RealWorldNewWorld.com and
Study People Study Your Life And Times
are nonprofit public service projects
Email to Dr. Sheldon M. Cohen, Ph.D.: scohen305@gmail.com
Or call: 623-628-4584
Dr. Cohen is a former university professor of psychology and clinical director of a community mental health center. Some of his articles appear below. Scroll down.
Article Content
1 Study People Study Your Life Orientation
2 Advocates For First Amendment Rights
3 Peak Experience Groups For Prevention Of Teenage Drug Abuse
4 The Neworld Foundation of Interfaith (Sections 1-8)
5 Religions In The Real And New World
6 Building A New World Order. Preparing The People Of Our Global Village For The Coming Of The New World
7 Building A New World Order. How Americans Can Help.
8 McCain vs. Obama And Money Madness In America
9 Sending An Open Letter to President Obama and Al-Qaeda. How America and Al-Qaeda Can Both Win The War Together.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
STUDY PEOPLE, STUDY YOUR LIFE ORIENTATION
A Portrait of People Studying Other People
And Studying Themselves
People using ordinary language to study themselves and others are personality theorists – researchers. They are aware of issues dealing with reliability, validity, degree of uncertainty, and relativity of judgments made to understand themselves and others.
If a person wants to do X, likes to do X, prefers to do X, tries to do X, can do X, ought to do X, and its O.K. for the person to do X in this situation, then ordinary language will predict that the person will do X. This statement can also be translated into other theoretical languages.
Suppose X is an addictive behavior. Does the person really want to do X or is the person forced by addiction to do X? Is doing X for this person, in fact, an “addiction”? What do you mean by “addiction”?
Suppose X is eating food. Does the person eat because the person wants to eat or does the person eat as a means of satisfying other motives, e.g., to reduce boredom, loneliness, and depression? Does the person eat because of “hunger”? What do you mean by “hunger”? Is hunger physiological or cultural, e.g., the person has learned from childhood what to eat, when to eat, how to eat, etc. Is hunger an addiction or like an addiction?
Suppose X is getting a particular job. You believe the person got the job because of intrinsic ability. You believe the person wanted the job, tried, and could get the job. I believe the person was hired because of connections. His father is the employer.
Do you believe this person truly believes he or she ought to do X? How do you know the person is not pretending, lying, or unconsciously motivated not to do X?
As soon as we ask, “What do you mean by __________?” and “How do you know __________?” people who study people may disagree. They can learn from their disagreement.
The attribution of causality or responsibility by people judging people and by people judging themselves falls into 4 general categories. The 4 categories are:
1. The External Environment (physical, chemical, biological, social, historical, e.g., learning, political, economic) is responsible.
2. The Internal Environment (physical, chemical, biological, psychological, e.g., the person’s trait or type) is responsible.
3. The Person is responsible. The person has chosen to construe, to act or react in a particular way.
4. Chance, fate or higher power is responsible.
Different explanations within a category and explanations combing categories are possible.
People who study people may understand the same behavior in different ways. Different behaviors may be understood in the same way.
Assuming total responsibility for one’s own behavior can be a way of avoiding “the role of the victim.”
People who study other people and study themselves are creative artists; creating the story of their life from selected memories of their own life experiences. They are aware of their “resistance” to revealing their weak, inadequate, sick, angry, fearful, shameful, guilt-ridden, ambivalent or conflicted self. They are also aware that paradoxically their strengths may be hidden in their weaknesses. They do their very best to help themselves and others overcome blocks to creative, constructive living.
People who study other people and study themselves use the method of assuming the subjective vs. the objective attitude. In the subjective attitude, they identify, merge, become the other, empathize (for or against) and sympathize. They are totally ego or emotionally involved. In the objective attitude they distance, detach, evaluate, analyze, criticize, and propose alternatives to change for the better. They are more task-oriented than ego-involved.
The natural use of this method becomes apparent when we watch a movie, read a novel, see a theatrical play, or attend a sports event. In the subjective attitude we identify and merge with the players, e.g., we become part of the love scene or the fight encounter. We empathize, sympathize, become hypnotized, and mesmerized by the events. At the same time or alternately we know we are not in the scene on the movie screen, or in the novel, or on the theatrical stage, or in the sports arena. At the same time or alternately we know that we are not the players. We can distance, detach from it, and remain apart from it. We become more “objective.”
We can assume both these attitudes in the study of our own lives and the lives of others.
In both the subjective and objective attitudes people who study people can understand others and themselves by referring to past similar vs. different contrastive experiences. When you tell me you are hungry, or angry, or idealistic, or realistic, or opportunistic, I know what you mean by referring to my past similar experiences. Of course, I could be wrong. I may have misunderstood you. People who study other people and study themselves are Personality Theorists – researchers. They are aware of issues dealing with reliability, validity, degree of uncertainty, and relativity of judgments made to understand themselves and others. They can learn from their differences, contrastive experiences, and disagreements.
A Procedure for Studying Your Own Life and the Lives of Others
Phase 1:
Start with your first memory. Write or record “The Story of My Life So Far” entirely in the subjective attitude. Let your thoughts and feelings pour out. It’s good to be very ego or emotionally involved in Phase 1.
Keep a pad and pen with you whenever you can. Memories long forgotten will re-emerge at unexpected times.
The story of your life is never complete. There can never be a perfect autochthonous one to one relationship between your life experiences and your memories. Memories are never as vivid as life experiences. Memory sharpens some life experiences and levels other life experiences. The story of your life so far is your creation from selected memories of your life experience.
When you have a first draft that you are moderately satisfied with, you are ready for Phase 2.
Phase 2:
Assume the objective attitude. Read or listen to the life story you have created as if it happened to a person you have never met. You may give this person a new name.
In the objective attitude you distance, detach, evaluate, analyze, criticize, and propose alternatives to change for the better. Be more task-oriented than ego-involved.
Record your experience in the objective attitude.
Phase 3:
Compare your experiences in Phase 1 and Phase 2. You can do this in the subjective and objective attitudes alternately. Record your experience.
Phase 4:
Compare your experiences in Phase 1, 2, and 3. You can do this in the subjective and objective attitudes alternately. Record your experience.
Phase 5:
Couple with another person who has been through phases 1 through 4. Exchange life stories. Each person will experience the other’s life story in the subjective and objective attitude. Record you experiences. Compare your experiences.
Phase 6:
A couple who has been through the procedure can couple with another individual or couple and repeat.
For further information, call 623-628-4584.
And Studying Themselves
People using ordinary language to study themselves and others are personality theorists – researchers. They are aware of issues dealing with reliability, validity, degree of uncertainty, and relativity of judgments made to understand themselves and others.
If a person wants to do X, likes to do X, prefers to do X, tries to do X, can do X, ought to do X, and its O.K. for the person to do X in this situation, then ordinary language will predict that the person will do X. This statement can also be translated into other theoretical languages.
Suppose X is an addictive behavior. Does the person really want to do X or is the person forced by addiction to do X? Is doing X for this person, in fact, an “addiction”? What do you mean by “addiction”?
Suppose X is eating food. Does the person eat because the person wants to eat or does the person eat as a means of satisfying other motives, e.g., to reduce boredom, loneliness, and depression? Does the person eat because of “hunger”? What do you mean by “hunger”? Is hunger physiological or cultural, e.g., the person has learned from childhood what to eat, when to eat, how to eat, etc. Is hunger an addiction or like an addiction?
Suppose X is getting a particular job. You believe the person got the job because of intrinsic ability. You believe the person wanted the job, tried, and could get the job. I believe the person was hired because of connections. His father is the employer.
Do you believe this person truly believes he or she ought to do X? How do you know the person is not pretending, lying, or unconsciously motivated not to do X?
As soon as we ask, “What do you mean by __________?” and “How do you know __________?” people who study people may disagree. They can learn from their disagreement.
The attribution of causality or responsibility by people judging people and by people judging themselves falls into 4 general categories. The 4 categories are:
1. The External Environment (physical, chemical, biological, social, historical, e.g., learning, political, economic) is responsible.
2. The Internal Environment (physical, chemical, biological, psychological, e.g., the person’s trait or type) is responsible.
3. The Person is responsible. The person has chosen to construe, to act or react in a particular way.
4. Chance, fate or higher power is responsible.
Different explanations within a category and explanations combing categories are possible.
People who study people may understand the same behavior in different ways. Different behaviors may be understood in the same way.
Assuming total responsibility for one’s own behavior can be a way of avoiding “the role of the victim.”
People who study other people and study themselves are creative artists; creating the story of their life from selected memories of their own life experiences. They are aware of their “resistance” to revealing their weak, inadequate, sick, angry, fearful, shameful, guilt-ridden, ambivalent or conflicted self. They are also aware that paradoxically their strengths may be hidden in their weaknesses. They do their very best to help themselves and others overcome blocks to creative, constructive living.
People who study other people and study themselves use the method of assuming the subjective vs. the objective attitude. In the subjective attitude, they identify, merge, become the other, empathize (for or against) and sympathize. They are totally ego or emotionally involved. In the objective attitude they distance, detach, evaluate, analyze, criticize, and propose alternatives to change for the better. They are more task-oriented than ego-involved.
The natural use of this method becomes apparent when we watch a movie, read a novel, see a theatrical play, or attend a sports event. In the subjective attitude we identify and merge with the players, e.g., we become part of the love scene or the fight encounter. We empathize, sympathize, become hypnotized, and mesmerized by the events. At the same time or alternately we know we are not in the scene on the movie screen, or in the novel, or on the theatrical stage, or in the sports arena. At the same time or alternately we know that we are not the players. We can distance, detach from it, and remain apart from it. We become more “objective.”
We can assume both these attitudes in the study of our own lives and the lives of others.
In both the subjective and objective attitudes people who study people can understand others and themselves by referring to past similar vs. different contrastive experiences. When you tell me you are hungry, or angry, or idealistic, or realistic, or opportunistic, I know what you mean by referring to my past similar experiences. Of course, I could be wrong. I may have misunderstood you. People who study other people and study themselves are Personality Theorists – researchers. They are aware of issues dealing with reliability, validity, degree of uncertainty, and relativity of judgments made to understand themselves and others. They can learn from their differences, contrastive experiences, and disagreements.
A Procedure for Studying Your Own Life and the Lives of Others
Phase 1:
Start with your first memory. Write or record “The Story of My Life So Far” entirely in the subjective attitude. Let your thoughts and feelings pour out. It’s good to be very ego or emotionally involved in Phase 1.
Keep a pad and pen with you whenever you can. Memories long forgotten will re-emerge at unexpected times.
The story of your life is never complete. There can never be a perfect autochthonous one to one relationship between your life experiences and your memories. Memories are never as vivid as life experiences. Memory sharpens some life experiences and levels other life experiences. The story of your life so far is your creation from selected memories of your life experience.
When you have a first draft that you are moderately satisfied with, you are ready for Phase 2.
Phase 2:
Assume the objective attitude. Read or listen to the life story you have created as if it happened to a person you have never met. You may give this person a new name.
In the objective attitude you distance, detach, evaluate, analyze, criticize, and propose alternatives to change for the better. Be more task-oriented than ego-involved.
Record your experience in the objective attitude.
Phase 3:
Compare your experiences in Phase 1 and Phase 2. You can do this in the subjective and objective attitudes alternately. Record your experience.
Phase 4:
Compare your experiences in Phase 1, 2, and 3. You can do this in the subjective and objective attitudes alternately. Record your experience.
Phase 5:
Couple with another person who has been through phases 1 through 4. Exchange life stories. Each person will experience the other’s life story in the subjective and objective attitude. Record you experiences. Compare your experiences.
Phase 6:
A couple who has been through the procedure can couple with another individual or couple and repeat.
For further information, call 623-628-4584.
Advocates For First Amendment Rights
In America our first amendment rights are freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom to protest our government as individuals or by assembly in groups.
The New World Foundation is initiating a campaign for the creation of a police force of advocates to make public violations of, protect and defend first amendment rights.
The Advocates would be sworn in by oath. They could be removed only by impeachment. By law they would have unprecedented access to public communication systems. They would have legal authority to use an amber-like alert signal to alert the public that first amendment rights, the child of democracy, is being stolen.
The Advocates would have to accept and represent complaints solely on a first come, first served basis, independent of content and sender, and include equal representation for those who disagree.
I believe that someday there will come into being a democratic United Nations new world government of 6 billion people (current estimate). I’m concerned about the realization of first amendment rights in this mega world government.
This started me thinking about the realization of first amendment rights within the current USA (a democracy of 300 million people), and the realization of first amendment rights within less populated democratic organizations to which I belong, e.g. The American Psychological Association; a democratic organization of 170 thousand psychologists.
Here are my thoughts.
There are currently some watchdogs in America who are whistle blowers or assist whistle blowers realize their first amendment rights.
I think the best of these is CBS 60 Minutes which airs on Sundays. 60 Minutes has a history of exposing pollutions and polluters which harm the health of people, e.g., toxins in cigarettes and disposal of various kinds of toxic waste. These are very important critical issues.
However, 60 Minutes is dependent on viewer ratings and advertiser money for its survival. The 60 Minutes staff selects which grievances they make public. 60 Minutes is one of the gatekeepers of free speech and freedom to protest our government in America.
Editors, TV anchors, radio and TV talk show hosts are gatekeepers of first amendment rights too, but more self-interested in their show business image than protectors and defenders of first amendment rights.
Local mass media consumer advocates are limited watchdogs of first amendment rights; mediating top dog bottom underdog relations only for financial transactions. Consumer advocates are employees of a media employer. They select cases to be made public. This is not to underestimate the importance, though limited role, of the consumer advocate in American society.
Voting is not free speech. Try writing to a politician who claims, “I hear your voice. I speak with you and for you.” Or “This was never about me. This is all about you.”
They will not answer you or acknowledge your communication unless they can use you and your communication to their own personal political advantage. I’ve done it. I speak from personal experience.
If money and connections can guarantee free speech and free press in America, a home of free speech for 300 million people, then what can we expect for a democratic united nations new world government of 6 billion people?
I want to share with you a relatively trivial experience in a relatively small democratic organization of 170,000 members: The American Psychological Association.
Recently I wrote to the Editor of The Monitor. The Monitor is a magazine published by the APA which is sent to APA members. The letter read: “Dear Editor, There is a tradition among APA members, particularly among the clinical and social psychologists, to seek the truth and try to change the world to the better. The realworldnewworld.com website is in this tradition. I would like to hear from fellow APA members about this website.”
The Editor of The Monitor refused to publish this letter.
I appealed to the CEO of the APA. He ruled in favor of the Editor on the grounds that I was trying to advertise my website.
My website and blogsite do not advertise a product. They advertise ideas. Others can agree, disagree or ignore these ideas.
Justice is not perfect. Many important U.S. Supreme Court Decisions are based on a 5 to 4 majority vote.
In a democracy the minority dissenting opinion is made public along with the majority opinion and decisive majority vote.
To this day only the Editor of The Monitor, the CEO of the APA and I know about the incident reported here. This incident remains private and hidden from 170,000 members of the APA.
I believe a sincere effort to free speech has been blocked.
We now go from the trivial to the profound; to the trial of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Based on witness testimonies Eichmann was charged publicly at trial with sending thousands of living people to gas chamber execution.
Eichmann pleaded innocent. He claimed that he was only doing his job. It was nothing personal. He had no personal animosity toward the victims. He even like and admired them. He was simply obeying and following orders from the leaders of his government. He was not responsible for these orders. Although the consequences may have been profound, Eichmann claimed that his activities at the death camp were routine, trivial.
My incident at the APA was trivial. Perhaps it has a deeper meaning which is profound.
The creation of a police force of Advocates to make public violations of, protect and defend, first amendment rights do not guarantee that all problems vis-à-vis first amendment rights will disappear.
Can there be “false alarms,” “inappropriate complaints,” complaints that are “too trivial”? Can some complaints be negotiated privately? What if the system gets clogged jammed up? What if there are an overwhelming number of complaints? It may take years to get your free speech and protest against your government through the courts. Under these conditions will there be a need to select among complaints to be made public? Will one complaint have to be judged to be more important than another complaint? How will this judgmental process work?
These questions are more than theoretical. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an advocacy organization for the free-of-charge defense of first amendment rights which routinely selects and rejects complaints because of the large number of applications received.
I believe people are as good as the social systems that govern them.
I believe America is the Experimental lab for the coming democratic new world government of the United Nations.
I believe terrorism, like the passive drop out solutions, begins with the feeling of being helpless, hopeless, and powerless.
The New World Foundation is initiating a campaign for the creation of a police force of advocates to make public violations of, protect and defend first amendment rights.
The Advocates would be sworn in by oath. They could be removed only by impeachment. By law they would have unprecedented access to public communication systems. They would have legal authority to use an amber-like alert signal to alert the public that first amendment rights, the child of democracy, is being stolen.
The Advocates would have to accept and represent complaints solely on a first come, first served basis, independent of content and sender, and include equal representation for those who disagree.
I believe that someday there will come into being a democratic United Nations new world government of 6 billion people (current estimate). I’m concerned about the realization of first amendment rights in this mega world government.
This started me thinking about the realization of first amendment rights within the current USA (a democracy of 300 million people), and the realization of first amendment rights within less populated democratic organizations to which I belong, e.g. The American Psychological Association; a democratic organization of 170 thousand psychologists.
Here are my thoughts.
There are currently some watchdogs in America who are whistle blowers or assist whistle blowers realize their first amendment rights.
I think the best of these is CBS 60 Minutes which airs on Sundays. 60 Minutes has a history of exposing pollutions and polluters which harm the health of people, e.g., toxins in cigarettes and disposal of various kinds of toxic waste. These are very important critical issues.
However, 60 Minutes is dependent on viewer ratings and advertiser money for its survival. The 60 Minutes staff selects which grievances they make public. 60 Minutes is one of the gatekeepers of free speech and freedom to protest our government in America.
Editors, TV anchors, radio and TV talk show hosts are gatekeepers of first amendment rights too, but more self-interested in their show business image than protectors and defenders of first amendment rights.
Local mass media consumer advocates are limited watchdogs of first amendment rights; mediating top dog bottom underdog relations only for financial transactions. Consumer advocates are employees of a media employer. They select cases to be made public. This is not to underestimate the importance, though limited role, of the consumer advocate in American society.
Voting is not free speech. Try writing to a politician who claims, “I hear your voice. I speak with you and for you.” Or “This was never about me. This is all about you.”
They will not answer you or acknowledge your communication unless they can use you and your communication to their own personal political advantage. I’ve done it. I speak from personal experience.
If money and connections can guarantee free speech and free press in America, a home of free speech for 300 million people, then what can we expect for a democratic united nations new world government of 6 billion people?
I want to share with you a relatively trivial experience in a relatively small democratic organization of 170,000 members: The American Psychological Association.
Recently I wrote to the Editor of The Monitor. The Monitor is a magazine published by the APA which is sent to APA members. The letter read: “Dear Editor, There is a tradition among APA members, particularly among the clinical and social psychologists, to seek the truth and try to change the world to the better. The realworldnewworld.com website is in this tradition. I would like to hear from fellow APA members about this website.”
The Editor of The Monitor refused to publish this letter.
I appealed to the CEO of the APA. He ruled in favor of the Editor on the grounds that I was trying to advertise my website.
