OstanotDS ~
Ohura6760
is issue
030401 of
a forum with no name
act two of three
WlfShadws: PEACE FOR OUR TIME by Alistair Cooke, BBC Broadcaster (he is 95 years old). About the author: In 1936, the NBC network invited Alistair Cooke to do a weekly broadcast of reflections on British life called London Letter. Cooke then emigrated to the United States in 1937, and asked the BBC to let him do the same thing in reverse. Eventually he succeeded, and ‘Letter from America’ is now the longest running radio broadcast in human history. In the process it has won a faithful worldwide audience of several million and many friends in high places. When Cooke was awarded an honorary knighthood in 1973, the Queen is reputed to have expressed bewildered admiration at his ability to sit down, week after week, and communicate so directly with his audience.
...I promised to lay off topic A – Iraq – until the Security Council makes a judgment on the inspectors’ report and I shall keep that promise.
But I must tell you that throughout the past fortnight I’ve listened to everybody involved in or looking on to a monotonous din of words, like a tide crashing and receding on a beach – making a great noise and saying the same thing over and over. And this ordeal triggered a nightmare – a day-mare, if you like.
Through the ceaseless tide I heard a voice, a very English voice of an old man – Prime Minister Chamberlain saying: “I believe it is peace for our time” – a sentence that prompted a huge cheer, first from a listening street crowd and then from the House of Commons and next day from every newspaper in the land. There was a move to urge that Mr. Chamberlain should receive the Nobel Peace Prize. In Parliament there was one unfamiliar old grumbler to growl out: “I believe we have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat.” He was, in view of the general sentiment, very properly booed down.
This scene concluded in the autumn of 1938 the British prime minister’s effectual signing away of most of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. The rest of it, within months, Hitler walked in and conquered. “Oh dear,” said Mr. Chamberlain, thunderstruck. “He has betrayed my trust.”
During the last fortnight a simple but startling thought occurred to me – every single official, diplomat, president, prime minister involved in the Iraq debate was in 1938 a toddler, most of them unborn. So the dreadful scene I’ve just drawn will not have been remembered by most listeners.
Hitler had started betraying our trust not 12 years but only two years before, when he broke the First World War peace treaty by occupying the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland. Only half his troops carried one reload of ammunition because Hitler knew that French morale was too low to confront any war just then and 10 million of 11 million British voters had signed a so-called peace ballot. It stated no conditions, elaborated no terms; it simply counted the numbers of Britons who were “for peace”.
The slogan of this movement was “Against war and fascism” – chanted at the time by every Labour man and Liberal and many moderate Conservatives – a slogan that now sounds as imbecilic as “against hospitals and disease”. In blunter words a majority of Britons would do anything, absolutely anything, to get rid of Hitler except fight him.
At that time the word pre-emptive had not been invented, though today it’s a catchword. After all the Rhineland was what it said it was – part of Germany. So to march in and throw Hitler out would have been pre-emptive – wouldn’t it?
Nobody did anything and Hitler looked forward with confidence to gobbling up the rest of Western Europe country by country – “course by course”, as growler Churchill put it.
I bring up Munich and the mid-30s because I was fully grown, on the verge of 30, and knew we were indeed living in the age of anxiety. And so many of the arguments mounted against each other today, in the last fortnight, are exactly what we heard in the House of Commons debates and read in the French press.
The French especially urged, after every Hitler invasion, “negotiation, negotiation”. They negotiated so successfully as to have their whole country defeated and occupied. But as one famous French leftist said: “We did anyway manage to make them declare Paris an open city – no bombs on us!”
In Britain the general response to every Hitler advance was disarmament and collective security. Collective security meant to leave every crisis to the League of Nations. It would put down aggressors, even though, like the United Nations, it had no army, navy or air force.
The League of Nations had its chance to prove itself when Mussolini invaded and conquered Ethiopia (Abyssinia). The League didn’t have any shot to fire. But still the cry was chanted in the House of Commons – the League and collective security is the only true guarantee of peace.
But after the Rhineland the maverick Churchill decided there was no collectivity in collective security and started a highly unpopular campaign for rearmament by Britain, warning against the general belief that Hitler had already built an enormous mechanized army and superior air force.
But he’s not used them, he’s not used them – people protested.
