormous liberty in a culture based on Judeo-Christian values. Not everyone in that space has the same freedom to come and go as I do for numerous reasons ... I think that freedom should be expanding, not shrinking. But how to do it? That's what we should talk about at some point. Is there any other place on our planet where a relatively poor, relatively old person such as myself can have this much freedom? I love it so!!!

ncswede

Footnote:

nilihism n- an extreme form of skepticism: the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth.

nihilism. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1). Retrieved December 05, 2006, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nihilism

lieu n- Note this is the French word commonly translated as "place", and here meaning the point of Being, not as an idea put as a real center of awareness/experience in the cosmos that has arisen out of (from the ground of) existence.

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If we are not honest with each other ... telling each other the truth about ourselves ... not worrying about our mistakes because all of us make mistakes (For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23 New Testament, King James Version, www.blueletterbible.org)... then we cannot discover the meaning of our existence unfolding into the future. Because the potential of our future is with us here and now.

So, when those in authority lie to us ... they lead us astray from the discovery of the true meaning of our existence. That's the same for parents who do not tell their children (at the appropriate time) what is happening to their bodies and minds as they grow older. That's the same for teachers who do not provide the actual history of our world. That's for politicians who say one thing to get elected and another once elected. Or leaders who lie us into a war of their choosing. Or even friends who do not tell one another how they really feel about the way we treat each other.

An interesting experiment is having people guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. The larger the number of people guessing, the closer the average of all the guesses is to the actual number in the jar ... which makes a lot of sense.

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A couple of ideas from Jesus ... that the Kingdom of God is within us (like, within ME) ... and Heaven is it's the realization of it's (the "Kingdom's) potential ...

I can readliy wrap these ideas into the transcendentally evolving ongoingness of existence ... toward (never ending) something positive ...

All of life responds positively to the nuturing of life ... and the seemingly limitless diversity of life within a given environment (bounded only by that environment ... which can in fact interact randomly (chaotically) with events overlapping from other systems/environments to expand possibilities) ...

So life is in the process of exploring all its options in its setting ... and expanding into those that are positive for one form or another ... which may be negative for another form of life ...

But then ... we humans ... seem to be able to build new environments to accentuate the positive ...

Fascinating ... to say the least.

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Invitation to Philosophy Issues and Options - Eighth Edition,
by: Stanley M. Honer, Mt. San Antonio College, Emeritus; Thomas C. Hunt, Mt. San Antonio College, Emeritus; and Dennis L. Okholm, Wheaton College

There is a section on Existentialism in Chapter 4 Epistemology: How We Know. It asserts the nihilistic view that all knowledge is subjective and therefore "there is nothing stable or objective about" knowledge.

It does go on with the view of religious existentialists as "likely to argue that human beings cannot know; they can simply believe. And belief is a nonrational 'leap of faith.'"

YES!!! I choose to believe ... and to work out my "knowledge" for forming my belief out of an honest dialogue with others.

And it is not the past governing the future put the future forming out of the present ... a future that I can affect by my choices. I do not disregard the past, put I m not bound by it either. I can decide that "what is" is NOT "what ought to be".

To be continued in Part II ...

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