Hooray for the Norwegian Muslims!

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From the Times of Israel:

“In the wake of a deadly shooting attack at a synagogue in Denmark last week, a group of Norwegian Muslims intends to hold an anti-violence demonstration at an Oslo synagogue this coming weekend by forming a “peace ring” around the building.

One of the event organizers, 17-year-old Hajrad Arshad, explained that the intention was to make a clear statement that Muslims don’t support anti-Semitism.

“We think that after the terrorist attacks in Copenhagen, it is the perfect time for us Muslims to distance ourselves from the harassment of Jews that is happening,” Arshad told the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK in an interview cited by The Local News website on Tuesday.

She noted that the group aimed to “extinguish the prejudices people have against Jews and against Muslims.”

The demonstration drew praise from the local Jewish community.”

 

A fine, intelligent act in an age of rage about religions. Has it always been this way? Across recorded history, it seems many people have been brutally tortured and murdered because of religious intolerance – perhaps more than all the wars from 1700 to the present. Even in the “civilized” United States today, religious intolerance is not above killing over abortion, sexuality, Islam, atheism, theocracies, and still ostracizes Roman Catholics and Jews.

Perpetually, philosophers and behaviorists ponder religious brutality and still have not discovered a way to discuss religious differences in a rational way.

What the mariner finds puzzling is that those who turn intolerance into murder and destruction are not exactly the devoted core of the faith, devoted to their god and seeking a holy world. Rather, it is the opportunists, bigots, self-anointed “religious” warriors, and psychologically unbalanced who make up the army of the “Lord.”

In the Mideast, conflict has become absurd. Belief in the sanctity of life disappeared centuries ago. Every type of zealot, from heads of state to violent, deranged thugs, fight under the same flag: Islam. Added to the broiling mess is the regional prejudice between theocracies and western secular countries.

What fuels this ongoing war is not really Islam per se, though that is important. It is the fossil fuel wealth of the area combined with inadequate governments still depending on sheikdoms (Saudi Arabia) city-states (Libya), and warlord authoritarianism (Iraq, Egypt and Syria).

The western countries went through this violence centuries ago and have evolved into nations run by constitutions and law. While extremists still cause problems in the western nations, the political infrastructure is robust enough to prevent anarchy.

The coming battles for the industrialized world are mercenary values versus the earth itself – a new kind of fervor based on ecology rather than religion and one that ignores national borders.

 

Some notes from the mariner –

Many do not check back to earlier posts to see if replies have been added. The “Purgatory” post drew some insightful responses:

One reader, self-described as an existentialist, defined purgatory as those moments when a person has lost his/her compass of life. “What do I do next? Where are the signs that will give me direction? Where will I stay for the next two weeks? It is a sense that life has come to a stop and there is no way to move ahead into the future.

Another reader suggested that purgatory could last no longer than the last living person who knew you – approximately four generations at most. After that, no one is around who will pray for your release from purgatory.

Another reader suggested the living have nothing to do with purgatory, that is, purgatory lasts from the point of death to the moment one must answer for one’s life at the Pearly Gates.

All these replies are fascinating and provoke extended thought about purgatory.

Thanks for your replies.

Ancient Mariner

 

Purgatory

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The mariner apologizes for the long absence. Winter has been distracting.

The mariner has been pondering purgatory; a strange phenomenon traced to several religions and cultures and, as if in self application, sits in a position of purgatory in modern theology. This post is entered under the “Musings” category because it is an inquiry of interest and not an exposition of doctrine. What follows is a direct, unchanged copy on purgatory from Wikipedia. It serves as the scholarly background for those who want to pursue purgatory more deeply. Footnotes are retained for your reference.

“While use of the word “Purgatory” (in Latin purgatorium) as a noun appeared perhaps only between 1160 and 1180, giving rise to the idea of purgatory as a place[7] (what Jacques Le Goff called the “birth” of purgatory),[8] the Roman Catholic tradition of Purgatory as a transitional condition has a history that dates back, even before Jesus Christ, to the worldwide practice of caring for the dead and praying for them, and to the belief, found also in Judaism,[9] which is considered the precursor of Christianity, that prayer for the dead contributed to their afterlife purification. The same practice appears in other traditions, such as the medieval Chinese Buddhist practice of making offerings on behalf of the dead, who are said to suffer numerous trials.[2] Roman Catholic belief in Purgatory is based, among other reasons, on the previous Jewish practice of prayer for the dead,[10] a practice that presupposes that the dead are thereby assisted between death and their entry into their final abode.[2] It is also based on various passages of Scripture and on the Sacred Tradition of the Church.