My website and blogsite do not advertise a product. They advertise ideas. Others can agree, disagree or ignore these ideas.
Justice is not perfect. Many important U.S. Supreme Court Decisions are based on a 5 to 4 majority vote.
In a democracy the minority dissenting opinion is made public along with the majority opinion and decisive majority vote.
To this day only the Editor of The Monitor, the CEO of the APA and I know about the incident reported here. This incident remains private and hidden from 170,000 members of the APA.
I believe a sincere effort to free speech has been blocked.
We now go from the trivial to the profound; to the trial of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Based on witness testimonies Eichmann was charged publicly at trial with sending thousands of living people to gas chamber execution.
Eichmann pleaded innocent. He claimed that he was only doing his job. It was nothing personal. He had no personal animosity toward the victims. He even like and admired them. He was simply obeying and following orders from the leaders of his government. He was not responsible for these orders. Although the consequences may have been profound, Eichmann claimed that his activities at the death camp were routine, trivial.
My incident at the APA was trivial. Perhaps it has a deeper meaning which is profound.
The creation of a police force of Advocates to make public violations of, protect and defend, first amendment rights do not guarantee that all problems vis-à-vis first amendment rights will disappear.
Can there be “false alarms,” “inappropriate complaints,” complaints that are “too trivial”? Can some complaints be negotiated privately? What if the system gets clogged jammed up? What if there are an overwhelming number of complaints? It may take years to get your free speech and protest against your government through the courts. Under these conditions will there be a need to select among complaints to be made public? Will one complaint have to be judged to be more important than another complaint? How will this judgmental process work?
These questions are more than theoretical. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an advocacy organization for the free-of-charge defense of first amendment rights which routinely selects and rejects complaints because of the large number of applications received.
I believe people are as good as the social systems that govern them.
I believe America is the Experimental lab for the coming democratic new world government of the United Nations.
I believe terrorism, like the passive drop out solutions, begins with the feeling of being helpless, hopeless, and powerless.
Peak Experience Groups For Prevention Of Teenage Drug Abuse
Please Announce, Post, Xerox and Distribute to Teens, their Parents, and to others who may be concerned.
FOR TEENAGERS WHO ARE THINKING ABOUT USING CHEMICALS OR DRUGS TO TURN ON. STOP.
TURN ON AND TUNE IN WITHOUT CHEMICALS OR DRUGS IN BODY – MIND – SPIRIT PEAK EXPERIENCE GROUPS;
Limited to a maximum of 8 in a group. These experimental small groups are conducted by Dr. Sheldon M. Cohen, Ph.D., a former clinical director of a community mental health center. Dr. Sheldon has published numerous articles in professional journals. His current website, www.realworldnewworld.com, deals with how to reduce human destructiveness to self and others (Terrorism), religion, social change, and an introduction to a “Study People, Study Your Life” program.
A sample of the kinds of experiences Teens will have in the Peak Experience Group:
Þ Study their own life beginning with their first memory. Exchange life story studies with others.
Þ Integrate traditional values in a search for meanings and rituals for their life. Create verbal and non-verbal Mantras.
Þ Become more aware of their Here-and-Now Experiences. Interchange words and actions, role reversals, rehearsal dialogues with significant others.
Þ Tap and develop their special interests, abilities, talents, fantasies, dreams, and learn how to use these to contribute their individuality and uniqueness.
Þ Work with their bodies through meditative movement (like Tai Chi, Hula Hula, Yoga and Kabuki), perceptive touch, biofeedback, sensitivity training exercises and out of body experiences.
Þ Free Speak about anything, at any time, in any way, without any restrictions. Only violence and the use of chemicals and drugs are not permitted.
Þ Deal with personal and social conflicting values, conflicting directions, double bind messages and meanings. For example, the mass media floods our Teens with explicit sexual events and semi-nude sexual role models. At the same time, Teens sharing their individual sexual needs remain a private matter left to chance happening. At the last Republican National Presidential Convention for President Bush, his daughter uttered a truth from the podium of the convention before a national TV audience when she revealed: Sex is something our parents do, but we are not supposed to know or talk about it. It summarizes our adult society relation to Teens.
Þ In the Peak Experience Group, Teens will become more aware of the historic social times and the particular social situations in which they live. They will develop strategies to cope or try to change these for the better.
CALL: 623-628-4584
FOR TEENAGERS WHO ARE THINKING ABOUT USING CHEMICALS OR DRUGS TO TURN ON. STOP.
TURN ON AND TUNE IN WITHOUT CHEMICALS OR DRUGS IN BODY – MIND – SPIRIT PEAK EXPERIENCE GROUPS;
Limited to a maximum of 8 in a group. These experimental small groups are conducted by Dr. Sheldon M. Cohen, Ph.D., a former clinical director of a community mental health center. Dr. Sheldon has published numerous articles in professional journals. His current website, www.realworldnewworld.com, deals with how to reduce human destructiveness to self and others (Terrorism), religion, social change, and an introduction to a “Study People, Study Your Life” program.
A sample of the kinds of experiences Teens will have in the Peak Experience Group:
Þ Study their own life beginning with their first memory. Exchange life story studies with others.
Þ Integrate traditional values in a search for meanings and rituals for their life. Create verbal and non-verbal Mantras.
Þ Become more aware of their Here-and-Now Experiences. Interchange words and actions, role reversals, rehearsal dialogues with significant others.
Þ Tap and develop their special interests, abilities, talents, fantasies, dreams, and learn how to use these to contribute their individuality and uniqueness.
Þ Work with their bodies through meditative movement (like Tai Chi, Hula Hula, Yoga and Kabuki), perceptive touch, biofeedback, sensitivity training exercises and out of body experiences.
Þ Free Speak about anything, at any time, in any way, without any restrictions. Only violence and the use of chemicals and drugs are not permitted.
Þ Deal with personal and social conflicting values, conflicting directions, double bind messages and meanings. For example, the mass media floods our Teens with explicit sexual events and semi-nude sexual role models. At the same time, Teens sharing their individual sexual needs remain a private matter left to chance happening. At the last Republican National Presidential Convention for President Bush, his daughter uttered a truth from the podium of the convention before a national TV audience when she revealed: Sex is something our parents do, but we are not supposed to know or talk about it. It summarizes our adult society relation to Teens.
Þ In the Peak Experience Group, Teens will become more aware of the historic social times and the particular social situations in which they live. They will develop strategies to cope or try to change these for the better.
CALL: 623-628-4584
THE NEWORLD FOUNDATION FOR INTERFAITH
I
INTRODUCTION TO PERSONAL RELIGION-AND-INTERFAITH
What is Personal Religion? Personal Religion is your significant beliefs and rituals. Personal Religion is what you and I do to live, and live to do. Personal Religion is what we follow devotedly.
Personal Religion may be based in part or in total on your special needs, interests, and abilities. Personal Religion may be based in part or in total on what happens to you when you are making other plans. Personal Religion may be based in part or in total on one traditional religion or a combination of traditional religions. My personal religion (S.M.C.) has elements of Judaism, Christianity, Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Personal Religion is what you make of it.
Personal Religion may be shared by a group of people or be unique to an individual. Personal Religion may be fixed or changing.
Personal Religion may or may not include a concept of God or Higher Power. “The fool said in his heart, ‘There is no God,’ but who is God save rock, the rock of my salvation that girdeth me with strength” sang the Psalmist. An Atheist can believe in the value of survival, happiness, the power of vitamins, science, nature, materialism, self-sufficiency, service to others, beauty, truth, justice, mercy, etc. An Atheist can have a personal religion. When John Lennon wrote and sang, “Imagine all the people with nothing to kill or die for and not religion, too, “he was being religious.
The study of Personal Religion is the study of Human life experiences. The study of your own life experiences may become a part of your Personal Religion. When people study each other’s Personal Religion, this study is the basis of Interfaith.
To this end, I want to share two different experiences from my Personal Religion. I’ve title the first experience, “Seeing a Group of Ghosts;” the second experience, “What I Learned From Ms. Sadie Citrin, My Home Room High School Teacher.”
SEEING A GROUP OF GHOSTS: In the mid 1960’s I was a Psychology Professor at Bard College, Annandale-on-the-Hudson, New York State, USA. I lived on campus in the basement apartment of the Albee Building. Sometimes I would invite my students to my apartment for a 6 PM class.
On one occasion, preparing for my class, I arranged the chairs in a circle. Then I sat down on the couch, which was not part of the circle, to rest. Suddenly, there was a person seated in each of the chairs. I knew immediately that they were not living people. They had to be ghosts.
I was frightened. I never had this kind of experience before. I blinked my eyes to make sure I was not hallucinating or deluding myself. There they were; sitting upright with excellent posture. They were all adult men. Each person looked different and was dressed differently. Their clothing was of a different period. I believe they were Indians.
There was something within me that wanted to enter mid-circle and explore our relationship more fully. I thought that if I did that, they might take me with them. I was not ready to go. I hurried to the exit door. I placed my right hand firmly around the doorknob and then looked back at the circle of chairs. Perhaps this whole thing was just a figment of my imagination. No, they were still sitting in the chairs. I then asked the ghosts mentally, “Why do you appear before me now?” I believe I received an answer mentally: “We were once living people like you. We want you to know that we still exist.”
I was too frightened to explore any further. I left the apartment. I waited outside for my students to come. When they arrived, we all went down to my apartment. The ghosts were gone. We had our class. Everything went normally. I continued to live in the apartment for about a year. I continued to hear strange sounds when I awoke at night. As far as I know, the ghosts did nothing to hurt me. I consider them my friends, and my teachers.
At the time I saw the ghosts I was not under the influence of any drugs. I have never tried any psychedelic drugs. I was not particularly anxious or fatigued. My vision was 20/20. I believe the ghosts were real.
Every human creation begins with a thought. I believe Mind created matter.
WHAT I LEARNED FROM MS. SADIE CITRIN, MY HOME ROOM HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER: Sadie was an unmarried woman who collected students to love. I was one of them. From Sadie I learned: Stand up straight. Do, don’t stew. It’s amazing that anything exists. If you are having a few good moments each day, you are having a pretty good life. Never say, “That’s the way it is.” Always say, “That’s the way I see it. That’s what it means to me.”
Sat or write your last name and individual differences will appear in your own family. Each person, each group of people, and the human species is unique. This uniqueness can be studied and enjoyed. We need to learn and to teach how to use this uniqueness in a positive, constructive, productive and creative way.
II
NEWORLD IS DEDICATED TO PREVENTING HOMEGROWN AND FOREIGN TERRORISM AND COERCION BY CHANGING THE CONDITIONS WITHIN THE PERSON AND CHANGING THE CONDITIONS WITHIN SOCIETY THAT LEAD TO IT.
There is nothing new under the sun. Did not the auto, the airplane, the spaceship, the submarine, the computer exist as possibilities before they were invented and became actualities? Did not science exist as a possibility before there were scientists? The same old simple truths may be experienced and expressed in a very large number of new or different ways. Is there any end to the number of different songs of love that can be created? Is there any end to the number of different ways the same old tree can be drawn, painted or sculpted?
How can humans create a world free(er) from deficiency, threat, emergency and coercion? How can humans create a peaceful world with abundance, co-existence, liberty, and justice for all? The answer depends on the kind of human relations considered.
THE HUMAN RELATION TO NATURE: It is almost a truism in our time that Man’s control over nature and nurture can come about only through the scientific process. Prayers, meditation and revelation may be a part of the scientific process, but cannot effectively replace science. Still, science cannot definitely answer the questions: Why is science possible? Why does anything exist?
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: Humans have also used science and technology to build better weapons. Currently, hundreds of billions of dollars a year are being spent worldwide on offensive and defensive weapons. Obviously, this money could be spent improving childcare, healthcare, education, curing poverty, etc. This choice and possible consequences continues to confront our civilization.
RELATIONS BETWEEN GROUPS AND INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS: No human group can survive as the same group when individual group members are in conflict with group goals, values, norms, rules, laws or mission.
There are no easy answers for relations between groups and individual members. Corporations, for example, have found that opening lines of communication by brainstorming brings the business organization closer to Neworld conditions and is also financially profitable. Workers who can speak freely without threat have better morale, are less absent, less covertly destructive, more productive and creative than workers who feel threatened.
We are for opening up at least part of national TV, magazines, radio and major newspaper media for genuine free speech and free press; in prime time and prime space, on a first come first served basis, without editorial intervention. We are for all mass media socio-political communications being free and equally represented.
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS BETWEEN CONSENTING INDIVIDUALS WITH SIMILAR GOALS AND VALUES: Good, happy interpersonal relations depend on the participants being in touch with their thoughts and feelings, and being easily able to communicate these thoughts and feelings to each other. These individuals will then find the right ration of separateness to togetherness for their relationship and their relationship will flourish.
INTRA-PSYCHIC RELATIONS: Intra-physic relations refers to relations between selves, beliefs and motives within the person, including relations between the “Me” and the “not-Me” (the “I” and the “not-I”). When the person feels threatened, intra-psychic relations may involve psychological defenses to reduce the threat.
The primary psychological defenses are denial, repression of thoughts and isolation of feelings. For example, we see these defenses working in youth violence in the school environment. Yes, there are lots of guns and violent entertainment productions available in America. Still, there are young people who are exposed to these conditions and don’t kill others. For the same reason, faulty relations between parents and their children or faulty peer relations cannot fully explain this violent behavior. Therefore, we have to look to relations within the person for the answer.
The individual may be denying repressing thoughts and isolating feelings of common humanness. Surely, I can feel almighty by taking the lives of others and my own life. I don’t do it because I allow myself to feel reverence for the vulnerability of the living; reverence for the struggle of the living to survive and fulfill themselves, even under difficult circumstances. These kinds of feelings are denied, repressed and isolated in the youth who are violent in the school environment.
Some other psychological defenses are: Rationalization, Displacement (from one motive to another, from one object or subject to another, from one behavioral means to another), Projection, e.g. falsely attributing one’s own motives to others, Identification and Introjection, Reaction-formation or representation by the opposite, Regression and Overcompensation.
Social Scientists and non-scientists may disagree about what constitutes psychological defense.
We believe there is no end to knowing thy self and thy world. Gladly should we learn and gladly should we teach.
NEWORLD RAP: The Lion and The Lamb, The Leopard and The Ox, The Bear and The Bee, The Chicken and The Fox, The Blind shall see and The Deaf shall hear, The Lame shall leap and all shall sing: It’s good, it’s good, very, very good, to live and love. Let live and love. I ask not why, why, why, why, why. Sanctify, Sanctify. Man, man cometh from dust. Man, man returneth to dust. Like a dream he passeth away. The Lion and The Lamb, The Leopard and The Ox, The Bear and The Bee, The Chicken and The Fox…
IMAGES OF LOVE FROM A SONG OF LOVE (words based on a poem by P.B. Shelley): The fountains mingle with the rivers and the rivers with the oceans. The winds of heaven mix forever with sweet devotion. Nothing in the world is single. All things by law divine. In one Being meet and mingle. See the sunbeams kiss the earth. See the moonbeams kiss the sea. What are all these kissings worth if thou kiss not me?
III
A STORY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT TOLD IN A BRAVE NEW WORLD
In the 20th Century there were theorists who believed that the fetus’ relation to the womb environment was pleasureful nirvana; being born was traumatic. Soon, in normal infant development, the child’s entire skin surface became eroticized. The child was pleasured by being touched and by touching. The child was pleasured by being played with and by playing. Normally, the child was pleasured by using all its capacities: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, recognizing, babbling, moving, pushing, grasping, effectively transacting with the environment.
Pleasureful experiences also became focused on the erogenous zones of the mouth, the anus (with the development of anal sphincter muscles around the age of 2), and the genitals (beginning around the age of 3).
Normally, along with the pleasure there had to be a little frustration sometimes. From the beginning of life the child’s cry was unpleasant to others. During the Oral Stage the child’s frustration was likely to be expressed by regurgitation; with the development of teeth, the child’s frustration could be expressed by biting. Anal expressions of frustration, as negative resistance to toilet training, were bombing and soiling. Genital Stage “Castration anxiety” could be expressed by hitting, kicking or worse. This aggression could be displaced and directed at anything or anyone, including ones self. Childhood fears and phobias were common.
The male/female distinction could lead to real or fantasy coalitions with the family: son and mother against father, son and father against mother, daughter and father against mother, daughter and mother against father. Bi-sexual alternation, inner conflict and role reversals, e.g. the child assuming a parental role to parents, were possible. When there were siblings in the family, a variety of other coalitions and rivalries could occur.
From childhood to puberty through adolescence, the child normally had experiences with playmates, schoolmates, peer friends, and significant adults other than parents. All of these significant experiences could later affect the adults’ sexuality and Personality: The adults’ capacity to trust (or distrust) others, the adults’ competence (or incompetence) to influence others, the adults’ ability (or inability) to love and care for others. The child learned (or failed to learn) limits, controls, responsibility, respect for the rights of others. The Child either became socialized or sociopathic.
In the 20th Century this development of the individual took place against a background of tremendous social and technological change: from Puritanism to the gender and gay rights revolutions, to the stranger than fiction evolution in the technology of sex and birth control. Suddenly, chemicals could stimulate a male’s erection, women could become pregnant by artificial insemination, eggs and sperm could be frozen for future use, embryos could be implanted in a uterus, cloning was possible. The meaning of “marriage and family” became controversial.
There were those who yelled Foul. Others kept exploring the seas, the heavens, medical and non-medical technologies, genes, social behavior, psychodynamics, searching for the best possible society; evolving toward our Brave New World.
Whenever this story was told in the brave new world, the storyteller and the listeners would end by chanting: “Negated negation is affirmed affirmation. Accepted acceptance is simply, Have a good time. The negative lives for the positive created.”
IV
THE TWO SIDES, SYMBOLIC OF ALL SIDES, IN BALANCE, UNIFIED AND INTEGRATED
The following samples, each in its own way, deliver a similar message. They tell of two sides in balance, unified and integrated.
THE CLASSIC ISLAMIC MOSQUE: The Classic Islamic Mosque with its round dome and rectangular base symbolizes the perfect balance between the two sides: Heaven and Earth. Likewise, the Classic Islamic Garden is designed to reflect the perfect balance between the two sides: Natural spontaneous growth and the restraint of external environmental requirements of form.
THE CROSS: A horizontal east-west line intersects at with a vertical north-south line. Implicit in the crossroads of balance, unity and integration of the two sides is the possibility of dangerous collision.
THE SIX POINTED STAR: Two triangles, one upright and the other inverted, overlap midway producing a six-pointed star. A skeletal version of the six-pointed star can also be constructed by rotating the cross to an X and drawing a vertical line through the center of the X.
THE GREEK LETTER PSI: A line is drawn through the center of a U, thus dividing the U into two parts. When Psi is inverted, this symbol of psyche and psychology has been used as a symbol of peace.
THE MULTIPLICATION TABLE OF THE NUMBER NINE SYMBOLIC OF “LIFE”
1 X 9 = 09----------0 + 9 = 9
2 X 9 = 18----------1 + 8 = 9
3 X 9 = 27----------2 + 7 = 9
4 X 9 = 36----------3 + 6 = 9
5 X 9 = 45----------4 + 5 = 9
6 X 9 = 54----------5 + 4 = 9
7 X 9 = 63----------6 + 3 = 9
8 X 9 = 72----------7 + 2 = 9
9 X 9 = 81----------8 + 1 = 9
10 X 9 = 90----------9 + 0 = 9
Note the properties of inversion and unity. The crossing in the multiplication table of the number nine takes place between (9 x 5) 45 and 54 (9 x 6). Each value in the first half has an inversion in the second half.