Still for two years before the outbreak of the Second War you could read the debates in the House of Commons and now shiver at the famous Labour men – Major Attlee was one of them – who voted against rearmament and still went on pointing to the League of Nations as the savior.
Now, this memory of mine may be totally irrelevant to the present crisis. It haunts me. I have to say I have written elsewhere with much conviction that most historical analogies are false because, however strikingly similar a new situation may be to an old one, there’s usually one element that is different and it turns out to be the crucial one. It may well be so here.
All I know is that all the voices of the 30s are echoing through 2003...
[I was amused that a Newsweek poll found that one place where a U.S. invasion of Iraq has a lot of support is inside Iraq. The 65-70% Shiite population wants U.S. troops to help secure a new transition government. Perhaps such a government would be more closely aligned with Iran and be anti-U.S. also. It seems that Saddam has a lot of support in the U.S., at least there is anti-war sentiment, and Bush has a lot of support within Iraq... In some ways perhaps this is a war of Babylon versus Babylon, but I can also see it as Lucifer-aligned Saddam against Michael-aligned Bush.
[I respect those who favor peace, those who are opposed to warfare, and a forum reflects their opinions, as this is an open forum. However, I was saddened when a five-year forum member asked to be removed from a forum because I said in meta-chat that for now I continue to support U.S. President Bush. I do not fault those who do not support Bush, and most certainly a forum reflects many who oppose both the war and Bush, but from my perspective my position is valid for me. However, when someone asked to be removed from a forum because I support Bush I was reminded that the extreme left-wing seems to favor curtailing the open expression of any view except its own, and to me this seems wrong. So, I support the free flow of information as a Bush supporter, while that anti-Bush personage would not tolerate any other points of view... I have heard many accuse Bush of being a Nazi, and yet in this particular case it would seem the shoes were reversed, and I think this should be remembered.
[As always, I intend to keep this forum open to all views, even to those who oppose U.S. government policy, regardless of which administration might be in power. I view myself as of the center, and for me this requires at least listening to all sides.]
Zenophone: Re: ARKANGELQ13, forum 030301: << Can you tell me who was the entity, before his incarnation on Earth, known as Jesus of Nazareth? >>
Some scribe should be rebuked for this translation. Nazareth did not exist till some years after the death of Jesus. So he was Jesus of Something Else.
Zigurrat: State of the Universe Address by Swami Beyondananda
Hello everybody – it is great to be here ... and you know what? We really have no choice. Because no matter where we are, we are always here. And it is always now. In fact, there’s even a book called The Power of Now. I haven’t had time to read it yet, but I hope to get to it in a later now.
Meanwhile, back in this now, the issue facing the United States, and indeed the world is, will George Bush give in to his Big Iraq Attack and order up a war? Latest reports say that a war to force a regime change in Iraq will [could] cost $200 billion. It is puzzling to me why some of those fiscal fitness fanatics in the Republican Party haven’t tried to find a cheaper way to do it. Maybe if they offered the Iraqis half – $100 billion – they could do it themselves. Then we’d still have $100 billion left to spend on regime change in this country. Because – and I have to be blunt here – the folks we have in charge are fossils fueled by fossil fuels. And in the reptilian brain, problems aren’t solved, they’re attacked. Like the War on Poverty. Remember that? I’m happy to report that it’s finally over. The poor people have all surrendered. And take the War on Drugs – please! How many billions have they spent? My solution is cheaper and more effective ... improve reality!
Now we have the War on Terrorism. We’re going to terrorize those terrorists into giving up terrorism if it’s the last thing we do! And it just might be. The good news is – and I have it on the Highest Authority – there will indeed be peace on Earth. Whether we humans are around to enjoy it, that is up to us.
No wonder there is so much fear, uncertainty and confusion on the planet. I’ll tell you how bad it’s gotten. You’ve heard of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle? Well, they’re not even sure about THAT anymore. And so, more and more people are turning to the mystics for answers.
I have often said there are two kinds of mystics, the optimystics and the pessimystics. Now pessimystics seem to be more in touch with “reality”, but optimystics are happier and live longer for some reason. The pessimystics have been crying, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” The optimystics say, “No. It just looks that way because we are ascending.”