Belief in after-life “temporary punishments agreeable to every one’s behaviour and manners” was expressed in the early Christian work in Greek known as Josephus’s Discourse to the Greeks concerning Hades, which was once attributed to Josephus (37 – c. 100) but is now believed to be by Hippolytus of Rome (170–235).[11]

Shortly before becoming a Roman Catholic,[12] the English scholar John Henry Newman argued that the essence of the doctrine is locatable in ancient tradition, and that the core consistency of such beliefs is evidence that Christianity was “originally given to us from heaven”.[13”

The mariner adds to this list the ancient Egyptian “Book of the Dead”, that not only stated there was a purgatory but that it was composed of demons and fire. Unless excused by Osiris, one would live there forever.

We all know about the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century using indulgences as a fund raiser to build Saint Peter’s Basilica. Martin Luther did not agree with the idea of buying release from purgatory, thinking release ought to be free. So began protestant thought.

Let us assume, given the human politics and abuse of purgatory, that purgatory is a state of being unaffected by us once a person dies and, we assume, enters a condition of transition. It seems to the mariner that all assumptions and opinions about the condition of transition are speculations by those who have yet to pass on. Are we simply judging the character of the deceased? Expressing our biasness or our doctrinal assumptions?

Humanists, existentialists, and spiritualists may have a different definition of purgatory. These believers, part of the spectrum of Christian believers, believe Grace, Divine Love, Heaven, Hell and purgatory are human experiences felt while still alive. What is the definition of purgatory if it is a living experience?

Is purgatory an unsatisfied life? An end of life filled with pain and illness? Feeling bereft of a “normal life?” How does Forgiveness fit into this experience?

Just the mariner musing. Your speculations are welcome.

Ancient Mariner

 

Economic Warming

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The mariner has been posting www.iowa-mariner for a couple of years. If you are a regular reader, you know he sees impending chaos on all sides. The mariner will follow in the footsteps of his favorite prophet Amos (a country fellow who raised sheep and had fleas) and the prophet’s fictional counterpart, Chicken Little.

The storm clouds are visible on the horizon and bad economic weather is predicted by conservatives and liberals alike. When the solution from each side is redundant, that in itself suggests chaos.

The mariner has read books by two expert authors each of whom starts from a different premise and arrives at similar conclusions.

The first book, The Colder War by Marin Katusa, (John Wiley and Sons, 2015) follows along the line of economic prophets who fear the Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) alliance and the use of non-US dollars in world trade. Katusa predicts a slow demise for the US because of its seventeen trillion dollars in bond debt and, more importantly, because BRIC production of fossil fuels easily will dominate the US Petrodollar market. What will happen slowly (Katusa uses the decline of the British pound over thirty short years, finally yielding to the American dollar at the end of the Second World War) is that holders of US treasury notes will cash them and buy rubles, reals, yuán or some worldwide derivative based on BRIC dominance. In simple terms, this means the US is headed for at least 15% inflation of the dollar and will lose the float advantage of using US dollars around the world.

Katusa spends a lot of his book on Vladimir Putin’s plans to encompass the entire Euro-Asian land mass in a “Common Economic Space.” In other words, replace the US dollar-supported euro, the oil-rich something-stan countries, the Middle East, Asia and most of Africa into a giant free trade zone – all without using US dollars.

Katusa suggests the following remedies – which he doesn’t guarantee will be successful:

  • “Stop runaway government spending. If the growth in government debt is held below the growth rate of the economy, the dollar’s ability to withstand attack will strengthen mightily.
  • Stop accepting everyone’s invitation to participate in everyone’s conflict.
  • Stop everything – especially tax rules and handouts.
  • Stop allowing superstition-based regulation to interfere with the development of domestic energy resources.”

For each of us, Matusa suggests:

  • “Trade some of your dollars for gold and silver and don’t store it in a bank.
  • Open an account with a non-US bank to make it easier to obtain cash in foreign currencies.”

Obviously, Marin Katusa is a fiscal conservative. His underlying strategy does not include economic transition away from fossil fuels but rather suggests ways to put sandbags around the US economy. His perspective can’t be totally faulted; he is one of the world’s top fossil fuel negotiators.

 Now on to the second book, This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein (Simon and Shuster, 2014). As prolific a writer and advocate as Katusa, Klein challenges the fossil fuel profit model. She suggests the greedy pursuit of oil-based economies will collapse under the hidden costs of global warming, costs related to health, fragility of depending on one economic resource, and the profound shift of weather patterns that will impact most temperate zone nations dependent on crops – the northerly ones like Canada and Russia will have improved crop opportunity while those in lower latitudes like the US and Southern Europe will have more extreme weather conditions, frequent droughts and flooding.

