The Saddest of Déjà Vus, All Over Again

Remember Libya? Yeah, it wasn't that long ago. But the war drums didn't stop beating in the Middle East.

And now the American president, Barack Obama, has unleashed the dogs of war -- on Syria. 

I am feeling so, so sad for Syria and its people. It's Iraq and Libya all over again (and reminding me of a song lyric: "Thank you for our freedom, could you leave now please?") 

But I'm also feeling outraged that Obama would so blatantly and unabashedly announce this new "war" a week before the huge climate change events in New York City. It's like a giant Eff U to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who called the September 23 Climate Summit, and anyone else who gives a damn about the climate crisis.

Obama never had any intention of doing anything about climate change. He was always a coal man, allowed to become president by his Big Money backers. 

So true to form, after stalling for a couple of years (during which some of us naively thought he was showing restraint for the right reasons), he picks now to announce a new war. 

If there was a shred of respect left in me for this man, it has shrivelled up in my province's drought and blown across the dried up agricultural lands of Syria.

Making Sense of the Senseless

I have been struggling this week, first with the whole "We have to invade another Middle Eastern country and bomb the hell out of its people in order to save them" schtick from the US. And then with the whole question of Al Qaeda and why they always seem to "pop up" whenever the US needs something, uh, done.

I don't know about you, but I don't really believe anything I read these days. I always "triangulate" and dig deep to get information from lots of different sources, including mainstream media as well as alternative/independent media. I then use my critical thinking skills, my memory, more research, and my healthy leaning toward conspiracy theory and suspicion to try to figure out what's really happening.

Most people either don't have or don't bother to take the time to do this kind of searching. But as I've admitted to you before (somewhere on this years-old blog), I sat idly by, ignoring what we did to Libya, and cried for weeks afterwards with the guilt and sadness. I can't sit idly by as Obama and whatever lackeys he can muster up (can you say John Kerry?) keep fabricating a need to invade a country THAT HAS DONE NOTHING TO THE UNITED STATES. Except sit on its own oil. (Reminds me of a bumper sticker: "How did our oil get under their sand?")

So, question 1:

Is it possible that Bush Jr's horrible ratings in August 2001 had anything to do with, well, you-know-what in September of that same year? You know, Al Qaeda to the rescue? (Bit of a jump in ratings, eh, in late September of 2011?)

Question 2: 

When the UN's Sergio Vieira de Mello was about to make a speech in Baghdad denouncing American imperialism in Iraq, BLAM! the UN compound was blown up and "Sergio" was killed. Al Qaeda took credit for the bomb blast. Any connection or just sheer coincidence?

Question 3: 

The US wants Syria taken down. (After all, it's in the RAND Corporation's Middle Eastern domino plan.) But people are kind of leery after Iraq and Libya. So suddenly the Assad "regime" is allegedly using chemical weapons against its own people. Except that lots of witnesses are saying that the chemical weapons were delivered by Al Qaeda to the American bought-and-paid-for rebels. Jihadists-on-the-spot, or what?

Anyway, I'm just trying to make sense of it all. If we can't get past these horrific pissing contests, dangerous war games and expensive military invasions, there's no hope of ever coming to a global solution to the global problem of climate disruption.

STOP PRESSES! I just read this quote in a friend's blog and it explains everything!

"If you break it, you own it." — Colin Powell, retired four-star general in the US Army

See? The US goes around breaking things, so it can own them! I totally get it now.

The Compassion Games Start Soon!

Those of you who enjoy TED Talks will know that the TED Prize is the granting of a wish. A big wish! In 2008, Karen Armstrong, a religious scholar, won the TED Prize and her wish was to create a Charter for Compassion. 

She asked TED and its audiences to help her with "the creation, launch, and propagation of a Charter for Compassion — crafted by a group of inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and based on the fundamental principle of the Golden Rule." Here is Karen Armstrong's rationale:

[I]t is an arresting fact that right across the board, in every single one of the major world faiths, compassion — the ability to feel with the other ... — is not only the test of any true religiosity, it is also what will bring us into the presence of what Jews, Christians and Muslims call "God" or the "Divine." 

It is compassion, says the Buddha, which brings you to Nirvana. Why? Because in compassion, when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there. And once we get rid of ego, then we're ready to see the Divine. And, in particular, every single one of the major traditions has highlighted — has said, has put at the core of their tradition — what's become known as the Golden Rule. 

First propounded by Confucius five centuries before Christ, "Do not do unto others what you would not like them to do to you." That, he said, was the central thread that ran through all his teaching and that his disciples should put into practice all day and every day. And it was the Golden Rule would bring them to the transcendent value that he called rén, human-heartedness, which was a transcendent experience in itself.

You can affirm the Charter yourself on the website, taking "the first step in a global movement that can change the world. By listening, understanding and treating others as we wish to be treated ourselves, we can reset compassion as the cornerstone of a just economy and a peaceful world."

This blog has looked at compassionate climate action from many different perspectives and through many lenses. It has even worked hard (at times) to be compassionate towards those who seem hell-bent on destroying the biosphere, because, as Dr. Stan Goldberg explains in The Fear of Change, "most [of their rantings] are expressions of loss that are as significant to social conservatives as the losses are to the disabled or those coming to terms with the end of their life."

And what is being challenged is not just an isolated behavior or value, it's usually something integral to their identity; something that has given meaning to a lifetime of actions and beliefs. Social conservatives are not just being asked to "do the right thing" because it's moral. They are being asked to abandon belief systems that have served as the foundation for their personality....

So, today, as a compassion tune-up for myself and for any readers who want to have some compassionate fun, I'd like to tell you about the Compassion Games, a global "coopetition" where community members "compete with and not against each other to bring out their very best while striving to make their community more compassionate ... where genuine altruism becomes the norm." Their motto is "Survival of the Kindest" (which, in a sense, is ecologically correct).

The Compassion Games run from September 11 to 21 each year (the start date having special meaning in the United States). They're "designed to help heal and inspire, making our community a safer, kinder, more just and better place to live." 

IKT: Compassion Games
International Kindness Team

You can perform a Random Act of Kindness, or become a Secret Agent of Compassion and receive a secret mission for each of the eleven days. You can participate in Service Projects, report on your compassionate acts, and then celebrate with the rest of the online community. I think I'm going to encourage my students to get involved!

*******

With that, I would like to send out a prayer for peace and compassion in and towards the Middle East, especially Syria — with a heartfelt request that people not jump to accept any conclusions coming from those who stand to gain much from destabilizing yet another stable government in that fossil fuel-rich yet beleaguered part of the world.