THE SCALE OF JUSTICE: The two sides of the scale symbolize the Plaintiff and the Defendant. When the two sides are in balance, there is Justice.
THE CADUCEUS: The Caduceus is used as a medical symbol. Two snakes are intertwined around a staff. The two sides are in balance when healing cures illness. The wings on top of the staff symbolize medical help coming to cure illness.
THE YIN-YANG SYMBOL: A circle is divided into two like parts, usually by an S shape design. One side is covered in black while the other is white. A small white circle is in the black area. Diametrically across from this white circle there is a small black circle in the white area. When the polarities of black and white are mixed, they form a neutral uniform gray.
THE INFINITY SYMBOL: When the archetype M for Man (convexity) is placed on the archetype W for Woman (concavity) and they intertwine (like the snakes of the Caduceus), they form an infinity symbol. In the infinity symbol, M and W are in balance, unified and integrated.
THE SWASTIKA: The Swastika is an Old Persian symbol, which has been used by the Nazis for evil. Two Zs, one vertical and the other horizontal, intersect, as does the cross, to form a unified integrated whole.
Indeed, Democracy is based on two sides, symbolic of all sides, in balance, unified and integrated. Humanity too has two sides: Commonality and Individuality. Terrorism threatens democracy and humanity.
Terrorism is a political statement. Terrorism is rooted in the belief that might, in fact, makes right; the belief that life is a deadly power struggle. In the non-human animal world the bigger and stronger eat the smaller and weaker. Terrorism is the way those who feel small and weak can at last feel large and strong for a while.
Terrorism is also a psychiatric statement. Terrorism is a psychological high: a defense against detachment, alienation, helplessness, hopelessness, depression. It is a transformation from passivity to activity.
How can a person be prevented from becoming a terrorist? We believe the answer is, “Put something more satisfying and fulfilling in its place.”
Healing requires a therapeutic other, a therapeutic community. The Person and Society are two sides of Mental Illness and Health.
There is a role for mental health workers of the 21st Century to assess snuffed out deprived needs, interests, abilities, talents, visions, dreams of positive, constructive, productive creative becoming, and to recommend and create non-toxic healthy nourishing environments as well as positive, constructive productive creative job, school and play placement.
V
MEDITATION ON GROUPING (INTEGRATING, UNIFYING) AND DIVIDING (SEPARATING, INDIVIDUALIZING)
Humans are born with some protective reflexes. They are born with no survival instincts. Humans require others to nurture and protect them at birth. This is our earliest social-economic grouping. Normally, humans exist in a physical-chemical-biological-social-political-economic context. To some extent individuals are controlled by the forces in that context. The question is not: Are we controlled? The question is: What is the best form of control for the individuals who are being controlled.
Grouping is more than environmental and social. We perceive, think, act and physically function holistically. Nine randomly placed dots presented rapidly will tend to be seen as three groups of three dots. Millions of people are grouped as “male,” “female,” “old,” “young,” “American,” “French,” etc. Going to the grocery store normally is not a series of individual discrete responses. The human body must function as an integrated systemic whole to be healthy.
Grouping also involves dividing. The three groups of nine dots have a degree of separation from each other. Going to the grocery store is different from doing the tango or playing basketball. Males are different from females, young different from old, and Americans are different in some ways from the French. Though normally our bodies function in an integrated way, there are different parts and processes of the human body that normally function antagonistically, e.g. the flexor vs. the extensor muscles of the arms and legs, expansion vs. contraction, incorporation vs. expulsion, anabolism vs. catabolism, the central nervous system vs. the autonomic nervous system, the right vs. the left hemisphere of the human brain.
Mature humans have the capacity, at least in imagination, to separate from (transcend) and change their past physical, chemical, biological, psychological, social, political and economic conditions. The human capacity to separate from the past and view the past historically as a whole, even without being able to change the past, is the reason why hindsight is often considered to be 20/20.
There are only three general basic ways humans can resolve their differences peacefully: (1) Resolution by grouping (integrating, unifying); (2) Resolution by dividing (separating, individualizing); (3) Resolution by combination of the first two ways.
Examples of resolving differences by grouping: M. Gorbachev’s reason for pursuing a treaty to limit nuclear proliferation, “Human life is no less precious when it is American than when it is Russian.” In times of war Americans minimize their differences between being Democrat Vs. Republican, Conservative vs. Liberal, and focus on coping with the enemy as “Americans.” An example of resolving differences by dividing: Each individual American state, not the federal government, has the right to create their own policy dealing with education, welfare, pollution, addiction, etc. An example of resolution by combining (1) and (2) above is waiting-on-line-for-your-turn. The line may be based on a first-come-first-served principle or on a random lottery principle or in any other way perceived as fair. Everyone gets a chance to satisfy their needs, but not at the same time (or in the same place).
In other words, there are a limited number of ways humans can resolve their differences peacefully: (1) Voluntary separation, (2) Negotiations and bargaining, (3) Creation and appeal to a norm or normative system, e.g. appeal to an authority or arbitration; appeal to a custom, rule or law.
Grouping, Dividing and Identity: Dr. Eugene Hartley, a Social Psychologist, invented three fictitious groups: The Danerians from Daneria, the Wallonians from Wallonia and the Pinerians from Pineria. He found people who hated the Danerians, the Wallonians and the Pinerians. They attributed negative traits to these fictitious people. They were threatened by anyone outside of their social grouping. We believe this defensive potential, to some extent, is in all of us. It may be reality based. Within-groupers are less likely to hurt us than outsiders, strangers and foreigners.
In the mental illness called Multiple Personality the person is threatened by foreign selves within oneself. The Multiple Personality dissociates these ego-alien selves. The various selves are unaware of each other’s identities, actions and experiences.
Normally, humans are capable of and are aware of playing different roles in different situations. We observe this capability when the little girl plays mommy and the little boy plays daddy. In normal adult life the same person can assume different roles in different situations. For example, a male medical doctor may be a teacher when he supervises interns, a student when he takes a seminar outside his field, a husband and father at home, one of the boys in his athletic club, a patient in his dentist’s chair or when he is being examined by his own doctor, a son in his parents’ home, a motorist on the highway, a customer in a shoe store, a fan at a ballgame, a client in his lawyer’s office, etc.
Identity may contain information about a person’s roots, core beliefs, social group belongings, inheritance, investments, ability, expertise, credentials, possessions, powers, status, duties, rights, and privileges. In this sense, identity may become a territory to protect and defend.
Normally, we are also capable of enjoying movies, plays and novels because we can put ourselves in the place of others. Normally, humans are also capable of exploring various selves within their Self.
This ability is required for Interfaith.
VI
HYPOTHESIS: THE KIND OF BRAVE NEW WORLD WE BECOME WILL DEPEND ON HOW TWO HUMAN SPECIES SPECIFIC CAPACITIES ARE ACTUALIZED; NAMELY (1) THE CAPACITY FOR WILLING SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF AND (2) THE CAPACITY FOR TRANSCENDENCE AND TRANSFORMATION
The capacity for willing suspension of disbelief enables us to put ourselves in the place of others, to experience and appreciate the world from the other’s point of view. It enables us to empathize and to sympathize: “I do not ask the wounded man how he feels. I become the wounded man.” “Any man’s death diminishes me.” “Our group, right or wrong.”
The capacity for transcendence and transformation enables us, at least in imagination, to separate from and to change our past physical, chemical, biological, psychological, social, political and economic conditions. It is the ontological basis for all forms of therapy and humanly initiated progress. This capacity enables us to be “objective,” task-oriented, not ego-involved; to analyze, criticize, propose alternatives, create experiments and evaluate results from different perspectives.
Each of these species-specific human capacities also has potential pathologies.
The potential pathologies of the willing suspension of disbelief are, e.g. uncritically following suggestions, uncritical imitation, uncritical identification, uncritical conformity, uncritical merging, allowing ourselves to be conned, hypnotized, mesmerized or addicted when these behaviors lead to harmful consequences.
The potential pathologies of the capacity for transcendence and transformations are, e.g. distancing, detachment, seeing the forest but not the individual trees and leaves, reducing emergent wholes into component parts or destroying emergent wholes, loss of empathy, and sympathy when these behaviors lead to harmful consequences.
We believe there is a need for mental health workers of the 21st Century to learn and to teach “a hovering awareness;” how to be a part of it and then be apart from it. Our Brave New World will depend on it.
VII
TOWARD SOCIO-ECONOMIC EQUALITY: A SOCIO-ECONOMIC CLASSLESS SOCIETY WITHIN NATIONS AND A SHARING OF MONETARY AND OTHER RESOURCES REGULARLY BETWEEN NATIONS IN ACCORDANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL LAW
We believe that socio-economic frustration mixed with existential frustration, e.g. lack of clear meaning, identity, self-esteem, rootedness, belonging in the universe, purpose, venues of self expression, direction, fulfillment for one’s life, make people vulnerable to Frustration-Displacement. It is one side of the various forms of destructiveness to self and others which plague our world
The other side is learning and teaching groups and individuals from childhood how to take responsibility for their behavioral choices, exercise self-control, respect the rights of others, and respect their own rights for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; with hotlines, help lines, assessment services, placement services, counseling services and social support systems readily available.
The mission of human fulfillment is to reduce the Craziness that is harmful to self and others and to direct human energies towards positive individual and societal fulfillment. The mission is to match the fulfillment of positive individual needs, interests, abilities, talents, visions and dreams to fulfillment of societal requirements. The mission is to achieve a balance, unity and integration between fulfilling positive individual person potentialities and fulfilling societal requirements.
This is an Islamic mission as symbolized in the classic Islamic mosque and classic Islamic gardens. It is also a Judeo Christian mission.
To fulfill this mission on earth we are for establishing a United Nations Army of helpers and healers from all walks of life. This army of helpers and healers will lead us to make holy war against human destructiveness to self and others. They will lead us to be creative-and-constructive.
VIII
PUBLIC PSALMS OF A PERSONAL RELIGION
PSALM I: Sight stretched long is touch to light fluttering leaves on branches of branches like birds in flight. Fish fins flap in waves of song. Imaginary Companion, you were here all along; though net fleeing butterfly moments, near from far, lending earth, air, fire and water. We are the plant of your delight.
PSALM II: The frame of our experiences is our lives. Our bodies are the way Allah plays with Himself; Changing bodies at boredom while the ocean remains the same; Filtering experiences through each other; Creating the frames of our lives.
PSALM III: Having heard tales of right hands speaking to left, left legs to right, tops to bottoms, sides to sides, I was practicing in meditation. Then I imagined a flower implanted in soil. I shrunk myself in imagination and slid down the sieve. Suddenly, a fountain spraying champagne celebration. I looked through filigreed leaves; the lace of trees. I saw the creation as a fireworks festival of lights in the night. I learned to fight for my right to life.
PSALM IV: Who is responsible? What is to blame? Choice, chance, or fate, his hers, or their type or trait, heredity, biology, society, individuality psychology, mama and paper, will of Allah? Your pick is your trick; your own carrot and stick.
PSALM V: “Snatch the moment” is a misnomer. The moment you catch a bubble: Burst! Watch it by letting it go. Have it by letting it flow.
PSALM VI: There is pleasure in congregation; finding oneself by losing oneself.
PSALM VII: A person, a life of the living, on earth to find a prayer, to sing a song, hopefully a song of love, do a dance of life, not alone.
PSALM VIII: We’re just two kids (like Tom and Huck on the Mississippi) lovin’ and fightin’, watchin’ TV. When the king is naked, the king can’t fake it; no matter what the politicians say. Children will lead us in play.
PSALM IX: Leave well enough alone. Don’t tear asunder what is made whole. Rock and roll and role. Are the best mended fences our defenses? Is it better to go out of our minds; come to our senses? We’re Home.
PSALM X: Far journey to near site. Near sight is insight outside.
PSALM XI: Can you see infinity in a grain of sand?
PSALM XII: the dot expanding became the circle. Centrifugal! The circle contracting becomes the dot. Centripetal! Inhale. Centripetal. Exhale. Centrifugal. “The Big Bang!” The Breath of God.
INTRODUCTION TO PERSONAL RELIGION-AND-INTERFAITH
What is Personal Religion? Personal Religion is your significant beliefs and rituals. Personal Religion is what you and I do to live, and live to do. Personal Religion is what we follow devotedly.
Personal Religion may be based in part or in total on your special needs, interests, and abilities. Personal Religion may be based in part or in total on what happens to you when you are making other plans. Personal Religion may be based in part or in total on one traditional religion or a combination of traditional religions. My personal religion (S.M.C.) has elements of Judaism, Christianity, Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Personal Religion is what you make of it.
Personal Religion may be shared by a group of people or be unique to an individual. Personal Religion may be fixed or changing.
Personal Religion may or may not include a concept of God or Higher Power. “The fool said in his heart, ‘There is no God,’ but who is God save rock, the rock of my salvation that girdeth me with strength” sang the Psalmist. An Atheist can believe in the value of survival, happiness, the power of vitamins, science, nature, materialism, self-sufficiency, service to others, beauty, truth, justice, mercy, etc. An Atheist can have a personal religion. When John Lennon wrote and sang, “Imagine all the people with nothing to kill or die for and not religion, too, “he was being religious.
The study of Personal Religion is the study of Human life experiences. The study of your own life experiences may become a part of your Personal Religion. When people study each other’s Personal Religion, this study is the basis of Interfaith.
To this end, I want to share two different experiences from my Personal Religion. I’ve title the first experience, “Seeing a Group of Ghosts;” the second experience, “What I Learned From Ms. Sadie Citrin, My Home Room High School Teacher.”
SEEING A GROUP OF GHOSTS: In the mid 1960’s I was a Psychology Professor at Bard College, Annandale-on-the-Hudson, New York State, USA. I lived on campus in the basement apartment of the Albee Building. Sometimes I would invite my students to my apartment for a 6 PM class.
On one occasion, preparing for my class, I arranged the chairs in a circle. Then I sat down on the couch, which was not part of the circle, to rest. Suddenly, there was a person seated in each of the chairs. I knew immediately that they were not living people. They had to be ghosts.
I was frightened. I never had this kind of experience before. I blinked my eyes to make sure I was not hallucinating or deluding myself. There they were; sitting upright with excellent posture. They were all adult men. Each person looked different and was dressed differently. Their clothing was of a different period. I believe they were Indians.
There was something within me that wanted to enter mid-circle and explore our relationship more fully. I thought that if I did that, they might take me with them. I was not ready to go. I hurried to the exit door. I placed my right hand firmly around the doorknob and then looked back at the circle of chairs. Perhaps this whole thing was just a figment of my imagination. No, they were still sitting in the chairs. I then asked the ghosts mentally, “Why do you appear before me now?” I believe I received an answer mentally: “We were once living people like you. We want you to know that we still exist.”
I was too frightened to explore any further. I left the apartment. I waited outside for my students to come. When they arrived, we all went down to my apartment. The ghosts were gone. We had our class. Everything went normally. I continued to live in the apartment for about a year. I continued to hear strange sounds when I awoke at night. As far as I know, the ghosts did nothing to hurt me. I consider them my friends, and my teachers.
At the time I saw the ghosts I was not under the influence of any drugs. I have never tried any psychedelic drugs. I was not particularly anxious or fatigued. My vision was 20/20. I believe the ghosts were real.
Every human creation begins with a thought. I believe Mind created matter.
WHAT I LEARNED FROM MS. SADIE CITRIN, MY HOME ROOM HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER: Sadie was an unmarried woman who collected students to love. I was one of them. From Sadie I learned: Stand up straight. Do, don’t stew. It’s amazing that anything exists. If you are having a few good moments each day, you are having a pretty good life. Never say, “That’s the way it is.” Always say, “That’s the way I see it. That’s what it means to me.”
Sat or write your last name and individual differences will appear in your own family. Each person, each group of people, and the human species is unique. This uniqueness can be studied and enjoyed. We need to learn and to teach how to use this uniqueness in a positive, constructive, productive and creative way.
II
NEWORLD IS DEDICATED TO PREVENTING HOMEGROWN AND FOREIGN TERRORISM AND COERCION BY CHANGING THE CONDITIONS WITHIN THE PERSON AND CHANGING THE CONDITIONS WITHIN SOCIETY THAT LEAD TO IT.
There is nothing new under the sun. Did not the auto, the airplane, the spaceship, the submarine, the computer exist as possibilities before they were invented and became actualities? Did not science exist as a possibility before there were scientists? The same old simple truths may be experienced and expressed in a very large number of new or different ways. Is there any end to the number of different songs of love that can be created? Is there any end to the number of different ways the same old tree can be drawn, painted or sculpted?
How can humans create a world free(er) from deficiency, threat, emergency and coercion? How can humans create a peaceful world with abundance, co-existence, liberty, and justice for all? The answer depends on the kind of human relations considered.
THE HUMAN RELATION TO NATURE: It is almost a truism in our time that Man’s control over nature and nurture can come about only through the scientific process. Prayers, meditation and revelation may be a part of the scientific process, but cannot effectively replace science. Still, science cannot definitely answer the questions: Why is science possible? Why does anything exist?
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: Humans have also used science and technology to build better weapons. Currently, hundreds of billions of dollars a year are being spent worldwide on offensive and defensive weapons. Obviously, this money could be spent improving childcare, healthcare, education, curing poverty, etc. This choice and possible consequences continues to confront our civilization.
RELATIONS BETWEEN GROUPS AND INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS: No human group can survive as the same group when individual group members are in conflict with group goals, values, norms, rules, laws or mission.
There are no easy answers for relations between groups and individual members. Corporations, for example, have found that opening lines of communication by brainstorming brings the business organization closer to Neworld conditions and is also financially profitable. Workers who can speak freely without threat have better morale, are less absent, less covertly destructive, more productive and creative than workers who feel threatened.
We are for opening up at least part of national TV, magazines, radio and major newspaper media for genuine free speech and free press; in prime time and prime space, on a first come first served basis, without editorial intervention. We are for all mass media socio-political communications being free and equally represented.
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS BETWEEN CONSENTING INDIVIDUALS WITH SIMILAR GOALS AND VALUES: Good, happy interpersonal relations depend on the participants being in touch with their thoughts and feelings, and being easily able to communicate these thoughts and feelings to each other. These individuals will then find the right ration of separateness to togetherness for their relationship and their relationship will flourish.
INTRA-PSYCHIC RELATIONS: Intra-physic relations refers to relations between selves, beliefs and motives within the person, including relations between the “Me” and the “not-Me” (the “I” and the “not-I”). When the person feels threatened, intra-psychic relations may involve psychological defenses to reduce the threat.
The primary psychological defenses are denial, repression of thoughts and isolation of feelings. For example, we see these defenses working in youth violence in the school environment. Yes, there are lots of guns and violent entertainment productions available in America. Still, there are young people who are exposed to these conditions and don’t kill others. For the same reason, faulty relations between parents and their children or faulty peer relations cannot fully explain this violent behavior. Therefore, we have to look to relations within the person for the answer.