Similar to Matusa’s book, Klein spends the first third of her book identifying the antagonist: not Putin but the conservatives who deny global warming. The following quotes set the tone for the entire book, which is heavily footnoted:

“And for many conservatives, particularly religious ones, the challenge goes deeper still, threatening not just faith in [capital] markets but core cultural narratives about what humans are doing here on Earth. Are we masters, here to subdue and dominate, or are we one species among many, at the mercy of [geophysical] powers more complex and unpredictable than even our most powerful computers can model?”

The author cited a statement from Yale’s Cultural Cognition Project:

“The Yale researchers explain that people with strong egalitarian and communitarian worldviews (marked by an inclination toward collective action and social justice, concern about inequality and suspicion of corporate power) overwhelmingly accept scientific consensus on climate change. Conversely, those with strong hierarchical and individualistic worldviews (marked by opposition to government assistance for the poor, strong support for industry, and a belief that we all get pretty much what we deserve) overwhelmingly reject the scientific consensus.”

Klein then moves her focus to the disastrous liaisons between “environmental” organizations and corporate partnerships. Many examples are cited not only in the United States but in virtually every country including the United Nations Environment Program. One example involved the Nature Conservancy (NC), the largest and richest environmental organization in the world and 2,303 acres along Galveston Bay in Texas. The acreage was donated to the NC by ExxonMobil in 1995.

This acreage was important to environmentalists because it was the last habitat for the Attwater Prairie Chicken. The bird population, estimated at over one million before the twentieth century, due to oil exploration had dropped to threatened extinction by 1965. The Nature Conservancy proclaimed recovery of the Attwater Prairie Chicken as its highest priority. Four years later the NC drilled its own oil well in an area that would have direct consequences on critical habitat. When this oil well was discovered by NC members, it attracted national press coverage. NC said they could drill without hurting the bird population.

By 2003 only sixteen birds remained. Still, when the first well ran dry, the NC drilled a second well. In 2012, the Attwater Prairie Chicken was extinct.

The Nature Conservancy had succumbed to the desire to make millions of dollars to be used in behalf of worldwide conservancy. Klein’s point is that the NC had good motives but capitalist solutions do not solve a global problem. In fact, capitalism accelerates climate change.

Klein makes this point across several similar examples. In every case, capitalist solutions failed. Cultures are so bound to profit as a solution for everything that global issues like carbon emission are a distant second and have no chance to transition to non-fossil fuel. Global warming is caused by fossil fuel profit. Any progress must be collective in nature and further must reduce the petro economy to a scant size of what it is today. In the US, petrodollars keep the wealthy growing wealthier and allow the US government to borrow 46% against its gross domestic product.

Benevolent billionaires offer little hope for a genuine shift in economic culture. Among others mentioned by Klein are Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson and T. Boone Pickens. In every case, these billionaires advocate solutions that will benefit their corporate investment in alternative solutions. Again, these endorsements use a capitalist model as a solution – first, there must be profit.

Global issues like carbon emissions and warming oceans are not part of any profit model. The expense must be covered but not by opportunistic means. This is a new phenomenon in economics: profit is not part of the financial model. Global warming is neither a national issue nor a GDP issue nor a profit versus loss corporate issue. It is pure overhead that must be dealt with collectively by 7 billion humans in 196 countries.

It is this very kind of solution, fraught with corporate restraint, government regulation and spending, and suppression of the largest profit sector in the world that frightens capitalists and advocates of individual freedom.

In the mariner’s opinion, Klein’s book roars like a lion until the part where solutions are offered. Klein cites a growing number of blockades where the local people literally stood in the way of fossil fuel operations. The author feels that growing civil interference will continue to have more influence with those who must deal with the overhead of fossil fuel extraction. An example to watch is the Keystone XL pipeline intending to move sand tar oil from Alberta to Texas. There have been several protests along the path of that pipeline; Obama does not support it. We will see how much influence blockading will affect a republican congress.

Naomi Klein is not an economist. Unlike Matusa, she does not provide financial detail about the impending crisis. Still, one can image what will happen to corporate profit and national GDP if the petrodollar is greatly diminished. On this point – the tremendous shift in priorities as well as economic models – Matusa and Klein agree: financial instability is something everyone will face in this century.

Finally, Klein cites a truism:

“It is often said that Mother Nature bats last, and this has been poignantly the case for some men who were most possessed by the ambition of conquering her.”

 Did someone mention that the sky is falling?

