Power of the Press.

“It seems to me that just in the ratio that our newspapers increase, our morals decay. The more newspapers the worse morals. Where we have one newspaper that does good, I think we have fifty that do harm. We ought to look upon the establishment of a newspaper of the average pattern in a virtuous village as a calamity.”—Mark Twain

“Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the whole people. Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea.”—Adolf Hitler wrote these words in his book Mein Kampf, and they still apply today: Control the media and you control the hearts and minds of the people. 

Fortunately today there is an antidote to pre-determined Corporate Media messages: The Internet. We must always be mindful that Corporations are owned by wealthy individuals who have vested interests to enhance their wealth at the expense of the people of our nation, and have final say on what will be delivered through their medium. Not so via the Internet although congress and their benefactors have tried, and fortunately failed “thus far,” to regulate that also through their efforts to undermine net neutrality and thus completely control message content. Nothing in this world remains static and that applies to the war to undermine net neutrality and control propaganda.

Maintaining a free, open and non-regulated Internet provides a voice of the people that won’t come via corporate media for a simple reason: greed. Corporations (with their vast army of lobbyists) and, thanks to “Citizens United” billions available for buying time and space through traditional media as well as corrupting government officials to do their bidding.

Why is this presently a big deal? Because Corporate America has already decided whom they want elected as our next president and consequently empowers communications that promotes their person of choice, and restricts coverage of candidates they have decided threaten their greed driven agenda and don’t want to advance.

If you haven’t noticed, you rarely (if ever, and then only with a speedy glancing blow-by) hear or watch news regarding the huge successes of Senator Bernie Sanders, except through the Internet/Social Media. By nearly all measures Senator Sanders is leading the pack of also-runs by drawing massive crowds who respond with enthusiasm to his clear assessment of the challenges we face, along with real solutions to level playing fields, narrow the progressively widening gap between the ultra-wealthy (the people who control message content in Corporate media) and the rest of us, move the country toward restoring the vanishing middle class and address genuine threats to the wellbeing of all people.

However, according to messages delivered through traditional channels, Senator Sanders “doesn’t have a chance,” which will surely be the case if we allow ourselves to be brainwashed by Corporate America.

Knowing and Doing

“The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot.”—Mark Twain

“Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.”—Lyndon B. Johnson

We live in a world where we can’t say anything with certainty. However, that doesn’t stop us from attempting to persuade both ourselves and those with whom we relate, that we do, with certainty, in fact know matters. 

Doing and knowing are not the same thing, as both Mark Twain and LBJ pointed out. Ideally there would be a single, universally accepted understanding of what is always right, what is always wrong and possess the fortitude of following through with right doing. But since there can’t be a fixed, universally approved criteria of knowing right from wrong, it’s a sure thing that disagreements will arise. And why is that so? Because the very nature of right requires a counter point to have any meaning. Right and wrong are two sides of the same matter of judgement. Then, of course, is the matter that we all have our own eyeballs, with our own different life experiences and filters through which we see the world. And most important of all is what Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku nailed as the root of disagreements: “The cause of our sorrow is ego delusion.” 

The person we think we are—who attempts to persuade themselves; the one who sees right apart from wrong is our ego. That vicious fabrication of our identity will always see life through vested interests, desiring to always have the last word, is linked to a lens of delusion. When viewed in this way it’s a miracle we haven’t already blown ourselves to smithereens.

“When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises

When it knows good as good, evil arises
Thus being and non-being produce each other
Difficult and easy bring about each other
Long and short reveal each other
High and low support each other
Music and voice harmonize each other
Front and back follow each other.”—Tao Te Ching

War and Peace: What it the heck is wrong with us?