The individual may be denying repressing thoughts and isolating feelings of common humanness. Surely, I can feel almighty by taking the lives of others and my own life. I don’t do it because I allow myself to feel reverence for the vulnerability of the living; reverence for the struggle of the living to survive and fulfill themselves, even under difficult circumstances. These kinds of feelings are denied, repressed and isolated in the youth who are violent in the school environment.
Some other psychological defenses are: Rationalization, Displacement (from one motive to another, from one object or subject to another, from one behavioral means to another), Projection, e.g. falsely attributing one’s own motives to others, Identification and Introjection, Reaction-formation or representation by the opposite, Regression and Overcompensation.
Social Scientists and non-scientists may disagree about what constitutes psychological defense.
We believe there is no end to knowing thy self and thy world. Gladly should we learn and gladly should we teach.
NEWORLD RAP: The Lion and The Lamb, The Leopard and The Ox, The Bear and The Bee, The Chicken and The Fox, The Blind shall see and The Deaf shall hear, The Lame shall leap and all shall sing: It’s good, it’s good, very, very good, to live and love. Let live and love. I ask not why, why, why, why, why. Sanctify, Sanctify. Man, man cometh from dust. Man, man returneth to dust. Like a dream he passeth away. The Lion and The Lamb, The Leopard and The Ox, The Bear and The Bee, The Chicken and The Fox…
IMAGES OF LOVE FROM A SONG OF LOVE (words based on a poem by P.B. Shelley): The fountains mingle with the rivers and the rivers with the oceans. The winds of heaven mix forever with sweet devotion. Nothing in the world is single. All things by law divine. In one Being meet and mingle. See the sunbeams kiss the earth. See the moonbeams kiss the sea. What are all these kissings worth if thou kiss not me?
III
A STORY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT TOLD IN A BRAVE NEW WORLD
In the 20th Century there were theorists who believed that the fetus’ relation to the womb environment was pleasureful nirvana; being born was traumatic. Soon, in normal infant development, the child’s entire skin surface became eroticized. The child was pleasured by being touched and by touching. The child was pleasured by being played with and by playing. Normally, the child was pleasured by using all its capacities: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, recognizing, babbling, moving, pushing, grasping, effectively transacting with the environment.
Pleasureful experiences also became focused on the erogenous zones of the mouth, the anus (with the development of anal sphincter muscles around the age of 2), and the genitals (beginning around the age of 3).
Normally, along with the pleasure there had to be a little frustration sometimes. From the beginning of life the child’s cry was unpleasant to others. During the Oral Stage the child’s frustration was likely to be expressed by regurgitation; with the development of teeth, the child’s frustration could be expressed by biting. Anal expressions of frustration, as negative resistance to toilet training, were bombing and soiling. Genital Stage “Castration anxiety” could be expressed by hitting, kicking or worse. This aggression could be displaced and directed at anything or anyone, including ones self. Childhood fears and phobias were common.
The male/female distinction could lead to real or fantasy coalitions with the family: son and mother against father, son and father against mother, daughter and father against mother, daughter and mother against father. Bi-sexual alternation, inner conflict and role reversals, e.g. the child assuming a parental role to parents, were possible. When there were siblings in the family, a variety of other coalitions and rivalries could occur.
From childhood to puberty through adolescence, the child normally had experiences with playmates, schoolmates, peer friends, and significant adults other than parents. All of these significant experiences could later affect the adults’ sexuality and Personality: The adults’ capacity to trust (or distrust) others, the adults’ competence (or incompetence) to influence others, the adults’ ability (or inability) to love and care for others. The child learned (or failed to learn) limits, controls, responsibility, respect for the rights of others. The Child either became socialized or sociopathic.
In the 20th Century this development of the individual took place against a background of tremendous social and technological change: from Puritanism to the gender and gay rights revolutions, to the stranger than fiction evolution in the technology of sex and birth control. Suddenly, chemicals could stimulate a male’s erection, women could become pregnant by artificial insemination, eggs and sperm could be frozen for future use, embryos could be implanted in a uterus, cloning was possible. The meaning of “marriage and family” became controversial.
There were those who yelled Foul. Others kept exploring the seas, the heavens, medical and non-medical technologies, genes, social behavior, psychodynamics, searching for the best possible society; evolving toward our Brave New World.
Whenever this story was told in the brave new world, the storyteller and the listeners would end by chanting: “Negated negation is affirmed affirmation. Accepted acceptance is simply, Have a good time. The negative lives for the positive created.”
IV
THE TWO SIDES, SYMBOLIC OF ALL SIDES, IN BALANCE, UNIFIED AND INTEGRATED
The following samples, each in its own way, deliver a similar message. They tell of two sides in balance, unified and integrated.
THE CLASSIC ISLAMIC MOSQUE: The Classic Islamic Mosque with its round dome and rectangular base symbolizes the perfect balance between the two sides: Heaven and Earth. Likewise, the Classic Islamic Garden is designed to reflect the perfect balance between the two sides: Natural spontaneous growth and the restraint of external environmental requirements of form.
THE CROSS: A horizontal east-west line intersects at with a vertical north-south line. Implicit in the crossroads of balance, unity and integration of the two sides is the possibility of dangerous collision.
THE SIX POINTED STAR: Two triangles, one upright and the other inverted, overlap midway producing a six-pointed star. A skeletal version of the six-pointed star can also be constructed by rotating the cross to an X and drawing a vertical line through the center of the X.
THE GREEK LETTER PSI: A line is drawn through the center of a U, thus dividing the U into two parts. When Psi is inverted, this symbol of psyche and psychology has been used as a symbol of peace.
THE MULTIPLICATION TABLE OF THE NUMBER NINE SYMBOLIC OF “LIFE”
1 X 9 = 09----------0 + 9 = 9
2 X 9 = 18----------1 + 8 = 9
3 X 9 = 27----------2 + 7 = 9
4 X 9 = 36----------3 + 6 = 9
5 X 9 = 45----------4 + 5 = 9
6 X 9 = 54----------5 + 4 = 9
7 X 9 = 63----------6 + 3 = 9
8 X 9 = 72----------7 + 2 = 9
9 X 9 = 81----------8 + 1 = 9
10 X 9 = 90----------9 + 0 = 9
Note the properties of inversion and unity. The crossing in the multiplication table of the number nine takes place between (9 x 5) 45 and 54 (9 x 6). Each value in the first half has an inversion in the second half.
THE SCALE OF JUSTICE: The two sides of the scale symbolize the Plaintiff and the Defendant. When the two sides are in balance, there is Justice.
THE CADUCEUS: The Caduceus is used as a medical symbol. Two snakes are intertwined around a staff. The two sides are in balance when healing cures illness. The wings on top of the staff symbolize medical help coming to cure illness.
THE YIN-YANG SYMBOL: A circle is divided into two like parts, usually by an S shape design. One side is covered in black while the other is white. A small white circle is in the black area. Diametrically across from this white circle there is a small black circle in the white area. When the polarities of black and white are mixed, they form a neutral uniform gray.
THE INFINITY SYMBOL: When the archetype M for Man (convexity) is placed on the archetype W for Woman (concavity) and they intertwine (like the snakes of the Caduceus), they form an infinity symbol. In the infinity symbol, M and W are in balance, unified and integrated.
THE SWASTIKA: The Swastika is an Old Persian symbol, which has been used by the Nazis for evil. Two Zs, one vertical and the other horizontal, intersect, as does the cross, to form a unified integrated whole.
Indeed, Democracy is based on two sides, symbolic of all sides, in balance, unified and integrated. Humanity too has two sides: Commonality and Individuality. Terrorism threatens democracy and humanity.
Terrorism is a political statement. Terrorism is rooted in the belief that might, in fact, makes right; the belief that life is a deadly power struggle. In the non-human animal world the bigger and stronger eat the smaller and weaker. Terrorism is the way those who feel small and weak can at last feel large and strong for a while.
Terrorism is also a psychiatric statement. Terrorism is a psychological high: a defense against detachment, alienation, helplessness, hopelessness, depression. It is a transformation from passivity to activity.
How can a person be prevented from becoming a terrorist? We believe the answer is, “Put something more satisfying and fulfilling in its place.”
Healing requires a therapeutic other, a therapeutic community. The Person and Society are two sides of Mental Illness and Health.
There is a role for mental health workers of the 21st Century to assess snuffed out deprived needs, interests, abilities, talents, visions, dreams of positive, constructive, productive creative becoming, and to recommend and create non-toxic healthy nourishing environments as well as positive, constructive productive creative job, school and play placement.
V
MEDITATION ON GROUPING (INTEGRATING, UNIFYING) AND DIVIDING (SEPARATING, INDIVIDUALIZING)
Humans are born with some protective reflexes. They are born with no survival instincts. Humans require others to nurture and protect them at birth. This is our earliest social-economic grouping. Normally, humans exist in a physical-chemical-biological-social-political-economic context. To some extent individuals are controlled by the forces in that context. The question is not: Are we controlled? The question is: What is the best form of control for the individuals who are being controlled.
Grouping is more than environmental and social. We perceive, think, act and physically function holistically. Nine randomly placed dots presented rapidly will tend to be seen as three groups of three dots. Millions of people are grouped as “male,” “female,” “old,” “young,” “American,” “French,” etc. Going to the grocery store normally is not a series of individual discrete responses. The human body must function as an integrated systemic whole to be healthy.
Grouping also involves dividing. The three groups of nine dots have a degree of separation from each other. Going to the grocery store is different from doing the tango or playing basketball. Males are different from females, young different from old, and Americans are different in some ways from the French. Though normally our bodies function in an integrated way, there are different parts and processes of the human body that normally function antagonistically, e.g. the flexor vs. the extensor muscles of the arms and legs, expansion vs. contraction, incorporation vs. expulsion, anabolism vs. catabolism, the central nervous system vs. the autonomic nervous system, the right vs. the left hemisphere of the human brain.
Mature humans have the capacity, at least in imagination, to separate from (transcend) and change their past physical, chemical, biological, psychological, social, political and economic conditions. The human capacity to separate from the past and view the past historically as a whole, even without being able to change the past, is the reason why hindsight is often considered to be 20/20.
There are only three general basic ways humans can resolve their differences peacefully: (1) Resolution by grouping (integrating, unifying); (2) Resolution by dividing (separating, individualizing); (3) Resolution by combination of the first two ways.
Examples of resolving differences by grouping: M. Gorbachev’s reason for pursuing a treaty to limit nuclear proliferation, “Human life is no less precious when it is American than when it is Russian.” In times of war Americans minimize their differences between being Democrat Vs. Republican, Conservative vs. Liberal, and focus on coping with the enemy as “Americans.” An example of resolving differences by dividing: Each individual American state, not the federal government, has the right to create their own policy dealing with education, welfare, pollution, addiction, etc. An example of resolution by combining (1) and (2) above is waiting-on-line-for-your-turn. The line may be based on a first-come-first-served principle or on a random lottery principle or in any other way perceived as fair. Everyone gets a chance to satisfy their needs, but not at the same time (or in the same place).
In other words, there are a limited number of ways humans can resolve their differences peacefully: (1) Voluntary separation, (2) Negotiations and bargaining, (3) Creation and appeal to a norm or normative system, e.g. appeal to an authority or arbitration; appeal to a custom, rule or law.
Grouping, Dividing and Identity: Dr. Eugene Hartley, a Social Psychologist, invented three fictitious groups: The Danerians from Daneria, the Wallonians from Wallonia and the Pinerians from Pineria. He found people who hated the Danerians, the Wallonians and the Pinerians. They attributed negative traits to these fictitious people. They were threatened by anyone outside of their social grouping. We believe this defensive potential, to some extent, is in all of us. It may be reality based. Within-groupers are less likely to hurt us than outsiders, strangers and foreigners.
In the mental illness called Multiple Personality the person is threatened by foreign selves within oneself. The Multiple Personality dissociates these ego-alien selves. The various selves are unaware of each other’s identities, actions and experiences.
Normally, humans are capable of and are aware of playing different roles in different situations. We observe this capability when the little girl plays mommy and the little boy plays daddy. In normal adult life the same person can assume different roles in different situations. For example, a male medical doctor may be a teacher when he supervises interns, a student when he takes a seminar outside his field, a husband and father at home, one of the boys in his athletic club, a patient in his dentist’s chair or when he is being examined by his own doctor, a son in his parents’ home, a motorist on the highway, a customer in a shoe store, a fan at a ballgame, a client in his lawyer’s office, etc.
Identity may contain information about a person’s roots, core beliefs, social group belongings, inheritance, investments, ability, expertise, credentials, possessions, powers, status, duties, rights, and privileges. In this sense, identity may become a territory to protect and defend.
Normally, we are also capable of enjoying movies, plays and novels because we can put ourselves in the place of others. Normally, humans are also capable of exploring various selves within their Self.
This ability is required for Interfaith.
VI
HYPOTHESIS: THE KIND OF BRAVE NEW WORLD WE BECOME WILL DEPEND ON HOW TWO HUMAN SPECIES SPECIFIC CAPACITIES ARE ACTUALIZED; NAMELY (1) THE CAPACITY FOR WILLING SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF AND (2) THE CAPACITY FOR TRANSCENDENCE AND TRANSFORMATION
The capacity for willing suspension of disbelief enables us to put ourselves in the place of others, to experience and appreciate the world from the other’s point of view. It enables us to empathize and to sympathize: “I do not ask the wounded man how he feels. I become the wounded man.” “Any man’s death diminishes me.” “Our group, right or wrong.”
The capacity for transcendence and transformation enables us, at least in imagination, to separate from and to change our past physical, chemical, biological, psychological, social, political and economic conditions. It is the ontological basis for all forms of therapy and humanly initiated progress. This capacity enables us to be “objective,” task-oriented, not ego-involved; to analyze, criticize, propose alternatives, create experiments and evaluate results from different perspectives.
Each of these species-specific human capacities also has potential pathologies.
The potential pathologies of the willing suspension of disbelief are, e.g. uncritically following suggestions, uncritical imitation, uncritical identification, uncritical conformity, uncritical merging, allowing ourselves to be conned, hypnotized, mesmerized or addicted when these behaviors lead to harmful consequences.
The potential pathologies of the capacity for transcendence and transformations are, e.g. distancing, detachment, seeing the forest but not the individual trees and leaves, reducing emergent wholes into component parts or destroying emergent wholes, loss of empathy, and sympathy when these behaviors lead to harmful consequences.
We believe there is a need for mental health workers of the 21st Century to learn and to teach “a hovering awareness;” how to be a part of it and then be apart from it. Our Brave New World will depend on it.
VII
TOWARD SOCIO-ECONOMIC EQUALITY: A SOCIO-ECONOMIC CLASSLESS SOCIETY WITHIN NATIONS AND A SHARING OF MONETARY AND OTHER RESOURCES REGULARLY BETWEEN NATIONS IN ACCORDANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL LAW
We believe that socio-economic frustration mixed with existential frustration, e.g. lack of clear meaning, identity, self-esteem, rootedness, belonging in the universe, purpose, venues of self expression, direction, fulfillment for one’s life, make people vulnerable to Frustration-Displacement. It is one side of the various forms of destructiveness to self and others which plague our world
The other side is learning and teaching groups and individuals from childhood how to take responsibility for their behavioral choices, exercise self-control, respect the rights of others, and respect their own rights for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; with hotlines, help lines, assessment services, placement services, counseling services and social support systems readily available.
The mission of human fulfillment is to reduce the Craziness that is harmful to self and others and to direct human energies towards positive individual and societal fulfillment. The mission is to match the fulfillment of positive individual needs, interests, abilities, talents, visions and dreams to fulfillment of societal requirements. The mission is to achieve a balance, unity and integration between fulfilling positive individual person potentialities and fulfilling societal requirements.
This is an Islamic mission as symbolized in the classic Islamic mosque and classic Islamic gardens. It is also a Judeo Christian mission.
To fulfill this mission on earth we are for establishing a United Nations Army of helpers and healers from all walks of life. This army of helpers and healers will lead us to make holy war against human destructiveness to self and others. They will lead us to be creative-and-constructive.
VIII
PUBLIC PSALMS OF A PERSONAL RELIGION
PSALM I: Sight stretched long is touch to light fluttering leaves on branches of branches like birds in flight. Fish fins flap in waves of song. Imaginary Companion, you were here all along; though net fleeing butterfly moments, near from far, lending earth, air, fire and water. We are the plant of your delight.
PSALM II: The frame of our experiences is our lives. Our bodies are the way Allah plays with Himself; Changing bodies at boredom while the ocean remains the same; Filtering experiences through each other; Creating the frames of our lives.
PSALM III: Having heard tales of right hands speaking to left, left legs to right, tops to bottoms, sides to sides, I was practicing in meditation. Then I imagined a flower implanted in soil. I shrunk myself in imagination and slid down the sieve. Suddenly, a fountain spraying champagne celebration. I looked through filigreed leaves; the lace of trees. I saw the creation as a fireworks festival of lights in the night. I learned to fight for my right to life.
PSALM IV: Who is responsible? What is to blame? Choice, chance, or fate, his hers, or their type or trait, heredity, biology, society, individuality psychology, mama and paper, will of Allah? Your pick is your trick; your own carrot and stick.
PSALM V: “Snatch the moment” is a misnomer. The moment you catch a bubble: Burst! Watch it by letting it go. Have it by letting it flow.
PSALM VI: There is pleasure in congregation; finding oneself by losing oneself.
PSALM VII: A person, a life of the living, on earth to find a prayer, to sing a song, hopefully a song of love, do a dance of life, not alone.
PSALM VIII: We’re just two kids (like Tom and Huck on the Mississippi) lovin’ and fightin’, watchin’ TV. When the king is naked, the king can’t fake it; no matter what the politicians say. Children will lead us in play.
PSALM IX: Leave well enough alone. Don’t tear asunder what is made whole. Rock and roll and role. Are the best mended fences our defenses? Is it better to go out of our minds; come to our senses? We’re Home.
PSALM X: Far journey to near site. Near sight is insight outside.
PSALM XI: Can you see infinity in a grain of sand?
PSALM XII: the dot expanding became the circle. Centrifugal! The circle contracting becomes the dot. Centripetal! Inhale. Centripetal. Exhale. Centrifugal. “The Big Bang!” The Breath of God.
RELIGION IN THE REAL WORLD AND NEW WORLD
When we examine all the traditional religions of the 21st century; whether it be Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam, we find, without exception, Protestant divisions within each of these traditional religious denominations. Thank God they don’t kill each other like the Sunni and the Shiites and the Kurdish Muslims of Iraq. Things can get a bit noisy now and then between the various subgroups in each of the traditional religious denominations.
Potentially: I’m not saying this has to be. I’m not saying this should be. I’m not even saying this is good to be. Potentially we can have a different religion for each person in our global village.
Of course there are going to be commonalities. There are also going to be individualities. Our focus will be both on the commonalities and the individualities, and on the relationship between the commonalities and the individualities.
Personal Religion and Interfaith is where religion meets the individual and group psychotherapy movement in the modern world. The conditions for the optimal facilitation, exploration and actualization of personal religions and interfaith are the same conditions that make for effective individual and group psychotherapy. These are the conditions: (1) unconditional positive regard for the person; (2) a non-judgmental attitude toward the exercise of free speech; (3) if necessary, a privacy or confidentiality agreement; (4) an increased tolerance for the contradictory, the repetitive and the novel or unexpected.