Ancient Mariner

Using Oneness in Family Life

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USING ONENESS IN FAMILY LIFE

 

Husband and Wife. Marriage starts as a state of togetherness – togetherness and the discovery of a new relationship that intertwines the psychological uniqueness of each person into singularity. Togetherness seems very much like oneness but it is not. Togetherness has an element of self gratification. The period of togetherness can last from months to years depending on personality compatibility but a time will come when sharing emerges and togetherness fades. Sharing is the time when each person is able to identify permanent differences between themselves and their partner. Unlike togetherness, sharing implies a responsibility to empathize more clearly who the other person is, their wants, needs, and overall character.

The marriage shifts to personal and greater realities, which requires that each partner (if oneness is an objective) use empathy and compassion to reconcile their realities. This does not imply that love has left the relationship; there still is an emotional bond and a permanent respect for each other.

Still, the fact is that there are two separate persons at the base of the marriage. Each personality is different and has different empathetic and compassionate abilities. Each person forms agendas to express their personal objectives in life. Conflicts are inevitable and oneness skills defined earlier must become part of the reconciliation. As in any situation of personal and greater reality, the rule says your reality is always the least important. This assumption provides space for empathetic sharing and will lead to a compassionate solution for each partner. At times, easier said than done.

Gradually, issues that actually are extraneous fall away over the years and skilled marriage partners are able to mitigate most conflicts under the umbrella of empathy and compassion – oneness. One must not simply yield their reality for the sake of avoidance or compliance. This is false compassion. Reconcilement is required.

Not to understate togetherness, which always is present to some extent, but oneness becomes the primary objective for satisfaction in married life.

Children. Parents have a genetic desire to care for their children. Unfortunately, how to parent is not in school curricula. Many parents – make certain you understand that parenting dysfunction is not class, culture, or wealth specific – have children for myriad reasons that have nothing to do with wanting to share love and oneness. The list of reasons is virtually endless but a few examples are provided: the genetic motivation to procreate; accidental result of sex; reinforce the sense of self worth; cultural influence from definition of ‘family’; keeping up with friends who have children; extend the family name to the next generation, etc. Every example is based on fulfillment of self importance.

Many people who become parents should not be parents. In the context of oneness, they are incapable, for whatever reason, to recognize the relationship as a personal and greater situation. Therefore empathy and compassion are distorted, unevenly applied or can’t exist in the first place. Were it not for the resiliency of children to adapt to all but the most egregious maltreatment, cultural civility would have its limits.

The rules for oneness are more important when raising children because in a subconscious way children learn the parenting style and will reflect it as they grow older. There are frequent television commercials about paper towels or household cleaners. In these commercials, the parent is cleaning a mess made by a child who has neither sympathy, nor empathy, nor responsibility for the mess that was made. Nevertheless, the mother smiles and reassures the child with a hug while cleaning the mess. The objective is to sell towels or cleaner by showing cleaning is so easy there is no need to be frustrated or act out against the child. The author has wondered on many occasions whether the advertisement agencies know they teach oneness. Other cleaner commercials show the parent engaging in the creativity of drawing on the walls, throwing food, or dropping things down the toilet. One must acquire understanding if only by watching cleaner commercials.

Raising children who have passed puberty and are under twenty-five is another complexity. Within these children, the buds of awareness are present that show sympathy, empathy and compassion are present but the judgment when and how to use them must be learned during those youthful years. Indeed, large mistakes may be made like marrying before they understand the complexity of marriage, choosing to ignore the responsibility for actions that will assure a better and less troublesome life, choosing improper sets of friends that will be harmful in the long run, etc.

A parent cannot clean immature decisions with paper towels. The parent is on their own, sans cleaners, to practice oneness. It is often hard because the parent can see the error of the child’s ways and agonizes in their behalf. Nevertheless, the ability to understand personal and greater realities enables the parent to have more influence than otherwise may be available.

Forgiveness plays a large role in performing oneness with children.

The exercise: Essentially, this is the same exercise posed earlier in the section about which personal or which greater reality:  You know that you have difficulty relating to your child because of your opinion of the child’s behavior. Common phrases used by a parent are, “As long as you live in this house, you live by my rules!” or “you’re grounded!” or “You can’t go out until you clean your room and do your homework”! Imagine the child without letting your opinion affect you. Try to raise empathy. What are the good characteristics of the child? What reality does the child perceive that is different from yours? Can you define a personal and greater reality? What would you do instead of each quote above?