Now, for those people who read the news – not to mention those unfortunate enough to BE in the news – last year was not an easy year to keep an optimystic attitude with so much pessimystic evidence. Call me a hopeless “hopium” addict, but I choose to accentuate the positive. For example, you can say we human beings have moved further down the path of self-destruction. Or you could say the Earth is ridding itself of a virulent parasite.
You can despair over continuing war, disease and starvation, or you can go, “Hey, population control the good, old fashioned way – without birth control or abortion.” Who says “compassionate conservative” is an oxymoron?
You can worry about the government taking liberties with our liberties or you can say, “Life has become simpler! They’ve boiled the Bill of Rights down to just one: You have the right to remain silent.”
So I am not going to dwell on the negative. As my guru Harry Cohen Baba used to say, “Life is like photography ... we use the negative to develop.” So let us look at the bright side.
Like technological advances, for example. Forty years ago President John F. Kennedy promised to have a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Well, we have far exceeded that. Thanks to the so-called Patriot Act, George Bush can have a man on Uranus by the end of the week!
George Bush was responsible for a great spiritual advance last year, as well. He upgraded the Golden Rule for the new millennium. It’s now the Gold Rule: “Doodoo unto others before they can doodoo unto you.”
And – say what you will – President Bush has made great strides on behalf of minority representation. Never before have we had a President who was looking out for a smaller minority.
Now this is the State of the Universe Address, and seen from that higher perspective, things look great! I am happy to report that the Universe continued to expand in 2002, and in fact, they actually had to let the Photon Belt out another notch. An expanding Universe means more jobs too, so we can expect a steady influx of aliens looking for work. Yep, the Universe just keeps purring in perfection, ever-changing as usual. The planets continue to harmoniously spin in their orbits, and except for the occasional case of asteroids, they just calmly go about their business.
Meanwhile, back here on Earth, things are a bit more problematical. We still haven’t fully recovered from that vicious dogma attack of 911. But as an optimystic, I believe you can indeed teach an old dogma new tricks, simply by changing the emPHAsis to another sylLABle. Instead of focusing only on emergency measures, why not take emerge ‘n SEE measures?
When we emerge from our fearful hiding places and see from the cosmic comic perspective, we realize that beneath all the stress and distress and sadness in life there is a deep well of joy. Each time we let laughter bubble up from the well, we experience deep wellness. Levity helps us overcome gravity, especially when we shine the light of laughter on those poorly-lit corridors of power.
Do you know what the leading cause of terrorism is? It’s seriousness. I’m serious. Think about it. Those people have no sense of humor. Otherwise how could they believe they will get to heaven by putting other people through hell?
Here is my vision: A suicide bomber arrives at the Gates of Heaven, and God clops him over the head and says, “SCHMUCK! What’d you do that for? 72 virgins? YOU get one 72-year-old virgin, and his name starts with Ayatollah!”
But if Americans are willing to revive the Iraqi Horror Picture Show just to feed our out-of-control oil habit, how are we that different? How many innocents will be put through hell, just to preserve our little corner of relative heaven? There is no real peace without harmony and balance, only the vicious cycle of injustice. Peons get tired of getting peed on, right? You get pissed on, and pretty soon you’re gonna get pissed off. This causes the hot spots to flare, and pretty soon you have an uprising, which usually results in a downfall. All these uprisings and downfalls can be wearing on the body politic.
Fortunately, we do have a choice. One of my favorite stories recently is about a Native American grandfather talking to his young grandson. He tells the boy he has two wolves inside of him struggling with each other. The first is the wolf of peace, love and kindness. The other wolf is fear, greed and hatred. “Which wolf will win, grandfather?” asks the young boy. “Whichever one I feed,” is the reply.
Every day – every moment – we have the choice to feed the wolf of love or the wolf of fear. It is interesting that we are called humanKIND. What better time than now to find out, can mankind treat man kindly?
I have a dream ... I call it tell-a-vision. I say, if you’re dissatisfied with the current programming, you can turn off your TV and tell a vision instead. Here is my vision: Remember the Manhattan Project during World War II? It took less than four years for a group of scientists to develop the first weapon of mass destruction. My vision is, we can do even better for an even worthier goal. We could call it the Manhelpin Project, and its purpose would be to develop the first weapon of mass construction instead.