The psychotherapy movement in the modern world was started by Sigmund Freud in Vienna in the early part of the 20th Century. Freud found that a form of free speech, called “Free Association” could have healing potential under the conditions of psychotherapy.
The person is encouraged to speak freely any thoughts that randomly come to mind; without any censorship or evaluation. You can record your free associations and your dreams. Then study it.
Later in America, it was discovered that a form of free speech, similar to Free Association, called “Brainstorming” could be used in industry to create innovative products which were marketable. Brainstorming could also be used in Think Tanks to create innovative solutions to social problems.
Brainstorming, like Free Association, was related to mental processes between fantasy and the dream state. Sometimes these mental processes are called Preconscious Mental Processes; between the conscious and the unconscious.
We need to learn and to teach people how to use these venues of free speech and related mental processes in a positive, constructive, productive and creative way. This learning and teaching is particularly relevant for the prevention of teenage drug abuse, an international epidemic.
I want to speak briefly about the natural capacity of the human brain and mind to organize experiences. I feel this is important functionally in our modern world because we are being bombarded by information explosion, and by mass media control of our religiousness. Through meditation, and insightful revelations we can organize our experiences and make them more meaningful from within to without.
I think a good way to introduce you to this capacity of the human brain and mind to synthesize experiences is by doing a simple experiment.
I want everyone to imagine a triangle and a circle in their mind’s eye. Now you tell me which sound is the triangle and which sound is the circle: Malooma/Tekeetee.
Most people hear the circle as Malooma and the triangle as Tekeetee. Most people see the sound Malooma as the circle. This is the result of the natural synaesthetic organizational capacity of the human brain and mind.
When you log on to the real world new world.com website, go to a section called, “Public Psalms of A Personal Religion”, Psalms 11 and 12.
In Psalm 11 I raise the question: “Can you see infinity in a grain of sand?” Psalm 12 kind of answers this question: “The dot expanding became the circle. The circle contracting becomes the dot”.
The image of a dot within a circle occurred to me many years before I wrote Psalms 11 and 12. I awoke from a dream with this mandalic image of a dot within a circle.
I realized that my brain and mind were working naturally during sleep, unconsciously; to produce a unified integrated solution to an existential concern I had at that time.
In my life there was an important person. We were sitting on chairs close together; as close as my left hand is to my right hand. There was nothing in his hands. He took the fingers of his right hand and pointed them into mid air. In a millisecond there appeared a human figure in mid air. The human figure was about 6 feet tall.
The human figure seemed to be made of a semi-soft grayish white clay like substance. It reflected light. The emergence of the human figure looked like a grayish white toothpaste coming out of a toothpaste tube; except there was nothing in his hand. The material for the creation of the human figure came out of his fingers in a millisecond. It would seem to me that an accomplished artist would require at least five minutes to draw a human figure with this kind of artistic complexity and detail on a sheet of paper. He was able to produce this human figure with nothing in his hand, merely by pointing his fingers into mid air in a millisecond.
There was another important person in my life. We were sitting on chairs within a conversational distance. He was able to hear what would happen before it happened. He commented on it. He took sides, and he made plans with me on the basis of something that had not yet taken place.
What is the synaesthetics of these behaviors? What is the incidence of these behaviors? What is the neuroscience of these behaviors? What is the psychobiology, the psycho-chemistry, the psychophysics of these behaviors?
We do not know. We do not have adequate technologies for the study of these behaviors.
If and when they are discovered, I believe it will also reveal something more about personal religion and interfaith. We need to learn and to teach people how to use their special abilities and talents in a therapeutic way to help and heal themselves and to help and heal others, with less emphasis on show business.
In human life there is the possibility that the technologies and the findings of the physical sciences could come together with the social sciences and humanities and religion and medicine and law. This coming together will be necessary for the creation of interdisciplinary and interfaith teams of specialists to deal with bio-ethical issues in our new world; issues dealing with human cloning, the appropriation of human transplant organs, the control of human population birth rate and medically assisted human suicidal dying. These are already important issues in our real world.
In human life there is the possibility that positive human needs, interests, abilities, talents, visions, and dreams could come together with human energies and human activities of all kinds.
Look what the telephone, the television, the computer, the electronic banking system, and the airplane have done to our real world. When taken together, they have transformed our real world into a new world.
New worlds will continue to be born in the real world.
Potentially: I’m not saying this has to be. I’m not saying this should be. I’m not even saying this is good to be. Potentially we can have a different religion for each person in our global village.
Of course there are going to be commonalities. There are also going to be individualities. Our focus will be both on the commonalities and the individualities, and on the relationship between the commonalities and the individualities.
Personal Religion and Interfaith is where religion meets the individual and group psychotherapy movement in the modern world. The conditions for the optimal facilitation, exploration and actualization of personal religions and interfaith are the same conditions that make for effective individual and group psychotherapy. These are the conditions: (1) unconditional positive regard for the person; (2) a non-judgmental attitude toward the exercise of free speech; (3) if necessary, a privacy or confidentiality agreement; (4) an increased tolerance for the contradictory, the repetitive and the novel or unexpected.
The psychotherapy movement in the modern world was started by Sigmund Freud in Vienna in the early part of the 20th Century. Freud found that a form of free speech, called “Free Association” could have healing potential under the conditions of psychotherapy.
The person is encouraged to speak freely any thoughts that randomly come to mind; without any censorship or evaluation. You can record your free associations and your dreams. Then study it.
Later in America, it was discovered that a form of free speech, similar to Free Association, called “Brainstorming” could be used in industry to create innovative products which were marketable. Brainstorming could also be used in Think Tanks to create innovative solutions to social problems.
Brainstorming, like Free Association, was related to mental processes between fantasy and the dream state. Sometimes these mental processes are called Preconscious Mental Processes; between the conscious and the unconscious.
We need to learn and to teach people how to use these venues of free speech and related mental processes in a positive, constructive, productive and creative way. This learning and teaching is particularly relevant for the prevention of teenage drug abuse, an international epidemic.
I want to speak briefly about the natural capacity of the human brain and mind to organize experiences. I feel this is important functionally in our modern world because we are being bombarded by information explosion, and by mass media control of our religiousness. Through meditation, and insightful revelations we can organize our experiences and make them more meaningful from within to without.
I think a good way to introduce you to this capacity of the human brain and mind to synthesize experiences is by doing a simple experiment.
I want everyone to imagine a triangle and a circle in their mind’s eye. Now you tell me which sound is the triangle and which sound is the circle: Malooma/Tekeetee.
Most people hear the circle as Malooma and the triangle as Tekeetee. Most people see the sound Malooma as the circle. This is the result of the natural synaesthetic organizational capacity of the human brain and mind.
When you log on to the real world new world.com website, go to a section called, “Public Psalms of A Personal Religion”, Psalms 11 and 12.
In Psalm 11 I raise the question: “Can you see infinity in a grain of sand?” Psalm 12 kind of answers this question: “The dot expanding became the circle. The circle contracting becomes the dot”.
The image of a dot within a circle occurred to me many years before I wrote Psalms 11 and 12. I awoke from a dream with this mandalic image of a dot within a circle.
I realized that my brain and mind were working naturally during sleep, unconsciously; to produce a unified integrated solution to an existential concern I had at that time.
In my life there was an important person. We were sitting on chairs close together; as close as my left hand is to my right hand. There was nothing in his hands. He took the fingers of his right hand and pointed them into mid air. In a millisecond there appeared a human figure in mid air. The human figure was about 6 feet tall.
The human figure seemed to be made of a semi-soft grayish white clay like substance. It reflected light. The emergence of the human figure looked like a grayish white toothpaste coming out of a toothpaste tube; except there was nothing in his hand. The material for the creation of the human figure came out of his fingers in a millisecond. It would seem to me that an accomplished artist would require at least five minutes to draw a human figure with this kind of artistic complexity and detail on a sheet of paper. He was able to produce this human figure with nothing in his hand, merely by pointing his fingers into mid air in a millisecond.
There was another important person in my life. We were sitting on chairs within a conversational distance. He was able to hear what would happen before it happened. He commented on it. He took sides, and he made plans with me on the basis of something that had not yet taken place.
What is the synaesthetics of these behaviors? What is the incidence of these behaviors? What is the neuroscience of these behaviors? What is the psychobiology, the psycho-chemistry, the psychophysics of these behaviors?
We do not know. We do not have adequate technologies for the study of these behaviors.
If and when they are discovered, I believe it will also reveal something more about personal religion and interfaith. We need to learn and to teach people how to use their special abilities and talents in a therapeutic way to help and heal themselves and to help and heal others, with less emphasis on show business.
In human life there is the possibility that the technologies and the findings of the physical sciences could come together with the social sciences and humanities and religion and medicine and law. This coming together will be necessary for the creation of interdisciplinary and interfaith teams of specialists to deal with bio-ethical issues in our new world; issues dealing with human cloning, the appropriation of human transplant organs, the control of human population birth rate and medically assisted human suicidal dying. These are already important issues in our real world.
In human life there is the possibility that positive human needs, interests, abilities, talents, visions, and dreams could come together with human energies and human activities of all kinds.
Look what the telephone, the television, the computer, the electronic banking system, and the airplane have done to our real world. When taken together, they have transformed our real world into a new world.
New worlds will continue to be born in the real world.
BUILDING A NEW WORLD ORDER
Preparing The People Of Our Global Village For The Coming of Our New World
The Real World New World project is about changing the world for the better and making it more successful to people. The project proposes to do this by changing human government and changing human mindset; thus changing human behavior and human life to the better. We begin with human government because government can either affirm or deny and violate the human right to religious freedom.
The project began after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center by Islamic terrorists. This attack awakened the sleeping giant and raised dome deep questions. What is the generic nature of religion? What is the generic nature of the human species? Is it possible for humans to create a leadership of world order that was humanitarian, constructively proactive and preventative of this kind of catastrophe? The project is a pondering of those questions and an invitation to others to ponder these questions.
The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center occurred in a particular social and historical context. We live in a world in which communication systems, transportation systems and economic systems have become increasingly global. Within minutes, if not seconds, visual and auditory information can be sent from anywhere to anywhere in the world by telecommunications technologies. Within a day or two anyone can be from anywhere to anywhere in the world by air travel. Within minutes, if not seconds, money can be transferred from nation to nation through the electronic transfer of money.
In my apartment in the U.S.A. I have some furniture that was made in other nations in modern times. Some of the clothes that I wear were outsourced and made in other nations by laborers who are citizens of these other nations. Some of the food I eat daily was grown in other nations. The dental floss I use after eating was made in other nations. The airplanes I travel on were probably outsourced for maintenance and repairs in other nations. American airplanes are now being routinely outsourced for maintenance and repairs in other nations. The laborers who work on the planes are being supervised by American supervisors. When I call my Internet server about my website, I dial a telephone number in America. The person who answers the phone is in Bulgaria. He is a citizen of Bulgaria. He speaks English. He logs on to my account and on to my website. We discuss our business from America to Bulgaria, from Bulgaria back to America, in the here and now. I think these kind of experiences are fairly common for Americans.
In short, we have become internationalized. We have become globalized. We are a global village. That’s not going to happen in the future. That’s here and now in the real world.
When we examine the behavior of the Islamic terrorists, we find that they make excellent use of the high tech facilities of our global village. They use the Internet to create websites and send e-mail and instant messages from nation to nation. They make excellent use of the Arab TV media to send their tapes for propoganda purposes, for recruitment purposes, and for terroristic purposes. They make excellent use of the telephone to call from nation to nation. They are creative in their destructiveness. On occasion they will use the cell phone as triggers to trigger explosions. The terrorists make excellent use of the international banking system, the electronic transfer of money, to collect money and to send money for their terrorist operations. The terrorists make excellent use of the airplane. They fly from nation to nation to participate in terrorist training camps. They fly from nation to nation to stay in safe houses with small cells of other potential terrorists.
Whereas the Islamic terrorists make excellent use of the high tech facilities of our global village, they do not feel that they belong in and to our global village. They do not identify themselves as citizens of the world; citizens of our global village; our home sweet home. They see their neighbors in the global village as their enemies who want to annihilate them socio-economically, and existentially in terms of their identity, self esteem, core beliefs, and way of life.
They are narrow in their tribal attitude. They even see their fellow brother and sister Muslims who happen to have been born into other subgroups of Islam as their enemies who want to annihilate them socio-economically, existentially in terms of their identity and self esteem and physically.
If you happen to born a Sunni or a Shiite or a Kurdish Muslim in Iraq, then you know that the members of the out-group are out to annihilate you. Either you get them first or they will get you. That’s their mentality.
Meanwhile, the state of our global village is quite active, and in some ways quite positive pre 9/11 and post 9/11.
We find some international cooperation, exchanges and sharing in science and medicine and in the arts. We find various forms of international exchange activities and programs; some government initiated and some privately initiated. Through the years there has been the Peace Corps. Doctors Without Borders perform miraculous work for pennies per patient in India, in Africa, in Mexico. Don’t forget that the 9/11 terrorists studied jet flying in American flight schools in southern Florida. At the time of 9/11 the Bin Laden family had established a scholarship fund at Harvard University for Islamic studies. There are international employment agencies that were used pre 9/11, and continue to be used by Americans post 9/11. Volumes can be written about the various kinds of international exchange activities and programs. There has been some international cooperation in the exploration of outer space. There has been some international cooperation in emergency response to natural disasters, like major earthquakes and tsunamis, and some man made disasters too. International terrorism necessitates international cooperation.
Ditto for the prevention of pandemic spread of illness, like AIDS and Bird Flu, from nation to nation. It necessitates a world organization to deal with this. There is such a world organization: The WHO (World Health Organization).
There are nations in our global village that refuse to do the research on illness in their nation, and share the research findings with the WHO, enabling the WHO to do what is good for all the people in our global village who want to continue to live.
The WHO seems powerless to make these nations comply because of the sovereignty of nations precedent in current international law. The necessity for such a world organization, I think, is obvious.
Ditto for the man made pollutions of the world. When governments of nations or groups within nations pollute the air and water, it will affect the lives of people in neighboring nations. In come cases, it will affect the lives of people in all nations. We are all in the same boat. There is a need in our global village for an independent world organization to deal with this.
Ditto for the control of weapons of mass destruction of all kinds.
Ditto for the establishment of quality control of products exported from nation to nation that could be injurious to people, or products and practices people travel from nation to nation to purchase that could be injurious to people. There is a need in our global village for a world organization to deal with this.
Ditto for the prevention of smuggling of drugs and other contraband, like arms and people. People are being smuggled from nation to nation and used for forced labor or slave labor. Sometimes these people are promised good jobs in other nations. Sometimes people cross borders for socio-economic and/or other survival reasons. They become used for forced labor or slave labor. This is still going on in our global village. It is a form of terrorism. It needs to be dealt with.
Ditto for the use of the Internet to create identity fraud and identity theft. Most of this seems to be coming from Nigeria. The Internet has also been used to create other crimes of human abuse, e.g., child abuse.
There is an international crime investigating law enforcement organizations in our global village: Interpol.
Interpol is located in Lyon, France. The current director of Interpol is an American citizen. Interpol is staffed by crime investigating law enforcement officers from various nations of our global village. 186 nations and their law enforcement organizations now have an affiliation with Interpol. That’s most of the nations in our global village. Interpol is prohibited from interfering with any of the laws and lawful behavior within nations.
Interpol could be the precursor to a much better funded, more comprehensive, even better coordinated crime investigating law enforcement organization for our global village in the future.
There are legal international commercial activities, trading and investing, which take place daily in our global village. This was at a high pitch before 9/11 and continues to be at a high pitch post 9/11. We find McDonalds in Russia, in China, and in the Middle East. Toyota has ten factories in the U.S.A. There have been some international business mergers, e.g., the merger of Chrysler with the German automaker Daimler. Then Daimler decided it wanted to sell Chrysler. There have been some limited free trade agreements between nation e.g., NAFTA; the free trade agreement America has with its neighbors to the North and South.
America, and other nations too, can become protectionistic and isolationistic in reference to particular commodities, e.g., steel. America will raise its tariffs on steel very high to protect the American steel industry and American steel workers. The result is that other nations will retaliate. Other nations will raise their tariffs very high on commodities America wants to export to their nations. There is a need in our global village for a world organization to mediate these trade wars.
Why can’t there be a free trade agreement between all the nations of our global village?
Then there is the issue of piracy; the issue of copyright violations. Business people within a nation will buy American products. Then they reproduce these products; often with inferior quality. They sell their reproduced products within their own nation. They export these products to other nations, including back to the U.S.A. They sell these products within the U.S.A. illegally at a much cheaper price in competition with the original American manufacturer of the product.
This is piracy; violation of copy right laws. There is a need in our global village for a world organization to deal with piracy.
There is such a world organization in our global village: The WTO (World Trade Organization).
The WTO does have a code of ethics for international trading. The WTO does have a judicial and appellate division within its organization. The WTO now has 150 official member nations that are affiliated with the WTO, and 20 nations affiliated with the WTO are said to have observer status. 170 nations now have some form of affiliation with the WTO. That’s most of the nations in our global village. The WTO does have the power to place economic sanctions. The WTO can increase the tariffs on all of a nation’s exports up to twenty-seven and a half percent.
There are other important international conflicts and potential international crises currently in our global village. These are two current examples: Who owns the floor of the ocean at the North Pole and the oil therein? Is it Russia or America or Canada or Denmark? Russia has already placed a flag at the bottom of the ocean at the North Pole, proclaiming that it owns the floor of the ocean at the North Pole. Does America have the right to place anti-missile missile systems in other nations, like Poland and the Czech Republic with the consent of these nations and the dissent of other nations.
If you log on to the Internet, and do a search, you will find that there is now more than 200,000 individual world organizations that deal with one or another important issues in our global village. There is the World Court that has tried leaders of nations for crimes against humanity. There is the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The IMF boils out bankrupt nations with millions of dollars. The IMF also lends financial expertise to these nations; enabling these nations to do better financially in the future. There is the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council, and the agencies within the United Nations, e.g., the agencies concerned with peace keeping, inspection for weapons of mass destruction and the funding of children’s education internationally.
Outside of the U.N. there are more than 200,000 individual world organizations concerned with one or another important issues in our global village. There is an international organization concerned with telecommunication issues. There is an international organization concerned with the sending of postal mail from nation to nation. There is an international organization concerned with the human rights of prisoners (Amnesty International).
In addition to all of these individual international organizations, there are also international meetings, for example, the G8 Summit; The periodic meetings of the leaders of industrialized nations. From time to time there are also regional meetings. Nations from a particular region of our global village will send their representatives to deal with problems facing their region. Regional meetings have been recommended by the Baker Hamilton Commission for the Middle East. Regional meetings seem to have been helpful in dealing with North Korea’s nuclear build up.
All of these individual international organizations and international meetings have no formal organizational relationship to each other.
What I’m leading to is the creation of a democratic federal government of the United Nations of the world; a Democratic New World government for our global village.
If you think this is a way out idea, I’m pleased to remind you that 27 nations have already come together to form the European Union.