Ancient Mariner

Oneness VIII – Person Driven Oneness

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Using a person to avoid isms

Using a person to heal abuses

In the post Oneness VII, the behavior required to define reality and fairness was documented. This post follows with two more circumstances that require Oneness skills

Using a person to avoid isms.  An ism is an entrenched position. The position comes complete with doctrine, ritual and predetermined cause. As in the section about using a person to define reality, you are the first brick. Within you is a library of opinions, prejudices, habits, and preferences. Every one of your isms is a blocking agent that cuts off the ability to reconcile personal and greater situations. Everyone has a cache of isms ready to deliver on a second’s notice. Still, we know some individuals who are better listeners than others. Perhaps they are not strident in nature or don’t carry their opinions like chips on the shoulder. Many of these better listeners are willing to accept your isms without conflict. In this situation, is their acquiescence a reconcilement between your personal reality and their greater reality? No. Whatever distance existed between the two of you still remains. The other person was being polite but there was no reconcilement as far as that person is concerned. It will be obvious that oneness did not occur.

Entrenched isms come from all classes, all races, all religious believers, all those who condemn the nonworking, all those who are elitist, all those who disregard others in favor of money, all those who suffer from greed and avarice. You are among them. It will be hard for you to set aside your isms to forge a new reconciliation based on compassion – perhaps the hardest task among person driven oneness.

Oneness is simple to define and difficult to acquire: the other person(s) is received simply as the person they are; their reality is more important.

Using a person to heal abuses.  Abuse is a distorted version of an ism. The added dimension is mental and physical damage caused by someone who has vindictive attitudes and likely has suffered abuse as well. Oneness is a matter of practicality based more on repair of a situation than comparing personal and greater realities. The process is similar to the first exercise where a person is used to define reality except that in this situation, immediate intervention and problem solving are priorities. Compassion will rise when it can but oneness in the case of abuse requires a return to stability where compassion may be retrievable under better circumstances. Imagine your role as one similar to an empathetic triage physician.

Abuse may be a long standing situation, for example, debilitating poorness where a person does not have enough to eat or have proper clothing. Abuse often is unseen by friends and associates and your sense of empathy must be keen. Examples are spousal abuse and abuse to minors. Similar again to the first exercise, you must take a moment to determine the proper intervention that will repair abuse without letting further abuse occur – perhaps even to you.

The question: People driven solutions require empathy and compassion to achieve oneness. There are personal behaviors that do not achieve oneness but only achieve propriety. What is the difference between propriety and oneness? What are signs that oneness has occurred?

Ancient Mariner

 

Dismantling the Petro World

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The last post implied, if the reader did not take the content as factual, that the future for the western coalition of nations faced a collapse of its economies and would be fortunate to be called second tier nations. The reason that the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations will overwhelm the western economy is because they have the oil, gas, and the population growth to take over the world economy – somewhat like Walmart, Target and CVC moving into a neighborhood. Any local retail outlets that survive will be less than robust for sure.

Aside from nations, the petrochemical industry is the largest set of global organizations in the world. Asking them to go out of business or scale down to ten percent of what they were is not a winning strategy for global warming. Yet this is the fear that those who deny scientific information hear – that the petro economy is a common source of wealth and making the changes in corporate behavior, the way neighborhoods are built, the way every person consumes food, energy, space and nonrenewable minerals must undergo a transformation that challenges capitalism and suggests something more akin to socialism. So, global warming doesn’t exist.

While searching the Internet, the mariner came across an article in the Nation Magazine for November 2011. The article was written by Naomi Klein, a Canadian author who writes books on the climate and its confrontations with capitalism, human nature, and disappearing resources, including the disappearance of national economic policies. Klein’s current book, “This Changes Everything, Capitalism versus the Climate,” is on the best seller list at the moment.

The entire article is available at

http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate?page=0,2

 

In the Nation article, Klein makes a six point case that makes a reader think it is easier to climb a cliff covered in ice than to change the petro paradigm:

  1. Reviving and Reinventing the Public Sphere

…Traditionally, battles to protect the public sphere are cast as conflicts between irresponsible leftists who want to spend without limit and practical realists who understand that we are living beyond our economic means. But the gravity of the climate crisis cries out for a radically new conception of realism, as well as a very different understanding of limits. Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems. Changing our culture to respect those limits will require all of our collective muscle—to get ourselves off fossil fuels and to shore up communal infrastructure for the coming storms.

  1. Remembering How to Plan

…Every community in the world needs a plan for how it is going to transition away from fossil fuels, what the Transition Town movement calls an “energy descent action plan.” In the cities and towns that have taken this responsibility seriously, the process has opened rare spaces for participatory democracy, with neighbors packing consultation meetings at city halls to share ideas about how to reorganize their communities to lower emissions and build in resilience for tough times ahead.