Unavoidable signs of a world-wide collapse in civilization are everywhere to be found. The signs are prolific throughout Europe, The Middle East, the continent of the America’s and into Asia. It would be insulting to the intelligence of my readers to plough through the laundry list of all of the related problems, but at the heart of them all exists one single toxic seed: The seed of “I’m right and you’re wrong.” In different terms, that characteristic is called self-righteousness or simpler yet, “Egotism.” I have written much about this driving force that’s pressing us all toward the abyss, including in particular three books, More Over, The Non-Identity Crisis and The Other Side of Midnight.  All of them are cut from the same bolt of cloth. Their consistent theme is one of misidentification: Not understanding the true nature, at the core, of what it means to be human.

A return to a doctrine of one of the most enlightened humans of all time may help in informing this message, and I refer to Nagarjuna (c. 150-250 CE) who made a significant contribution towards grasping our essence, which was later developed as Buddhism, moved from India into China where it linked up with Taoism. The second of these tributaries evolved in China with the life of Bodhidharma who seems to have brought with him Nagarjuna’s teachings, as well as the Lankavatara Sūtra which followed many of the tenets outlined by the consciousness only school of Yogacara. Whereas Nagarjuna is known as the father of Mahayana Buddhism, Bodhidharma is considered as the father of Chan, which subsequently came to be known as Zen. Nagarjuna established the philosophical foundation and Bodhidharma rooted the tenets into psychic turf. The tenet was (and is) known as the “Two-Truth Doctrine” and works out as follows.

Nagarjuna said we all live within two truths: A conventional truth and a sublime truth. The first truth is, and has always been, clearly evident. The second truth is not, and has never been evident, yet the second is the source of the first and these two are irrevocably cemented together. His exact words were, “Without knowing how they (sic, truths) differ, you cannot know the deep; Without relying on conventions, you cannot disclose the sublime; Without intuiting the sublime, you cannot experience freedom.” 

The first truth (and surprisingly the second as well) is binary, meaning composed of two dimensions clearly distinct and opposite from each other. This is the basis for discrimination (or perhaps in less inflammatory terms), the ability to discern differences between one thing and another, such as right and wrong. And when the matter of self-centered judgement is added to this truth, the result is selfishness, opposition, inflexibility and in many cases violence. This is the realm of conditions, one set of conditions set against another set, and since conditions are, by nature always in flux it is impossible to remain steady without judgement.

Then according to Nagarjuna, we must become aware that this conditional realm is different from the realm of the sublimely unconditional. The curious observation about this awareness is that, since these two realms are polar, the realm of the unconditional is not binary, yet the relationship between the first and the second is. The unconditional is the realm of unity, tranquility and equity, whereas the realm of the conditional is one of disunity, hostility and selfishness. Unfortunately, we average humans are not even aware of the realm of the unconditional sublimity and assume all that exists is the realm of conditionality. That’s the first error of Nagarjuna’s doctrine: not knowing they are different, because knowing anything requires contrast, but even when recognizing there is a second truth (and how they are different), that kind of knowing remains a figment of the imagination, in other words, rational. 

The second, and most important aspect of his doctrine, is that so long as we don’t “intuit” the sublime, we will never gain freedom and thus remain in a bondage, governed by discriminatory conflict. Now the interesting thing about intuition is that it is a transrational (metaphysical) experience of emersion into pure, unapplied consciousness.  Applied consciousness is one of rational distinction, judging one thing in contrast to another, and nearly without exception ending up in conflict. However, while in a state of pure, non-applied consciousness, there is nothing to compare since it is a realm of united, unconditionality, where we experience oneness with all.

Sadly, the major source of conflict in the world today (and perhaps forever) is rooted in the three political/religious combinations of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, all of which share common ideas regarding God and our human beginnings, while none of them practices the peace to which they aspire. Religion, in the ordinary sense, by the assessment of many, is the major source of continuing violence throughout time. In the words of Mark Twain, “Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out...and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel…And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for ‘the universal brotherhood of man’—with his mouth.” 

And the songs we sign harmonize with mantras like, “Onward Christian Soldiers,” “Allahu Akbar,” or ones that shout to strangers that they alone are God’s exclusive chosen flock. And not a single one realizes the unity that resides in the heart of all of human kind.