The EU has its own currency; the Euro. The Euro is often worth more than the American dollar in our global village. One of the member nations of the EU, the United Kingdom, has been our strongest ally both in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The idea of a democratic new world government is not that new.
The idea of a democratic new world government is also not that new in that the relationship between the federal government of the U.S.A. and the individual states of the U.S.A. could be used as a model for creating the relationship between the democratic new world government and the individual nations of our global village.
The democratic new world government will have a constitution. It will have an elected chief executive. Before the elections, there will be debates. Hopefully, these debates will be genuinely free debates. Upon election, the chief executive will choose a cabinet. The tenure of the chief executive will be limited to a maximum of two four year terms. There will be an elected legislative branch of world government, and there will be a judicial branch of world government; a world supreme court, lower world courts, and a world appellate division.
The democratic new world government, like all democracies, will be founded on two core values.
The first core value will be a creator given bill of human rights beginning with first amendment rights: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom to protest our government as individuals or in groups. These first amendment rights are not and cannot be given by government. Government can affirm these rights. Government can deny and violate these rights. Government cannot give these rights because government consists of people. People cannot give other people first amendment rights unless these rights have become corrupted.
First amendment rights are given to us by our creator by virtue or being born a human being on earth. The very essence of first amendment rights is equality. Each person in our global village is born with equal human rights. No person can acquire more first amendment rights than any other person; no matter who they are or what they do unless these rights have become corrupted.
It goes without saying. I’m going to say it anyway. No person has the right to use their first amendment rights to threaten the life or the liberty of other people. I’m not going into issues related to the strict scrutiny test here.
Let’s assume that first amendment rights are being actualized in a positive and genuine way, then the exercise of these rights will inevitably lead to the emergence of individual differences. Say or write your last name, individual differences will appear in your own family. When people free speak, they free speak from different funds of life experiences. They free speak from different constitutional bases. Therefore, the exercise of free speech will inevitably lead to the emergence of individual differences.
These individual differences constitute the ontological basis of the second core value upon which all democracies are founded: the core value of checks and balances; the absence of single faction domination of the government; the value of diversity.
The value of diversity refers to the absence of any single faction domination of the government: political party, political branch of government, or religion. Even though a particular religion may be held by an overwhelming majority of the population, any single faction domination of the government is anathema to the core value of checks and balances. It doesn’t matter what kind of single faction domination it is. It could be racial. It could be ideological. It could be industrial or corporate. It could be military, or it could be what President Dwight Eisenhower called “The Military Industrial Complex” faction. Any single faction domination of the government is anathema to the core value of checks and balances.
Can there exist and co-exist, under the auspices of a democratic new world government, a nation (or nations) that is governed solely by Islamic theocracy; a nation that is governed solely in accordance with Islamic law? For example, In Afghanistan, before the American attack, the penalty under Islamic law for conversion from Islam to anything else was death. There was no possible defense.
Can such a nation exist and co-exist under the auspices of a democratic new world government? The answer is: Yes.
However, the democratic new world government can set conditions for its existence and co-existence. These conditions are three: (1) anyone can enter this nation freely, without coercion, at any time, for any reason, including for inspection purposes. By inspection I mean observation and study. No person has the right to enter any nation for the purpose of subverting the laws of that nation; (2) anyone can leave this nation freely without coercion or punishment, at any time, for any reason, unless they have become criminal within this nation; (3) this nation or groups within this nation will not attack or try to hurt people of other nations who hold alternative values.
These are the three conditions for what I call the realization of the paradox of liberty, and the value of diversity.
Osama Bin Laden gave two publicly stated reasons for why he initiated the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Both reasons were socio-economic.
The first reason was that he believed America was not doing all it could and should to help the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank. The second reason was that he believed Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, was being used as a gas station for America. I’m not going into arguments for and against the truth of these claims here.
Let’s rather focus on what happened after 9/11: the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq and the upgrading of American homeland security.
This has already cost the American taxpayer over a trillion dollars, a conservative estimate. Years later we are still paying monetarily for 9/11. That’s not all. Look at what has been paid in terms of loss of human life, permanent human injuries, destruction of human property, and the change in the quality of American life. We are less open. This is evident at airports and in our national consciousness. America as a nation has paid and is paying an enormous price for 9/11.
Can you imagine a democratic new world government that was constructively proactive and took even a fraction of a trillion dollars; went into Gaza and the West Bank, built homes, hospitals, businesses, shopping malls, schools, universities, transportation systems, theaters, sports arenas, movie houses, art galleries, libraries, playgrounds, parks. Give the Palestinian people a decent life socioeconomically. This could have been done for under a trillion dollars. I believe 9/11 could have been prevented.
In addition to socio-economic upgrading, we need to invest relatively small amounts of money (in the hundred of thousands of dollars, rather than the hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars). Pay the militant teachers of Islam to dialogue and debate with the non militant teachers of Islam publically within their own religious group as they define it.
Record these dialogues and debates on film and sound tracks and sent them around the world through the mass medias, through the Islamic Mosques, religious schools and the universities of the world.
I would like to return our focus on the relationship between the federal government of the U.S.A. and the individual states of the U.S.A. We note that no state in the continental U.S.A. is stronger economically and militarily than the federal government of the U.S.A. No state in the continental U.S.A. can declare war on other states of the U.S.A. or declare war on other nations or states within other nations of our global village.
This is a constitutional power of the chief executive of the U.S.A. with the consent of the legislative branch of the federal government of the U.S.A.
Thus, it could be in the relationship between the democratic new world government and the individual nations of our global village.
I believe there is a necessity in our world for economic and military parity between nations. All nations must share, proportionately, to what they have, some of their economic and military strength with the democratic new world government. At the same time, there needs to be layers of safety and security measures in place for the individual nations. This will require hundreds of experts to work out, in detail, the relationship between the democratic new world government and the individual nations of our global village.
America, or any other nation, can no longer be chief police officer, judge, jury, jailer, and executioner in the world and at the same time be one nation, among the other nations of our global village, under the auspices of our democratic new world government, with liberty and justice for all.
When it comes to matters such as international terrorism, the resolution of international conflicts and crises, the distribution of scarce or precious resources, e.g., oil, the prevention of pandemic spread of illness from nation to nation, the control over the man made pollutions of the world, dealing with major regional and national catastrophes, the control of weapons of mass destruction of all kinds, the establishment of quality control of products that are exported from nation to nation, the criminal investigation and law enforcement of human abuse, human exploitation, and crimes against the humanity of people, then I believe there is a need in our global village for a democratic new world government that transcends and supercedes the sovereignty of individual nations, and at the same time contributes to the sovereignty of individual nations.
The first order of business for our new world government would be to insure safety and security for the people of our global village; safety and security for individual nations, individual states within nations, individual groups within states, and individuals within groups.
I believe America, being the strongest democracy economically and militarily, has a mission in the world to lead the other nations to the creation of a democratic new world government.
Any democracy which assumes this leadership role must first be or become a socio-economic classless society.
In a socio-economic class society, money can buy free speech; money talks.
When money talks, first amendment rights must in some ways either be compromised or negated actually or potentially. Consequently, the second core value upon which all democracies are founded, the core value of checks and balances, must also be compromised or negated actually or potentially.
No democracy can lead the world to the creation of a democratic new world government with a lie.
President Bush, in his speech to the nation, and again in his state of the union address, both delivered in January 2007, proposed that the Iraqi government share the revenues from the sale of Iraqi oil equally with each Iraqi citizen. This proposal comes from a president who has given tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks to billionaires and millionaires who didn’t need it.
I believe President Bush’s proposal to the Iraqi government for the Iraqi people portends the socio-economic future of our global village.
The best form of giving to people is for people to have their own.
I want to speak briefly about the so called problem of illegal immigration. America is said to have about 12 million illegal immigrants. Most come here to work and make some money. They are willing to take jobs Americans don’t want to do. After meeting their financial goal, many return to their nation of origin. In relation to these illegal immigrants there develops a class of criminals who, for a price, will help the illegals cross borders, and create illegal documents for the illegals to establish some kind of legitimacy for the illegals. Other nations too are increasingly having a so called problem of illegal immigration. I’ m not going into arguments for and against the illegals here.
Let’s rather resume our focus on the relationship between the federal government of the U.S.A. and the individual states of the U.S.A.
Assume that I was born in any state in the continental U.S.A. I was in fact born in New York State. I can go to any other state in the continental U.S.A. to live, to work, to study, to play.
I’m not considered an illegal immigrant. I don’t lose any of my rights as a citizen of the U.S.A. I can always return to New York State to live, if I want to. I don’t even need a passport.
Thus, it can be as citizens of our global village travel from nation to nation under a democratic new world government. Once our democratic new world government distributes the work and wealth of nations appropriately, there will be less need for illegal immigration.
More than one third of the citizens of the U.S.A., that’s more than 100 million people, are said to originate from other nations. Many come from Hispanic and Asian nations. We have here in America, among the citizens of the U.S.A., a microcosm of the united nations of our global village.
Candidates for the presidency of the U.S.A. now travel to other nations, like the United Kingdome and China, to collect money for their campaigns from Americans who live and work in these other nations, and from citizens of these other nations who have an interest in contributing to their campaigns.
Governors of American states, and mayors of American cities now make routine pilgrimages to other nations to meet with their counterparts. They take with them an entourage of bankers and other trade and investment specialists to stimulate economic growth and development within their own nations and between their nations.
We live in a world of telecommunication technologies. These technologies will become even better in the future. We will be able to conference and to chat with people in other nations daily, if we want to.
They will be able to see and hear us. We will be able to see and hear them. Our language will be translated into their languages. Their languages will be translated into our language. We will be able to share our thoughts and feelings and our faiths daily with people in other nations.
It will lead to a new meaning for the exercise of first amendment rights in our global village. It will lead to a new consciousness of our commonalities and our individualities internationally.
People will begin to identify themselves primarily as citizens of the World; Citizens of our global village; our home sweet home.
Children will be brought up pledging their allegiance and singing their anthems, not only to the nation they happened to be born into, not only to the particular religious group they happened to born into, but also to their global village; their home sweet home.
Ideally, our democratic new world government and all the people of our global village will be concerned with the actualization of the uniqueness of each person and group of people in our global village by doing and creating work which facilitates the actualization of this uniqueness. Ideally, all the citizens of our global village, now identifying themselves as Citizens of our World, will want to do their very best to contribute, in their own way, to the wellness and the welfare of our global village, our home sweet home.
The Real World New World project is about changing the world for the better and making it more successful to people. The project proposes to do this by changing human government and changing human mindset; thus changing human behavior and human life to the better. We begin with human government because government can either affirm or deny and violate the human right to religious freedom.
The project began after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center by Islamic terrorists. This attack awakened the sleeping giant and raised dome deep questions. What is the generic nature of religion? What is the generic nature of the human species? Is it possible for humans to create a leadership of world order that was humanitarian, constructively proactive and preventative of this kind of catastrophe? The project is a pondering of those questions and an invitation to others to ponder these questions.
The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center occurred in a particular social and historical context. We live in a world in which communication systems, transportation systems and economic systems have become increasingly global. Within minutes, if not seconds, visual and auditory information can be sent from anywhere to anywhere in the world by telecommunications technologies. Within a day or two anyone can be from anywhere to anywhere in the world by air travel. Within minutes, if not seconds, money can be transferred from nation to nation through the electronic transfer of money.
In my apartment in the U.S.A. I have some furniture that was made in other nations in modern times. Some of the clothes that I wear were outsourced and made in other nations by laborers who are citizens of these other nations. Some of the food I eat daily was grown in other nations. The dental floss I use after eating was made in other nations. The airplanes I travel on were probably outsourced for maintenance and repairs in other nations. American airplanes are now being routinely outsourced for maintenance and repairs in other nations. The laborers who work on the planes are being supervised by American supervisors. When I call my Internet server about my website, I dial a telephone number in America. The person who answers the phone is in Bulgaria. He is a citizen of Bulgaria. He speaks English. He logs on to my account and on to my website. We discuss our business from America to Bulgaria, from Bulgaria back to America, in the here and now. I think these kind of experiences are fairly common for Americans.
In short, we have become internationalized. We have become globalized. We are a global village. That’s not going to happen in the future. That’s here and now in the real world.
When we examine the behavior of the Islamic terrorists, we find that they make excellent use of the high tech facilities of our global village. They use the Internet to create websites and send e-mail and instant messages from nation to nation. They make excellent use of the Arab TV media to send their tapes for propoganda purposes, for recruitment purposes, and for terroristic purposes. They make excellent use of the telephone to call from nation to nation. They are creative in their destructiveness. On occasion they will use the cell phone as triggers to trigger explosions. The terrorists make excellent use of the international banking system, the electronic transfer of money, to collect money and to send money for their terrorist operations. The terrorists make excellent use of the airplane. They fly from nation to nation to participate in terrorist training camps. They fly from nation to nation to stay in safe houses with small cells of other potential terrorists.
Whereas the Islamic terrorists make excellent use of the high tech facilities of our global village, they do not feel that they belong in and to our global village. They do not identify themselves as citizens of the world; citizens of our global village; our home sweet home. They see their neighbors in the global village as their enemies who want to annihilate them socio-economically, and existentially in terms of their identity, self esteem, core beliefs, and way of life.
They are narrow in their tribal attitude. They even see their fellow brother and sister Muslims who happen to have been born into other subgroups of Islam as their enemies who want to annihilate them socio-economically, existentially in terms of their identity and self esteem and physically.
If you happen to born a Sunni or a Shiite or a Kurdish Muslim in Iraq, then you know that the members of the out-group are out to annihilate you. Either you get them first or they will get you. That’s their mentality.
Meanwhile, the state of our global village is quite active, and in some ways quite positive pre 9/11 and post 9/11.
We find some international cooperation, exchanges and sharing in science and medicine and in the arts. We find various forms of international exchange activities and programs; some government initiated and some privately initiated. Through the years there has been the Peace Corps. Doctors Without Borders perform miraculous work for pennies per patient in India, in Africa, in Mexico. Don’t forget that the 9/11 terrorists studied jet flying in American flight schools in southern Florida. At the time of 9/11 the Bin Laden family had established a scholarship fund at Harvard University for Islamic studies. There are international employment agencies that were used pre 9/11, and continue to be used by Americans post 9/11. Volumes can be written about the various kinds of international exchange activities and programs. There has been some international cooperation in the exploration of outer space. There has been some international cooperation in emergency response to natural disasters, like major earthquakes and tsunamis, and some man made disasters too. International terrorism necessitates international cooperation.
Ditto for the prevention of pandemic spread of illness, like AIDS and Bird Flu, from nation to nation. It necessitates a world organization to deal with this. There is such a world organization: The WHO (World Health Organization).
There are nations in our global village that refuse to do the research on illness in their nation, and share the research findings with the WHO, enabling the WHO to do what is good for all the people in our global village who want to continue to live.
The WHO seems powerless to make these nations comply because of the sovereignty of nations precedent in current international law. The necessity for such a world organization, I think, is obvious.
Ditto for the man made pollutions of the world. When governments of nations or groups within nations pollute the air and water, it will affect the lives of people in neighboring nations. In come cases, it will affect the lives of people in all nations. We are all in the same boat. There is a need in our global village for an independent world organization to deal with this.
Ditto for the control of weapons of mass destruction of all kinds.
Ditto for the establishment of quality control of products exported from nation to nation that could be injurious to people, or products and practices people travel from nation to nation to purchase that could be injurious to people. There is a need in our global village for a world organization to deal with this.
Ditto for the prevention of smuggling of drugs and other contraband, like arms and people. People are being smuggled from nation to nation and used for forced labor or slave labor. Sometimes these people are promised good jobs in other nations. Sometimes people cross borders for socio-economic and/or other survival reasons. They become used for forced labor or slave labor. This is still going on in our global village. It is a form of terrorism. It needs to be dealt with.
Ditto for the use of the Internet to create identity fraud and identity theft. Most of this seems to be coming from Nigeria. The Internet has also been used to create other crimes of human abuse, e.g., child abuse.
There is an international crime investigating law enforcement organizations in our global village: Interpol.
Interpol is located in Lyon, France. The current director of Interpol is an American citizen. Interpol is staffed by crime investigating law enforcement officers from various nations of our global village. 186 nations and their law enforcement organizations now have an affiliation with Interpol. That’s most of the nations in our global village. Interpol is prohibited from interfering with any of the laws and lawful behavior within nations.
Interpol could be the precursor to a much better funded, more comprehensive, even better coordinated crime investigating law enforcement organization for our global village in the future.
There are legal international commercial activities, trading and investing, which take place daily in our global village. This was at a high pitch before 9/11 and continues to be at a high pitch post 9/11. We find McDonalds in Russia, in China, and in the Middle East. Toyota has ten factories in the U.S.A. There have been some international business mergers, e.g., the merger of Chrysler with the German automaker Daimler. Then Daimler decided it wanted to sell Chrysler. There have been some limited free trade agreements between nation e.g., NAFTA; the free trade agreement America has with its neighbors to the North and South.
America, and other nations too, can become protectionistic and isolationistic in reference to particular commodities, e.g., steel. America will raise its tariffs on steel very high to protect the American steel industry and American steel workers. The result is that other nations will retaliate. Other nations will raise their tariffs very high on commodities America wants to export to their nations. There is a need in our global village for a world organization to mediate these trade wars.
Why can’t there be a free trade agreement between all the nations of our global village?
Then there is the issue of piracy; the issue of copyright violations. Business people within a nation will buy American products. Then they reproduce these products; often with inferior quality. They sell their reproduced products within their own nation. They export these products to other nations, including back to the U.S.A. They sell these products within the U.S.A. illegally at a much cheaper price in competition with the original American manufacturer of the product.
This is piracy; violation of copy right laws. There is a need in our global village for a world organization to deal with piracy.
There is such a world organization in our global village: The WTO (World Trade Organization).
The WTO does have a code of ethics for international trading. The WTO does have a judicial and appellate division within its organization. The WTO now has 150 official member nations that are affiliated with the WTO, and 20 nations affiliated with the WTO are said to have observer status. 170 nations now have some form of affiliation with the WTO. That’s most of the nations in our global village. The WTO does have the power to place economic sanctions. The WTO can increase the tariffs on all of a nation’s exports up to twenty-seven and a half percent.
There are other important international conflicts and potential international crises currently in our global village. These are two current examples: Who owns the floor of the ocean at the North Pole and the oil therein? Is it Russia or America or Canada or Denmark? Russia has already placed a flag at the bottom of the ocean at the North Pole, proclaiming that it owns the floor of the ocean at the North Pole. Does America have the right to place anti-missile missile systems in other nations, like Poland and the Czech Republic with the consent of these nations and the dissent of other nations.
If you log on to the Internet, and do a search, you will find that there is now more than 200,000 individual world organizations that deal with one or another important issues in our global village. There is the World Court that has tried leaders of nations for crimes against humanity. There is the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The IMF boils out bankrupt nations with millions of dollars. The IMF also lends financial expertise to these nations; enabling these nations to do better financially in the future. There is the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council, and the agencies within the United Nations, e.g., the agencies concerned with peace keeping, inspection for weapons of mass destruction and the funding of children’s education internationally.