  1. Reining in Corporations

…But we are also going to have to get back into the habit of barring outright dangerous and destructive behavior. That means getting in the way of corporations on multiple fronts, from imposing strict caps on the amount of carbon corporations can emit, to banning new coal-fired power plants, to cracking down on industrial feedlots, to shutting down dirty-energy extraction projects like the Alberta tar sands (starting with pipelines like Keystone XL that lock in expansion plans).

  1. Relocalizing Production

…Climate change does not demand an end to trade. But it does demand an end to the reckless form of “free trade” that governs every bilateral trade agreement as well as the World Trade Organization. This is more good news —for unemployed workers, for farmers unable to compete with cheap imports, for communities that have seen their manufacturers move offshore and their local businesses replaced with big boxes. But the challenge this poses to the capitalist project should not be underestimated: it represents the reversal of the thirty-year trend of removing every possible limit on corporate power.

  1. Ending the Cult of Shopping

…This growth imperative is why conventional economists reliably approach the climate crisis by asking the question, How can we reduce emissions while maintaining robust GDP growth? The usual answer is “decoupling”—the idea that renewable energy and greater efficiencies will allow us to sever economic growth from its environmental impact. And “green growth” advocates like Thomas Friedman tell us that the process of developing new green technologies and installing green infrastructure can provide a huge economic boost, sending GDP soaring and generating the wealth needed to “make America healthier, richer, more innovative, more productive, and more secure…”

The bottom line is that an ecological crisis that has its roots in the overconsumption of natural resources must be addressed not just by improving the efficiency of our economies but by reducing the amount of material stuff we produce and consume.

  1. Taxing the Rich and Filthy

…That means taxing carbon, as well as financial speculation. It means increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy, cutting bloated military budgets and eliminating absurd subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. And governments will have to coordinate their responses so that corporations will have nowhere to hide (this kind of robust international regulatory architecture is what Heartlanders mean when they warn that climate change will usher in a sinister “world government”).

Most of all, however, we need to go after the profits of the corporations most responsible for getting us into this mess. The top five oil companies made $900 billion in profits in the past decade; ExxonMobil alone can clear $10 billion in profits in a single quarter…

Naomi Klein pulls no punches in this article in the Nation. The quotes provided here by the mariner provide an insight into her perspective but a great deal of reasoning remains in the article. He recommends that his readers go to the link provided above and discover the whole painting and all the colors in it.

Ancient Mariner

The Petro World

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In a newly released book, “The Colder War,” author Marin Katusa prognosticates that Russia and China will sign a thirty-year oil and gas deal that will not trade in U.S. dollars. This is not new information. The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) have been moving in this direction for several years. BRIC has two overriding objectives: displace the International Monetary Fund (uses the dollar) with a BRIC-specific currency, thus removing the global advantage of the United States and its western partners; secondly – having achieved a weakening of the dollar, the BRIC currency will invest in world markets and national partnerships, becoming the new monetary power.

Marin Katusa no doubt is one of the premier petrochemical analysts in the world and is consulted widely when nations are forecasting oil and gas futures. One cannot argue with his logic that oil and gas will be the engine that drives super power countries in the future. The BRIC nations make up two thirds of the world’s population. Further, with the exception of Russia, the BRIC nations have young citizenry positioned to generate huge GNP that could never be matched by the U.S. or the European Union. For more detail see the mariner’s post from July 14, 2014.

The mariner wonders if there could be an alternative future. The possibility rests on the western consortium willing to invest heavily in new technology, invest heavily in competitive education, and otherwise diminish the importance of petrochemicals as a source of monetary power.

What no one knows today (except perhaps Nostradamus) is how the world will reconfigure itself. Every element is poised for a chaotic shift: weather, geological activity due to warming, agriculture (already shifted ecologically by two weeks since 1900), future political liaisons, which may not align with petrochemical availability, the new technical age of which we have only faint insights today, and perhaps the transfiguration of the dollar and every other currency into one worldwide currency.

The disadvantages that face the western world are the age of its citizens, the arcane structure of its politics and government, and the lack of population unity for the betterment of everyone. The U.S. especially is run by the one percent who is the wealthiest and currently would have no qualm dropping the dollar and western civilization for a good return on investment with BRIC.

Should the ducks line up, there may be hope for the western culture and its waning dollar. It’s a long shot but maybe the solar system will align in syzygy such that the west will have luck on its side. Whatever, the west, especially the U.S., has no time to lollygag.