Think about it. What if we used that $200 billion set to detonate in Iraq, and put it toward becoming the worldwide leader in renewable, clean, ustainable energy sources? Now there’s some real power. Create something so plentiful you don’t have to pay an army to protect your share. A healthy income, a healthy outcome ... what could possibly make more sense? Boy, talk about feeding two birds with one scone!
The choice is up to us. If we want an alternative, we must feed the “alter native” economy ... anything that alters us natives for the better. The world we live in is a by-product of the products we buy, is it not? What if we only choose to buy products with healthy by-products? Think about this: There are at least 45 million Americans who consciously want to feed the wolf of peace. If each of us switched just $100 into the alter native economy, that would be $4.5 billion!
Last year, we launched a blisskrieg and declared “all out peace”. I’m happy to report it is already working. More people are letting their inner peace out, and these outbreaks of peace are actually causing esteem to rise! And we all know that rising esteem is good for the atmosphere. As esteem rises, more people on the planet will be able to be all that they can be – without joining the army. And when more of us put our energy into love and laughter instead of criticizing and condemning, we will have Uncritical Mass ... and we will bring about Nonjudgment Day, and along with it, Disarmaggedon. Now you might be wondering, what will Nonjudgment Day look like? Let me tell another vision.
I have been to the heights of levity, and I have seen people all over the world dancing together in the universal dance of fool realization ... The Hokey Pokey. I want you to hold this vision with me: All of the world leaders at the United Nations beginning their sessions with the Hokey Pokey. What if Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat put their whole selves in in? That would be commitment. And then pulled their whole selves out. That is detachment. Then they turn themselves around, which is transformation. And that, my friends, is what it is all about!
So, how can you help raise the laugh force on the planet enough to bring about Nonjudgment Day? First, you can take a vow of levity, and laugh more. And we even have a Laughmore Society to help you do just that. Next, you can support everyone’s right to laugh by joining the Right To Laugh Party ... “One big party, everyone is invited. All for fun, and fun for all.”
Commit random acts of comedy. Practice Fun Shui and leave the world a funnier place. Anything to elicit a moment of fool-realization with a spark of laughter. Because only when we lovingly laugh at our foolishness, can we seriously change things for the better. May you wake up laughing and leave laughter in your wake ... and may the Farce be with you!
alunajoy@kachina.net: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” ~ Mother Teresa
I just don’t got time for this war. – 3/10/2003 ~ Aluna Joy Yaxk’in
I spent most of the last weeks thinking about where we are at as a human race and what I felt about it. All I could tune into was feeling numb, empty and so weirdly neutral. I couldn’t come up with any inspiration for myself that I already haven’t said in past writings. It is like humanity is holding its breath ... wondering where all the tension, hate and revenge is gong to take us. Will we wake up and discover the value in peace and harmony ... or will we enter even deeper into hate and fear ... or will we take duality to the extreme and just split in two, them against us.
Maybe my numbness is just plan grief. Grief for all those who harbor hate in their hearts. How awful that must feel. Grief for all those innocents who will be hurt by the hate. They don’t deserve it. I wake in the morning feeling surreal like I woke into an ancient barbaric world. I watch all my friends and family take sides and get caught in the drama by fighting it, or supporting it. It is splitting them apart. “I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.” – Mother Teresa
It feels like everything that needed to be said has been said. Masters and Angels have spoken and great teachers have taught a different path to peace, love and all those hippie ideals that we have yet to see come to pass. Yet I feel that something is missing. What didn’t we get? What didn’t we hear that would cause humanity to be so torn? It just seams like we should be a little more grown up than we are acting collectively. What is it that we need to hear to make it all click, so we can live in harmony with all our beautiful diversities. Mother Teresa said “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
I feel small against the huge tension building and yet I know the only thing I can do is live peace, in my life, in my own way. I can only take responsibility for myself. What others do is not a responsibility that I or anyone can take on. Then it hits me, the reason why I feel so neutral. All that I have learned and believed in was not to allow myself to be drawn into drama. Let's face it. We all [Many] have all had our share of intense life challenges. Through it all we learned not to go there again. We [Some] became more neutral – desire-less. Wasn’t that the goal? [I am pleased to have remained a person who feels things.] Maybe this is why I feel so OK in spite of current events. We [Some] learned that adding to the drama only causes more pain. We learned that the only [one] thing that seems to make sense is to walk straight into harmony and happiness. With these little steps I know we place a vote for Heaven on Earth on a planet that seams more closely related to Hell. But is it? [Maybe Lucifer has been quarantined here.]