Outside of the U.N. there are more than 200,000 individual world organizations concerned with one or another important issues in our global village. There is an international organization concerned with telecommunication issues. There is an international organization concerned with the sending of postal mail from nation to nation. There is an international organization concerned with the human rights of prisoners (Amnesty International).
In addition to all of these individual international organizations, there are also international meetings, for example, the G8 Summit; The periodic meetings of the leaders of industrialized nations. From time to time there are also regional meetings. Nations from a particular region of our global village will send their representatives to deal with problems facing their region. Regional meetings have been recommended by the Baker Hamilton Commission for the Middle East. Regional meetings seem to have been helpful in dealing with North Korea’s nuclear build up.
All of these individual international organizations and international meetings have no formal organizational relationship to each other.
What I’m leading to is the creation of a democratic federal government of the United Nations of the world; a Democratic New World government for our global village.
If you think this is a way out idea, I’m pleased to remind you that 27 nations have already come together to form the European Union.
The EU has its own currency; the Euro. The Euro is often worth more than the American dollar in our global village. One of the member nations of the EU, the United Kingdom, has been our strongest ally both in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The idea of a democratic new world government is not that new.
The idea of a democratic new world government is also not that new in that the relationship between the federal government of the U.S.A. and the individual states of the U.S.A. could be used as a model for creating the relationship between the democratic new world government and the individual nations of our global village.
The democratic new world government will have a constitution. It will have an elected chief executive. Before the elections, there will be debates. Hopefully, these debates will be genuinely free debates. Upon election, the chief executive will choose a cabinet. The tenure of the chief executive will be limited to a maximum of two four year terms. There will be an elected legislative branch of world government, and there will be a judicial branch of world government; a world supreme court, lower world courts, and a world appellate division.
The democratic new world government, like all democracies, will be founded on two core values.
The first core value will be a creator given bill of human rights beginning with first amendment rights: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom to protest our government as individuals or in groups. These first amendment rights are not and cannot be given by government. Government can affirm these rights. Government can deny and violate these rights. Government cannot give these rights because government consists of people. People cannot give other people first amendment rights unless these rights have become corrupted.
First amendment rights are given to us by our creator by virtue or being born a human being on earth. The very essence of first amendment rights is equality. Each person in our global village is born with equal human rights. No person can acquire more first amendment rights than any other person; no matter who they are or what they do unless these rights have become corrupted.
It goes without saying. I’m going to say it anyway. No person has the right to use their first amendment rights to threaten the life or the liberty of other people. I’m not going into issues related to the strict scrutiny test here.
Let’s assume that first amendment rights are being actualized in a positive and genuine way, then the exercise of these rights will inevitably lead to the emergence of individual differences. Say or write your last name, individual differences will appear in your own family. When people free speak, they free speak from different funds of life experiences. They free speak from different constitutional bases. Therefore, the exercise of free speech will inevitably lead to the emergence of individual differences.
These individual differences constitute the ontological basis of the second core value upon which all democracies are founded: the core value of checks and balances; the absence of single faction domination of the government; the value of diversity.
The value of diversity refers to the absence of any single faction domination of the government: political party, political branch of government, or religion. Even though a particular religion may be held by an overwhelming majority of the population, any single faction domination of the government is anathema to the core value of checks and balances. It doesn’t matter what kind of single faction domination it is. It could be racial. It could be ideological. It could be industrial or corporate. It could be military, or it could be what President Dwight Eisenhower called “The Military Industrial Complex” faction. Any single faction domination of the government is anathema to the core value of checks and balances.
Can there exist and co-exist, under the auspices of a democratic new world government, a nation (or nations) that is governed solely by Islamic theocracy; a nation that is governed solely in accordance with Islamic law? For example, In Afghanistan, before the American attack, the penalty under Islamic law for conversion from Islam to anything else was death. There was no possible defense.
Can such a nation exist and co-exist under the auspices of a democratic new world government? The answer is: Yes.
However, the democratic new world government can set conditions for its existence and co-existence. These conditions are three: (1) anyone can enter this nation freely, without coercion, at any time, for any reason, including for inspection purposes. By inspection I mean observation and study. No person has the right to enter any nation for the purpose of subverting the laws of that nation; (2) anyone can leave this nation freely without coercion or punishment, at any time, for any reason, unless they have become criminal within this nation; (3) this nation or groups within this nation will not attack or try to hurt people of other nations who hold alternative values.
These are the three conditions for what I call the realization of the paradox of liberty, and the value of diversity.
Osama Bin Laden gave two publicly stated reasons for why he initiated the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Both reasons were socio-economic.
The first reason was that he believed America was not doing all it could and should to help the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank. The second reason was that he believed Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, was being used as a gas station for America. I’m not going into arguments for and against the truth of these claims here.
Let’s rather focus on what happened after 9/11: the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq and the upgrading of American homeland security.
This has already cost the American taxpayer over a trillion dollars, a conservative estimate. Years later we are still paying monetarily for 9/11. That’s not all. Look at what has been paid in terms of loss of human life, permanent human injuries, destruction of human property, and the change in the quality of American life. We are less open. This is evident at airports and in our national consciousness. America as a nation has paid and is paying an enormous price for 9/11.
Can you imagine a democratic new world government that was constructively proactive and took even a fraction of a trillion dollars; went into Gaza and the West Bank, built homes, hospitals, businesses, shopping malls, schools, universities, transportation systems, theaters, sports arenas, movie houses, art galleries, libraries, playgrounds, parks. Give the Palestinian people a decent life socioeconomically. This could have been done for under a trillion dollars. I believe 9/11 could have been prevented.
In addition to socio-economic upgrading, we need to invest relatively small amounts of money (in the hundred of thousands of dollars, rather than the hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars). Pay the militant teachers of Islam to dialogue and debate with the non militant teachers of Islam publically within their own religious group as they define it.
Record these dialogues and debates on film and sound tracks and sent them around the world through the mass medias, through the Islamic Mosques, religious schools and the universities of the world.
I would like to return our focus on the relationship between the federal government of the U.S.A. and the individual states of the U.S.A. We note that no state in the continental U.S.A. is stronger economically and militarily than the federal government of the U.S.A. No state in the continental U.S.A. can declare war on other states of the U.S.A. or declare war on other nations or states within other nations of our global village.
This is a constitutional power of the chief executive of the U.S.A. with the consent of the legislative branch of the federal government of the U.S.A.
Thus, it could be in the relationship between the democratic new world government and the individual nations of our global village.
I believe there is a necessity in our world for economic and military parity between nations. All nations must share, proportionately, to what they have, some of their economic and military strength with the democratic new world government. At the same time, there needs to be layers of safety and security measures in place for the individual nations. This will require hundreds of experts to work out, in detail, the relationship between the democratic new world government and the individual nations of our global village.
America, or any other nation, can no longer be chief police officer, judge, jury, jailer, and executioner in the world and at the same time be one nation, among the other nations of our global village, under the auspices of our democratic new world government, with liberty and justice for all.
When it comes to matters such as international terrorism, the resolution of international conflicts and crises, the distribution of scarce or precious resources, e.g., oil, the prevention of pandemic spread of illness from nation to nation, the control over the man made pollutions of the world, dealing with major regional and national catastrophes, the control of weapons of mass destruction of all kinds, the establishment of quality control of products that are exported from nation to nation, the criminal investigation and law enforcement of human abuse, human exploitation, and crimes against the humanity of people, then I believe there is a need in our global village for a democratic new world government that transcends and supercedes the sovereignty of individual nations, and at the same time contributes to the sovereignty of individual nations.
The first order of business for our new world government would be to insure safety and security for the people of our global village; safety and security for individual nations, individual states within nations, individual groups within states, and individuals within groups.
I believe America, being the strongest democracy economically and militarily, has a mission in the world to lead the other nations to the creation of a democratic new world government.
Any democracy which assumes this leadership role must first be or become a socio-economic classless society.
In a socio-economic class society, money can buy free speech; money talks.
When money talks, first amendment rights must in some ways either be compromised or negated actually or potentially. Consequently, the second core value upon which all democracies are founded, the core value of checks and balances, must also be compromised or negated actually or potentially.
No democracy can lead the world to the creation of a democratic new world government with a lie.
President Bush, in his speech to the nation, and again in his state of the union address, both delivered in January 2007, proposed that the Iraqi government share the revenues from the sale of Iraqi oil equally with each Iraqi citizen. This proposal comes from a president who has given tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks to billionaires and millionaires who didn’t need it.
I believe President Bush’s proposal to the Iraqi government for the Iraqi people portends the socio-economic future of our global village.
The best form of giving to people is for people to have their own.
I want to speak briefly about the so called problem of illegal immigration. America is said to have about 12 million illegal immigrants. Most come here to work and make some money. They are willing to take jobs Americans don’t want to do. After meeting their financial goal, many return to their nation of origin. In relation to these illegal immigrants there develops a class of criminals who, for a price, will help the illegals cross borders, and create illegal documents for the illegals to establish some kind of legitimacy for the illegals. Other nations too are increasingly having a so called problem of illegal immigration. I’ m not going into arguments for and against the illegals here.
Let’s rather resume our focus on the relationship between the federal government of the U.S.A. and the individual states of the U.S.A.
Assume that I was born in any state in the continental U.S.A. I was in fact born in New York State. I can go to any other state in the continental U.S.A. to live, to work, to study, to play.
I’m not considered an illegal immigrant. I don’t lose any of my rights as a citizen of the U.S.A. I can always return to New York State to live, if I want to. I don’t even need a passport.
Thus, it can be as citizens of our global village travel from nation to nation under a democratic new world government. Once our democratic new world government distributes the work and wealth of nations appropriately, there will be less need for illegal immigration.
More than one third of the citizens of the U.S.A., that’s more than 100 million people, are said to originate from other nations. Many come from Hispanic and Asian nations. We have here in America, among the citizens of the U.S.A., a microcosm of the united nations of our global village.
Candidates for the presidency of the U.S.A. now travel to other nations, like the United Kingdome and China, to collect money for their campaigns from Americans who live and work in these other nations, and from citizens of these other nations who have an interest in contributing to their campaigns.
Governors of American states, and mayors of American cities now make routine pilgrimages to other nations to meet with their counterparts. They take with them an entourage of bankers and other trade and investment specialists to stimulate economic growth and development within their own nations and between their nations.
We live in a world of telecommunication technologies. These technologies will become even better in the future. We will be able to conference and to chat with people in other nations daily, if we want to.
They will be able to see and hear us. We will be able to see and hear them. Our language will be translated into their languages. Their languages will be translated into our language. We will be able to share our thoughts and feelings and our faiths daily with people in other nations.
It will lead to a new meaning for the exercise of first amendment rights in our global village. It will lead to a new consciousness of our commonalities and our individualities internationally.
People will begin to identify themselves primarily as citizens of the World; Citizens of our global village; our home sweet home.
Children will be brought up pledging their allegiance and singing their anthems, not only to the nation they happened to be born into, not only to the particular religious group they happened to born into, but also to their global village; their home sweet home.
Ideally, our democratic new world government and all the people of our global village will be concerned with the actualization of the uniqueness of each person and group of people in our global village by doing and creating work which facilitates the actualization of this uniqueness. Ideally, all the citizens of our global village, now identifying themselves as Citizens of our World, will want to do their very best to contribute, in their own way, to the wellness and the welfare of our global village, our home sweet home.
Building A New World Order. How Americans Can Help.
[Audio link to be added]
Click on the audio link. Listen to Over The Rainbow USA. Over The Rainbow USA is a song of love for freedom and exploration (Part 1), and a song of love for country (part 2). It begins and ends with a Mid-Eastern theme; hoping there will be love and understanding between East and West. Over The Rainbow USA was composed, arranged and played on an electronic piano by Dr. Sheldon.
In America, a home of free speech, money can buy free speech and free press. This unfairness permeates American political and other human service institutions. American values are in conflict. For most Americans, the only way to be heard is to join a large protest group or otherwise attract mass media attention. At least half of all Americans do not vote. Voting is not free speech. Voting gives you the right to choose someone who may free speak for you. You could send up to $2,000 to support the candidate of your choice.
How can average Americans, who are not wealthy, who are not celebrities, who have no political connections and no connections to any of the mass media, communicate with millions of other fellow Americans when they want to communicate?
Most Americans do not have $5,000 to spend on free speech. They need to use it to pay for food, rent or mortgage, clothing for themselves and their children, for transportation or for payment on their car or on gas for their car, etc. Suppose you are one of the lucky Americans who has something to say, and can spend $5,000 on free speech. How would you use your $5,000 to communicate with millions of other fellow Americans? How would you use your $5,000 to get the most bang for your buck?
This website is an experiment in relatively low-cost free speech and free press.
We believe in the value of competition when the consequences of competition mutually benefit the competitors.
"I would rather play tennis with someone who I know will beat me than play with someone I know I can beat because losing to a better player stretches my abilities, and will make me a better tennis player." That's win-win competition. If you have a better idea than mine that benefits me, then you win and I win too. That's win-win competition.
Competition that sets human being against human being, win-lose competition, leads to consequences of exploitation and corruption. Win-lose competition is evil.
Ideally we would prefer a nation in which the highest personal income was never more than ten times the lowest personal income. In our vision for nations there is no poverty and no crimes for money. There is also no need for charity. People who could not work would be covered by a safety net. People who could work would work for intrinsic motivational reasons. They would work because they wanted to, not because they had to. They would work, each in their own way to contribute to their society.
If America is to lead the world to a better world, then America must first itself come clean.
The current salary for the President of the U.S.A. is $400,000 per year. Let's say that in any given year no one can have a personal income greater than the salary of the President of the U.S.A. from wages, investments, winnings, and gifts. The President's salary could not be more than ten times the lowest personal income. The President could not have a personal income from all sources of income which was more than ten times the lowest personal income in America.
Persons receiving an income greater than the income ceiling would receive credit for following years. Two or more people living in the same household would likewise have an income ceiling. The personal income ceiling would also serve as a personal spending ceiling for that year.
Business income would be clearly, and lawfully differentiated from personal income. Excessive business income could be used to raise employee salaries up to the income ceiling, increase stockholder dividends up to the income ceiling, lower consumer prices on goods and services produced by the business, for business expansion, and for higher taxes. Tax evasion loopholes, such as changing corporate address to a foreign country, would be terminated.
America already has a partially electronic currency system. A crime-free totally electronic currency system using fingerprints, voiceprints, and eyeprints for identification would insure compliance to the personal income ceiling law. Cash and checks would become obsolete. The personal income ceiling law and the totally electronic currency system could eliminate crimes for money; thus saving billions marked for building a better penal system.
Currently, wealthy individuals, wealthy nations, an international monetary fund and international charitable organizations do assist nations in need. International cooperation, e.g. in science, space exploration, emergency response to natural disasters, prevention of terrorism, and prevention of pandemic spread of illness, is not new to mankind. We look forward to a time in which monetary and other resources would be shared by nations regularly in accordance with international law.
We believe socio-economic frustration mixed with existential frustration, e.g. lack of clear meaning, identity, self-esteem, rootedness, belonging in the universe, purpose, venues of self-expression, direction, fulfillment for ones' life, make people vulnerable to Frustration-Displacement. It is one side of the various forms of destructiveness to self and others which plague our world.
The other side is learning and teaching groups and individuals from childhood how to take responsibility for their behavioral choices, exercise self-control, respect the rights of others, and respect their own rights for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; with hotlines, helplines, assessment services, placement services, counseling services and social support systems readily available.
The mission of human fulfillment is to reduce the Craziness that is harmful to self and others and to direct human energies towards positive individual and societal fulfillment. The mission is to match the fulfillment of positive individual needs, interests, abilities, talents, visions and dreams to the fulfillment of societal requirements.'
Hopefully, the hundreds of billions spent yearly in America and world-wide for offensive and defensive weapons [making the Daddy Warbucks very rich] could be redirected, and spent for child care, health care, education, curing poverty, etc.
"Mission Impossible" does not necessarily mean "Don't try." There is something worthwhile and strengthening in the trying effort itself.
We live in a world in which communication systems, transportation systems, and economic systems have become increasingly global. Perhaps it is time to begin thinking about changing the world for the better holistically.
We are for opening at least part of national television, magazines, radio and major newspaper media for genuine free speech and free press; in prime time and prime space, on a first come first serve basis, without any editorial intervention. We are for all mass media socio-political communication being free and equally represented.
THIS WEBSITE WILL BE TRANSLATED INTO ARABIC AND INTO OTHER LANGUAGES. If you are interested in doing a translation, please let us know.
Spread the word. Spread the music. Advertising the overtherainbowusa.com website in the mass media entitles you to advertise on the overtherainbowusa.com website for free.
A copy of THE NEW WORLD FOUNDATION OF INTERFAITH [12 pages in 8 sections] will be sent to your email or postal address upon request.
Click on the audio link. Listen to Over The Rainbow USA. Over The Rainbow USA is a song of love for freedom and exploration (Part 1), and a song of love for country (part 2). It begins and ends with a Mid-Eastern theme; hoping there will be love and understanding between East and West. Over The Rainbow USA was composed, arranged and played on an electronic piano by Dr. Sheldon.
In America, a home of free speech, money can buy free speech and free press. This unfairness permeates American political and other human service institutions. American values are in conflict. For most Americans, the only way to be heard is to join a large protest group or otherwise attract mass media attention. At least half of all Americans do not vote. Voting is not free speech. Voting gives you the right to choose someone who may free speak for you. You could send up to $2,000 to support the candidate of your choice.
How can average Americans, who are not wealthy, who are not celebrities, who have no political connections and no connections to any of the mass media, communicate with millions of other fellow Americans when they want to communicate?
Most Americans do not have $5,000 to spend on free speech. They need to use it to pay for food, rent or mortgage, clothing for themselves and their children, for transportation or for payment on their car or on gas for their car, etc. Suppose you are one of the lucky Americans who has something to say, and can spend $5,000 on free speech. How would you use your $5,000 to communicate with millions of other fellow Americans? How would you use your $5,000 to get the most bang for your buck?
This website is an experiment in relatively low-cost free speech and free press.
We believe in the value of competition when the consequences of competition mutually benefit the competitors.
"I would rather play tennis with someone who I know will beat me than play with someone I know I can beat because losing to a better player stretches my abilities, and will make me a better tennis player." That's win-win competition. If you have a better idea than mine that benefits me, then you win and I win too. That's win-win competition.
Competition that sets human being against human being, win-lose competition, leads to consequences of exploitation and corruption. Win-lose competition is evil.
Ideally we would prefer a nation in which the highest personal income was never more than ten times the lowest personal income. In our vision for nations there is no poverty and no crimes for money. There is also no need for charity. People who could not work would be covered by a safety net. People who could work would work for intrinsic motivational reasons. They would work because they wanted to, not because they had to. They would work, each in their own way to contribute to their society.
If America is to lead the world to a better world, then America must first itself come clean.
The current salary for the President of the U.S.A. is $400,000 per year. Let's say that in any given year no one can have a personal income greater than the salary of the President of the U.S.A. from wages, investments, winnings, and gifts. The President's salary could not be more than ten times the lowest personal income. The President could not have a personal income from all sources of income which was more than ten times the lowest personal income in America.
Persons receiving an income greater than the income ceiling would receive credit for following years. Two or more people living in the same household would likewise have an income ceiling. The personal income ceiling would also serve as a personal spending ceiling for that year.