Ancient Mariner

 

Oneness VII – Person Driven Oneness

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Using a person to define reality

Using a person to define fairness

Using a person to define reality.  That person is you. You must be aware of a situation from several perspectives. Very few situations are wrapped around one idea or one condition. You must practice seeing situations using empathy as an interpreter and compassion to create oneness. This may be difficult in our culture today – difficult in that compassion appears to open the door to personal vulnerability; difficult in that you will not be understood by those who must also see the same realities; difficult in that your habits and opinions are ingrained in you.

To help loosen your empathy and compassion as tools in decision making, here is a training technique for you to try: Walk around your neighborhood. The walk will be good for you on its own merit. Look for someone of any age, sex, race, or circumstance to whom you can give a helping hand – no matter how small or large your help may be. It may only be a sentence or two to acknowledge neighborliness. A popular term for this is “passing it forward.” Someone helps a person; that person helps another person, etc. This training exercise makes you focus on the situation of other people rather than simply people-watching. You are the lesser, personal reality; the others are the greater reality. Once you find a person who may need help, quickly determine how you will help that person and give a moment’s thought to whether you are improving the situation or just butting in. The object is to have compassion and take action, not, as the old boy scout story goes, help an old lady across the street whether or not she needs to cross the street.

Sometimes you may have to walk for a long time but if you perform this training exercise regularly, you will find some situations where you can help even if the other person is not present. For example, repacking a trash can on the curb after raccoons have dumped it. Further, you will be amazed how quickly your neighborhood comes to know you personally. You are a neighborhood asset. You will notice others passing it forward. You have changed the neighborhood gestalt! Remember to continue honing your empathy and compassion skills when making decisions of any kind.

Using a person to define fairness.  The key to fairness is not only using empathy and compassion but actually understanding the best process for reconciling personal and greater situations. Besides your own participation, you will need one or more other persons with whom you perceive conflicting realities. “Conflicting” does not necessarily mean argumentative. One can have conflict over which restaurant to visit. Remember that your conflict is the lesser reality. Consider this another training exercise; do not try to right the wrongs of the world at first try. Many will take a mediation/arbitration approach to define fairness. This may work from time to time but mitigation without compassion prevents reconciling situations and achieving oneness.

Often, a profession lends itself to managing only with the personal reality of the individual. As an example, a school principal is autonomous and tends to become autocratic. Organizational and educational edicts may be issued without considering the greater reality that may be affected by these edicts, that is, the greater reality of the teachers, students and parents. A principal may move students or educational policies around in a manner that reflects efficiency from the principal’s point of view but when applied, the move may be unfair to teachers or students. Fairness is an attitude that should always be present in one’s mindset. It is the attitude that kick starts a search for a greater reality.

You will need a bit of social skill to define fairness. Control of the process is important. To identify a few procedural rules, let’s use the earlier example of the employer whose workforce is too expensive:

  1. Know your own feelings about your situation and what causes those feelings.
  2. Engage other persons in a controlled way. If the employer calls a sudden meeting of all the employees, the chances are good that the process for defining fairness will collapse under the weight of anxiety and, because there are many more employees, the tool of equality will yield to mob responses. It may be better for the employer to maintain control of the process by talking with a few trusted employees one-on-one so they are aware of your personal reality and, importantly, that you want to reconcile by including the greater reality of the employees. These few will carry the message to the others for you thereby preventing a confrontation and further, the employees will begin their own processing of rule 1. If you have been honing your compassion on regular walks, you will sense the right way to do things in a compassionate way.
  3. How rule 3 plays out depends on how the employer has managed the employees. If the employer has been fair in the past, rule 3 is almost automatic. If there is personality conflict or any signs of disrespect, rule 3 can become nasty. Seek feedback from those few trusted employees. Seeking to sharpen your compassionate choices, ask about the mood of the employees. Very important to the process at this point is to talk about fair solutions with the trusted employees; you must build empathy in them for your situation even though yours is the personal reality.
  4. Rule 4 is the end game. The employer will prepare an agenda – again with the input of the trusted few. The agenda should be a discussion of solutions, not problems. It is a meeting focused on what is fair. It’s a coming together of understanding what ‘fair’ means, which can be painful even if fair. Compassion should be active in everyone’s mind. Just as the walks produced positive resolution, the employer is in a position to share compassion with the employees.

No question at this time. Second installment of Person Driven Oneness forthcoming. In the meantime, keep walking; perhaps drive around to find places where you can use your personal reality to resolve a few greater realities. Here’s a simple one: ring the bell for the Salvation army.