The world is what we make it. Right now ... the sun is shining brightly. I am safe and warm and I can feel the Creator loving me and supporting me in the way I chose to be supported. I have a good life. A nice little home. A great husband and a new puppy named Chico who projects the most intense innocence and utter playfulness. I am reminded of times when I have been most grateful and these were quickly followed by major amount of magic. And you know, I kind of like that magic stuff! I think we would all like a dose of magic.
So this is my Equinox intent, to hold to peace in my life. I intend to love where I can, play where I can. I intend to foster the most rarest quality humanity has right now, that is innocence and lightness of heart. It might feel like a small step in the right direction for me, but if you all join me on this road, we could cook up a strong wave of peaceful intent. All we got to do is erase all the drama from our life and it won’t cost billions of dollar to do it. PEACE IS FREE. On another hand, can we afford the opposite?
It's not about having peace talks or debates; it isn’t about going to the Pope, the President, the Prime Minister or Hussein. The [An] answer is simple: Just live in peace every day and do not give the drama and those addicted to it any more of our energy. Every time we allow ourselves to think about these ones we open a door inside ourselves and add energy to the very thing we want to avoid. So let us joins hands, and go outside and play with the dog or cat. Let us plant flowers in the garden and toss the duct tap and garbage bags where they belong … in the garbage. Let us get out the tie dye T’s, and have a nice day signs.
Do any thing that reminds you that you LIVE PEACE every day no matter what. And remember this direction is more powerful that you think!
It has come down to this: The universe is giving us a perfect opportunity to live our truth and to do what is right. We are being given an intense time to take truth and right living out for a test drive. Can we live in peace no matter what others think, feel or do? Can we keep on keeping on in spire of what seems to be a crazy world? No matter how small our actions seem to be, against what appears to be a growing monster, the beast will fade away if we find some thing better to do. I know this is true with all my heart. Anyway I got better things to do, don’t you? I just don’t have time for this war.
ARKANGELQ13 from JeannieJ1: [Excerpt from] A Message From Archangel Michael Channeled and Written Through Carolyn Ann O’Riley
The Music of Thanksgiving Glorious Greetings My Beautiful Beings of Light. The Creator is sending you Love and all that is of Beauty for you to behold in your moment of reading. Reach back into your memory and pull forth that feeling that reminds you of what The Creator’s Love actually feels like. Your Guardian Angels and Guides are around you now as your read this message mirroring their love and support for you on your spiritual path. Feel their presence and their inner whisper, “We love you and are here to help you. Invite us so that we may assist you.” The moments are moving so rapidly now do you not feel the exhilaration that at times may almost seem to make you feel like you are spinning in space trying to find a spot to focus on for just a moment. Some are feeling this and trying to determine or define its purpose. Some are feeling this and are confused because they’ve not learned to find their balance to equalize their inner world. They’ve no way of verbalizing or analyzing it because they’ve not worked enough within to search out this solos when confusion comes calling. This confusion may manifest as frustration or anger on the part of the confused one. Be kind and loving when you see this. Send this Beautiful Being of Light a cloud of Pink Love Energy to surround him/her so that they may feel the love and balance their essence in a peace filled way.
The moments will speed up more and more as the energies come forth that are asking you to look at all that is no longer for your highest good. These energies are bringing up all that perhaps you had thought that you had already cleared. This is only a reminder that your clearing perhaps was only on one level. Many clearing areas are multi-dimensional or even from a past life incarnation. Or something about what is coming up again had more sides to view and thus was not fully viewed the first time when clearing. Ask your Angels and Guides to assist you in determining what still is in need of clearing and go within to help yourself clear up that hanging item. Each time you release something you allow more room to be filled in with your Divine Life Mission, Higher Purpose, Peace, Higher Energies and Frequencies of Love, Light and Truth. The clearer you are the more directed and focused you can be on your Divine Life’s Work. Your moments here are not about Monday through Friday 8:00am to 5:00pm jobs My Beloveds. Your moments on this Earth Plane at these specific moments are about clearing the Mass Consciousness of all that no longer serves so that more and more of The Creator’s Light can come flooding in.