Business income would be clearly, and lawfully differentiated from personal income. Excessive business income could be used to raise employee salaries up to the income ceiling, increase stockholder dividends up to the income ceiling, lower consumer prices on goods and services produced by the business, for business expansion, and for higher taxes. Tax evasion loopholes, such as changing corporate address to a foreign country, would be terminated.
America already has a partially electronic currency system. A crime-free totally electronic currency system using fingerprints, voiceprints, and eyeprints for identification would insure compliance to the personal income ceiling law. Cash and checks would become obsolete. The personal income ceiling law and the totally electronic currency system could eliminate crimes for money; thus saving billions marked for building a better penal system.
Currently, wealthy individuals, wealthy nations, an international monetary fund and international charitable organizations do assist nations in need. International cooperation, e.g. in science, space exploration, emergency response to natural disasters, prevention of terrorism, and prevention of pandemic spread of illness, is not new to mankind. We look forward to a time in which monetary and other resources would be shared by nations regularly in accordance with international law.
We believe socio-economic frustration mixed with existential frustration, e.g. lack of clear meaning, identity, self-esteem, rootedness, belonging in the universe, purpose, venues of self-expression, direction, fulfillment for ones' life, make people vulnerable to Frustration-Displacement. It is one side of the various forms of destructiveness to self and others which plague our world.
The other side is learning and teaching groups and individuals from childhood how to take responsibility for their behavioral choices, exercise self-control, respect the rights of others, and respect their own rights for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; with hotlines, helplines, assessment services, placement services, counseling services and social support systems readily available.
The mission of human fulfillment is to reduce the Craziness that is harmful to self and others and to direct human energies towards positive individual and societal fulfillment. The mission is to match the fulfillment of positive individual needs, interests, abilities, talents, visions and dreams to the fulfillment of societal requirements.'
Hopefully, the hundreds of billions spent yearly in America and world-wide for offensive and defensive weapons [making the Daddy Warbucks very rich] could be redirected, and spent for child care, health care, education, curing poverty, etc.
"Mission Impossible" does not necessarily mean "Don't try." There is something worthwhile and strengthening in the trying effort itself.
We live in a world in which communication systems, transportation systems, and economic systems have become increasingly global. Perhaps it is time to begin thinking about changing the world for the better holistically.
We are for opening at least part of national television, magazines, radio and major newspaper media for genuine free speech and free press; in prime time and prime space, on a first come first serve basis, without any editorial intervention. We are for all mass media socio-political communication being free and equally represented.
THIS WEBSITE WILL BE TRANSLATED INTO ARABIC AND INTO OTHER LANGUAGES. If you are interested in doing a translation, please let us know.
Spread the word. Spread the music. Advertising the overtherainbowusa.com website in the mass media entitles you to advertise on the overtherainbowusa.com website for free.
A copy of THE NEW WORLD FOUNDATION OF INTERFAITH [12 pages in 8 sections] will be sent to your email or postal address upon request.
McCain vs. Obama and Money Madness in America
McCain vs. Obama and Money Madness in America
Phoenix, Ariz. (September 23, 2008) – In light of the upcoming elections, there is a new web site launched http://www.realworldnewworld.com/. This website offers a direction for America’s mission and destiny in the world as a democratic world leader.
Under the compassionate Republicans, the rich get richer while the middle class and below either remain the same or get poorer.
Under the compassionate Democrats, it’s the opposite: the middle class and below either remain the same or get poorer while the rich get richer in America.
For Sheldon Cohen the bottom line is this: no matter who wins the presidency, the middle class and below will either remain the same or get poorer as the rich get richer in America. As prices go up, up and up, the ability of the middle class to pay these prices will go down, down and down.
America’s socio-economic system is not even good for the kids who make the millions: the Britney Spears, and Michael Jacksons, and Lindsey Lohans. Cohen watches them deteriorate or bipolarize as the paparazzi and the mass media pursue them in order to make more and more money.
There is a solution to this madness.
Logon to the RealWorldNewWorld.com website. Read it. Reprint it. If you put your printers in the landscape mode, you should get a clear copy of it. Share it with a friend.
Learn about America’s mission and America’s destiny in the world and how Americans can participate in this mission and destiny.
For this entire article got to: http://scohen305.blogspot.com/ and add your comments.For further information go to http://www.realworldnewworld.com/
MCCAIN VS. OBAMA AND MONEY
MADNESS IN AMERICA
Dear Fellow Americans:
Under the compassionate Republicans, the rich get richer while the middle class and below either remain the same or get poorer.
Under the compassionate Democrats, it’s the opposite: the middle class and below either remain the same or get poorer while the rich get richer in America.
I believe the people who profited most from eight years of a democratic Clinton Administration was Bill and Hillary Clinton. They went from being a lower middle class family to become multi-millionaires. The mass media estimates their joint fortune at $50 million.
After an Obama administration passes, he and his wife will receive multi-million dollar contracts for their memoirs. They will give some speeches and they will be elevated to the socio-economic upper class of the Clintons.
I believe both McCain and Obama will throw some goodies to the middle class and below. I’m not going to do a comparative analysis of the numbers and kinds of goodies. Don’t forget that it was Senator McCain along with Senator Feingold who campaigned for a ceiling on how much money an individual could contribute to a presidential campaign. This is now law of the land: no individual can contribute more than $2,000 to a presidential candidate. McCain has already thrown a bit of a goodie to the middle class. I don’t consider it a full goodie.
I see both candidates moving toward the center ideologically. At the same time, they proclaim that there is a vast difference in their points of view. Both candidates use sound bites and do some lying to ensure that blocks of voters will remain faithful to them, and vote for them.
For me the bottom line is this: no matter who wins the presidency, the middle class and below will either remain the same or get poorer as the rich get richer in America. As prices go up, up and up, the ability of the middle class to pay these prices will go down, down and down.
I see the essential difference between McCain and Obama being that McCain does not need to become president to get rich. McCain has married rich. McCain is super rich. Under our current socio-economic system, it should happen to all of us. I guess a case can be made that McCain being super rich is more likely than Obama to do things to protect his riches. It’s debatable.
A relatively few rags to riches stories cannot define the goodness of a socio-economic system.
There are other ways to reward people besides money.
When a TV judge can earn hundreds of times more for their work than a U.S. Supreme Court judge, does that sound reasonable to you?
When a TV medical surgeon on a TV ER can earn hundred of times more for their work than a real medical surgeon operating on a real person in a real hospital, does that make common sense?
When Sport Stars can earn hundred of times more for their work than firefighters, police officers and soldiers who fight for America’s freedom, is that fair?
As middle-class Americans struggle to pay their fuel bills, executives of the fuel corporations earn 8 figure salaries plus bonuses.
As middle-class Americans struggle to pay the mortgages on their homes, and many experience foreclosure loss of their homes, executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac receive bonuses in the millions.
Our socio-economic system is not even good for the kids who make the millions: the Britney Spears, and Michael Jacksons, and Lindsey Lohans. We watch them deteriorate or bipolarize as the paparazzi and the mass media pursue them in order to make more and more money.
There is a solution to this madness.
Logon to the RealWorldNewWorld.com website. Read it. Reprint it. If you put your printers in the landscape mode, you should get a clear copy of it. Share it with a friend.
Learn about America’s mission and America’s destiny in the world and how Americans can participate in this mission and destiny.
Phoenix, Ariz. (September 23, 2008) – In light of the upcoming elections, there is a new web site launched http://www.realworldnewworld.com/. This website offers a direction for America’s mission and destiny in the world as a democratic world leader.
Under the compassionate Republicans, the rich get richer while the middle class and below either remain the same or get poorer.
Under the compassionate Democrats, it’s the opposite: the middle class and below either remain the same or get poorer while the rich get richer in America.
For Sheldon Cohen the bottom line is this: no matter who wins the presidency, the middle class and below will either remain the same or get poorer as the rich get richer in America. As prices go up, up and up, the ability of the middle class to pay these prices will go down, down and down.
America’s socio-economic system is not even good for the kids who make the millions: the Britney Spears, and Michael Jacksons, and Lindsey Lohans. Cohen watches them deteriorate or bipolarize as the paparazzi and the mass media pursue them in order to make more and more money.
There is a solution to this madness.
Logon to the RealWorldNewWorld.com website. Read it. Reprint it. If you put your printers in the landscape mode, you should get a clear copy of it. Share it with a friend.
Learn about America’s mission and America’s destiny in the world and how Americans can participate in this mission and destiny.
For this entire article got to: http://scohen305.blogspot.com/ and add your comments.For further information go to http://www.realworldnewworld.com/
MCCAIN VS. OBAMA AND MONEY
MADNESS IN AMERICA
Dear Fellow Americans:
Under the compassionate Republicans, the rich get richer while the middle class and below either remain the same or get poorer.
Under the compassionate Democrats, it’s the opposite: the middle class and below either remain the same or get poorer while the rich get richer in America.
I believe the people who profited most from eight years of a democratic Clinton Administration was Bill and Hillary Clinton. They went from being a lower middle class family to become multi-millionaires. The mass media estimates their joint fortune at $50 million.
After an Obama administration passes, he and his wife will receive multi-million dollar contracts for their memoirs. They will give some speeches and they will be elevated to the socio-economic upper class of the Clintons.
I believe both McCain and Obama will throw some goodies to the middle class and below. I’m not going to do a comparative analysis of the numbers and kinds of goodies. Don’t forget that it was Senator McCain along with Senator Feingold who campaigned for a ceiling on how much money an individual could contribute to a presidential campaign. This is now law of the land: no individual can contribute more than $2,000 to a presidential candidate. McCain has already thrown a bit of a goodie to the middle class. I don’t consider it a full goodie.
I see both candidates moving toward the center ideologically. At the same time, they proclaim that there is a vast difference in their points of view. Both candidates use sound bites and do some lying to ensure that blocks of voters will remain faithful to them, and vote for them.
For me the bottom line is this: no matter who wins the presidency, the middle class and below will either remain the same or get poorer as the rich get richer in America. As prices go up, up and up, the ability of the middle class to pay these prices will go down, down and down.
I see the essential difference between McCain and Obama being that McCain does not need to become president to get rich. McCain has married rich. McCain is super rich. Under our current socio-economic system, it should happen to all of us. I guess a case can be made that McCain being super rich is more likely than Obama to do things to protect his riches. It’s debatable.
A relatively few rags to riches stories cannot define the goodness of a socio-economic system.
There are other ways to reward people besides money.
When a TV judge can earn hundreds of times more for their work than a U.S. Supreme Court judge, does that sound reasonable to you?
When a TV medical surgeon on a TV ER can earn hundred of times more for their work than a real medical surgeon operating on a real person in a real hospital, does that make common sense?
When Sport Stars can earn hundred of times more for their work than firefighters, police officers and soldiers who fight for America’s freedom, is that fair?
As middle-class Americans struggle to pay their fuel bills, executives of the fuel corporations earn 8 figure salaries plus bonuses.
As middle-class Americans struggle to pay the mortgages on their homes, and many experience foreclosure loss of their homes, executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac receive bonuses in the millions.
Our socio-economic system is not even good for the kids who make the millions: the Britney Spears, and Michael Jacksons, and Lindsey Lohans. We watch them deteriorate or bipolarize as the paparazzi and the mass media pursue them in order to make more and more money.
There is a solution to this madness.
Logon to the RealWorldNewWorld.com website. Read it. Reprint it. If you put your printers in the landscape mode, you should get a clear copy of it. Share it with a friend.
Learn about America’s mission and America’s destiny in the world and how Americans can participate in this mission and destiny.
SENDING OF AN OPEN LETTER
To: The Newly elected President of the USA, President Barack Obama, and distributed in translation to Al-Qaeda;
From: The New World Foundation for Interfaith, www.realworldnewworld.com with entire letter at www.scohen305.blogspot.com
Concerning: Steps for America and Al-Qaeda to win the war together.
PREFACE AND PREMISE
The war with Al-Qaeda is not war in the usual or conventional sense. It is an indeterminate long term war which cannot be won with bombs and bullets by either side.
Winning the war with Al-Qaeda involves change of mind-set and behavior from within the person(s) on both sides, as well as significant social-environmental changes.
The war with Al-Qaeda is not only a war between foreign enemies. It is also a war within us; individually and collectively. It is war for the human mind, heart, and spirit: Who shall we be or become? What should we do with our life? What does (our) life mean to us: Where did we come from? Where are we going to? What are we a part of?
It is with the above preface and premise that we begin our steps toward winning the war with Al-Qaeda. How America and Al-Qaeda can both win the war together.
STEP 1
We the people of America begin anew the war with Al-Qaeda by SELF examination – awareness – analysis - evaluation – criticism – soul searching – and confession.
We the people of America, being human too, are not perfect. We are capable of conflicting and betraying our own best values. We are not holier than you. There are ways in which you are holier, braver, more committed and more truthful than us. We can learn from you and perhaps you can learn from us.
We have invested our soul in the values of risk taking plus greed leading over and over again to human exploitation and corruption. We have been too rigid to change our evil ways. We have gained the world, and began losing our soul.
We have associated with exploitive and repressive regimes, including a fellowship with Saddam Hussein when it suited our own purposes.
We have associated with Arab nations for their oil, and Arab leaders have associated with us for our money and high technology.
This resulted in conflict with Islamic cultural core values: Islamic meaning and way of life, Islamic identity, Islamic rootedness, Islamic belonging in the universe, Islamic purpose for living, Islamic venues of self-expression, and Islamic directional fulfillment for the Muslim life. This resulted in Muslim culture shock, the Muslim 9/11 attack on America and the American retaliatory attack upon Afghanistan and Iraq.
We did not mean to explode your Muslim life. It was an unseen by product of what seemed to us at that time to be a normal international economic exchange.
STEP 2
After self examination and confession, we have changed our mind-set and our behavior.
We are the new reborn Americans.
We no longer speak of “Foreign Nations,” “Foreign Policy,” “Foreign Aid,” or “Foreign Oil.”
We believe the oil of the earth, like the sun and the wind and the water and the natural gas and the electricity and the coal and the atoms and the crops and the human discoveries and technologies and the arts and the sciences and the traditional religions belong to all the people of the earth.
We believe that the wealth of the world should be shared by all people of the world.
In October 2008 we witnessed governments of the industrialized nations coming together and acting in concert to save the global economy from disaster.
We believe in building a new world community with a common international electronic currency system and a common international taxation policy.
We believe in eradicating poverty, controlling disasters, conquering illness, creating opportunities for positive self-determination and constructive self-improvement of all kinds. This is good for everyone.
The Koran forbids the killing of innocent human life. When Muhammad The Prophet of Islam had difficulties with the Meccan authorities, he did not set them on fire. He did not set himself on fire. Muhammad did not choose war with the Meccan authorities.
Muhammad left Mecca and established the first Muslim community in Medina.
We ask you to follow Muhammad The Prophet of Islam and his Koran.
There is a difference between jihad suicide and jihad murder. You have the right to sacrifice your own life. You do not have the right under the Koran to take the innocent lives of others.
We want to forgive you as we want you to forgive us.
We ask you to turn away from and give up war as a way of life. We ask you to participate with us as equal partners in the creation of a new world community. Begin constructive leadership roles in your own nations and Muslim communities.
We promise to do our very best to create opportunities for this actualization.
Dear President Barack Obama:
Try distributing this letter in Afghanistan and Pakistan to Islamic Mosques, religious schools, mass media, and (Instead of bombs) thrown from airplanes. It’s cost effective.
From: The New World Foundation for Interfaith, www.realworldnewworld.com with entire letter at www.scohen305.blogspot.com
Concerning: Steps for America and Al-Qaeda to win the war together.
PREFACE AND PREMISE
The war with Al-Qaeda is not war in the usual or conventional sense. It is an indeterminate long term war which cannot be won with bombs and bullets by either side.
Winning the war with Al-Qaeda involves change of mind-set and behavior from within the person(s) on both sides, as well as significant social-environmental changes.
The war with Al-Qaeda is not only a war between foreign enemies. It is also a war within us; individually and collectively. It is war for the human mind, heart, and spirit: Who shall we be or become? What should we do with our life? What does (our) life mean to us: Where did we come from? Where are we going to? What are we a part of?
It is with the above preface and premise that we begin our steps toward winning the war with Al-Qaeda. How America and Al-Qaeda can both win the war together.
STEP 1
We the people of America begin anew the war with Al-Qaeda by SELF examination – awareness – analysis - evaluation – criticism – soul searching – and confession.
We the people of America, being human too, are not perfect. We are capable of conflicting and betraying our own best values. We are not holier than you. There are ways in which you are holier, braver, more committed and more truthful than us. We can learn from you and perhaps you can learn from us.
We have invested our soul in the values of risk taking plus greed leading over and over again to human exploitation and corruption. We have been too rigid to change our evil ways. We have gained the world, and began losing our soul.
We have associated with exploitive and repressive regimes, including a fellowship with Saddam Hussein when it suited our own purposes.
We have associated with Arab nations for their oil, and Arab leaders have associated with us for our money and high technology.
This resulted in conflict with Islamic cultural core values: Islamic meaning and way of life, Islamic identity, Islamic rootedness, Islamic belonging in the universe, Islamic purpose for living, Islamic venues of self-expression, and Islamic directional fulfillment for the Muslim life. This resulted in Muslim culture shock, the Muslim 9/11 attack on America and the American retaliatory attack upon Afghanistan and Iraq.
We did not mean to explode your Muslim life. It was an unseen by product of what seemed to us at that time to be a normal international economic exchange.
STEP 2
After self examination and confession, we have changed our mind-set and our behavior.
We are the new reborn Americans.
We no longer speak of “Foreign Nations,” “Foreign Policy,” “Foreign Aid,” or “Foreign Oil.”
We believe the oil of the earth, like the sun and the wind and the water and the natural gas and the electricity and the coal and the atoms and the crops and the human discoveries and technologies and the arts and the sciences and the traditional religions belong to all the people of the earth.
We believe that the wealth of the world should be shared by all people of the world.
In October 2008 we witnessed governments of the industrialized nations coming together and acting in concert to save the global economy from disaster.
We believe in building a new world community with a common international electronic currency system and a common international taxation policy.
We believe in eradicating poverty, controlling disasters, conquering illness, creating opportunities for positive self-determination and constructive self-improvement of all kinds. This is good for everyone.
The Koran forbids the killing of innocent human life. When Muhammad The Prophet of Islam had difficulties with the Meccan authorities, he did not set them on fire. He did not set himself on fire. Muhammad did not choose war with the Meccan authorities.
Muhammad left Mecca and established the first Muslim community in Medina.
We ask you to follow Muhammad The Prophet of Islam and his Koran.
There is a difference between jihad suicide and jihad murder. You have the right to sacrifice your own life. You do not have the right under the Koran to take the innocent lives of others.
We want to forgive you as we want you to forgive us.
We ask you to turn away from and give up war as a way of life. We ask you to participate with us as equal partners in the creation of a new world community. Begin constructive leadership roles in your own nations and Muslim communities.
We promise to do our very best to create opportunities for this actualization.
Dear President Barack Obama:
Try distributing this letter in Afghanistan and Pakistan to Islamic Mosques, religious schools, mass media, and (Instead of bombs) thrown from airplanes. It’s cost effective.
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