Ancient Mariner

Oneness Dictionary

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Oneness (Definitions)

The mariner has had a number of questions about the use of various words, their context and meaning. Presenting a broad philosophy about how to live better by making better decisions is sometimes heavy reading. What remains to be released is lighter reading. The mariner wants to make sure that key words in the philosophy of oneness are understood before we move on.

What follows is a list of frequently used words and the mariner’s intended use of those words.

 

ANOTHER’S REALITY A reality or situation that is observed in others. Their realties are accommodated in one’s decisions.
COMPASSION Empathetic awareness of another’s distress and a desire to act in a way to alleviate that distress.
EMPATHY The experience of emotional understanding, shared feeling, and understanding the thoughts of another.
ETHIC A set of moral principles or values that guide behavior.
ONENESS A sense of comfort, satisfaction, and achievement shared between one’s own reality and that of another’s reality. Oneness requires that a decision to resolve an issue is based on the greatest good for all persons involved and further, is a decision that is not driven by personal objectives.
PERSONAL REALITY One’s own reality. Oneness requires that one must focus on an external (greater) reality rather than one’s own. One’s reality is always the lesser reality.
PERSON-BASED DECISION Decisions that are made based on human quality of life as the most important factor. NOT decisions that prioritize assets, profits, or any possession above human quality of life.
REALITY The sum of all circumstances that exist in one’s life at any given moment; the sum of self awareness both internally and externally. Basically, everything that has brought you to the present moment.
SITUATION Similar to reality except a situation is limited to a specific set of circumstances or issues that require a decision.

 

It is hoped that this short list of specialized words will help. Future posts about Oneness will be laden with practical applications.

Ancient Mariner

 

Oneness VI

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WITHOUT ONENESS

Effect on Social structure

Acceptance of Hidden abuses

 Effect on Social Structure.  There is an African subculture known as the Ik. The Ik live in the mountains of Uganda. They long have been a marginalized culture. Survival is so severe an issue that children are not raised by their parents but are expelled to live with children their own age. These children must find subsistence on their own and bond into small groups of like-aged children to protect themselves from bands of older children. One asks immediately what the role of empathy and compassion is without the family unit to inculcate these values. Yet this subculture survives – but only in remote regions where contact with other cultures is unlikely. One can imagine there is little hope for the Ik in the long run. It is a survivalist life worthy of a television series and sustains itself on competition comparable to chimpanzees. The Ik are incapable of mediation and certainly cannot achieve oneness.

The Ik people survive without empathy and little compassion. The price they pay for this barren approach to life is the inability to develop an ameliorative society; it is not possible with such meager resources and such barren childhood. The lesson we can learn from the Ik is that our modern society, with its elaborate infrastructure, complex economy and cultural sophistication, is more dependent on oneness than we would like to admit.

The United State is a clear example of change in social structure, moving from middle right but homogeneous society in the forties and fifties to an extremist, non-negotiating society in this century. It is societal rather than incidental because so many cultural issues are involved. Abortion is a religious war that sometimes kills people; Voting rights are a racial battle that sometimes kills people; very limited government is a political war that counts victory as a failed congress and often causes death because of brutalization of defenseless poor. Beyond the cultural issues, the States have just enough power to disrupt processes that reflect the greater good for the greatest number – for example, gerrymandering totally disregards concepts related to one person, one vote.

Oneness is in short supply these days.

Acceptance of Hidden abuses.  Abuse occurs everywhere in many forms from the brutality of murder, rape, and molestation to ignoring the inequities of millions of families losing their homes and savings, to racial and economic prejudice and many more examples. In too many homes child abuse is a given. Whether sexual, starvation, destruction of a healthy personality, or physical beatings, maltreatment is the norm within too many households.

Old style slavery was outlawed by the Emancipation Proclamation but still today the racial burden of being black is not part of a national discussion that will lead to oneness. African Americans suffer unending hope for equality in society. The whites appear to be completely ignorant of black reality or guiltily sweep the issue under the rug.

Corporations and large financial entities feel free to run the US and State governments through the back door with a system that requires elected officials to attend endless fund raisers where their votes are bought by the wealthy. Yet only 39% of eligible voters actually vote. Out of sight, out of mind.

The information industry evades the compassion required to respect an individual’s privacy, security and in recent years, has developed a retail cost model that makes investors salivate.

You understand the situation. We can continue to list hidden abuses but the case is made. This list suggests with certainty that our society has lost its way and is virtually incapable of using compassion to use personal advantage in behalf of the greater good.

The question: Will you commit your time, skills and energy to improve your neighborhood, politics, or improve public service to those who may be disadvantaged?  To what cause will you commit? You are the first brick…..

Ancient Mariner