The Ultimate Commencement Address

THE ULTIMATE COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS













Paul Hawken at University of Portland / 2009

On May 3rd, 2009 Paul Hawken delivered the ultimate and timeless commencement address in that he stressed the true values of human behavior ~ Truth, Beauty, Justice, Faith and Love and then wrapped them all in the last great humanitarian value of Service: Allen L Roland

I have always felt that the last two steps of ego death are celebration and then service. But celebration and service from a place of truth, beauty, justice, faith and love.

Paul Hawken stressed these same values in his historic commencement address at the University of Portland in May, 2009.
" You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it "

Paul Hawken is a longtime friend of CharityFocus, renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, founder of Wiser Earth and author of many books -- most recently Blessed Unrest.

This is the commencement address that every graduate in the United States , if not the world, should read and absorb for it rings of truth and authenticity. It calls us to the great humanitarian values of human behavior ~ Truth, Beauty, Justice, Love and Faith and wraps them all in the last value, Service.

Dr Paul Brandwein, the renowned educator, wrote of this same need for individual courage and moral values. For years, he sought to put " the soul " back into the educational system by a return to the basic values of human behavior ~
" It is a child's ultimate values of truth, beauty, justice, love and faith, which, when fully developed in his understanding, make him not only a citizen, but civilized and human. To the extent man believes in truth, beauty, justice, love and faith ~ to this extent, do we say he is truly man."
( The Permanent Agenda Of Man / Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich / New York 1971 )

Hawken touches on these same themes in his memorable must read commencement address on May 3rd, 2009 ~ and to me, it was the ultimate and timeless commencement address . Here it is in its entirety.

University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

" When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there.But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation ~ but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food – but all that is changing.There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to de code it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.
The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, "So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world." There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection.

Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true.

Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. "One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice," is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown – Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood – and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not "out there" somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it.

We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe – exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a "little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven."

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a 20 deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it."

In other words, Hawken is saying that we cannot escape our destiny and it is divine. It is written within us ~ but it depends on each of us listening and responding to this deep inner humanitarian calling and then fulfilling our part in a loving plan ~ but always in sync with our ultimate teacher ~ Nature.

Allen L Roland
http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/ultimate-commencement-address.html

This weblog is sustained through donations from people like yourself. Please send check or Money Order to Allen L. Roland, PO Box 1221, Sonoma,CA 95476 Also accept Visa, MasterCard and Discover .

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

ONLY THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY

Robert Byrd / The Conscience Of The Senate Dies At 92

ROBERT BYRD / THE CONSCIENCE OF THE SENATE DIES AT 92












Robert Byrd, the conscience of the Senate, died yesterday at 92 years old but the moral consciousness of the Senate died many years ago with our illegal preemptive attack on Iraq. An attack which Senator Byrd rightfully and fervently spoke out against as a betrayal of our basic values and vision: Allen L Roland

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV),1917-2010, Congress' longest-serving member in history "best known for his ardent defense of both the U.S. Constitution and his love of Senate history," passed away yesterday morning at age 92. He was a two-term majority leader, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, "author of an award-winning four-volume history of the Senate," and president pro tem. Viewed as the "dean of the Senate," Byrd "funneled dozens of projects and millions of federal dollars to his home state" ~ where you'll find his name on countless bridges, highways, federal buildings and parks.

Byrd also penned five books and recorded a Blue Grass album entitled ‘Mountain Fiddler’ for which he won the Grand Ole Opry’s Distinguished Fiddler Award in 2008.

But above all, Robert Byrd was a patriot, in the true sense of that word, and he is still famously known as one of the only voices in the Senate chamber to speak out against the Iraq war. Here's the video of the second half of his speech on the Senate floor on March 19, 2003 at 3:45pm.
and his powerful words, which were aimed toward our illegal preemptive attack on Iraq, are still relevant today, over seven years later.

His theme was the arrogance of power, as President Obama escalates our illegal occupation of Afghanistan ~ and the Senate debates further funding of this costly nightmare. Not to mention our Congress approved preemptive (war time) sanctions against Iran.

I can see him now with his white mane and stentorian voice echoing through the chamber ~ " A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq.
What is happening to this country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy?
Why can this President not seem to see that America's true power lies not in its will to intimidate, but in its ability to inspire? "
5 Minute Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzlLU9Uxvdc&feature=related

As the Washington Post's Greg Sargent observed, "Byrd's stand against the Iraq invasion is not just a testament to his own courage. It's also a testament to the cowardice of other members of his party at an absolutely critical moment ~ an epic cave that may have altered the course of history and should never be forgotten."

Senator Byrd would want you to see this video for it fully captures his courtly demeanor, his sense of decency, his commitment to the constitution and his sincere dismay over the loss of our image as a strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper in the world.

We will miss his needed reminders of where we came from and our lost innocence and moral purpose. Byrd would be the first to say ~ The occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan will end when the people demand it, not one day sooner.

Allen L Roland
http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/robert-byrd-conscience-of-senate-dies.html

This weblog is sustained through donations from people like yourself. Please send check or Money Order to Allen L. Roland, PO Box 1221, Sonoma,CA 95476 Also accept Visa, MasterCard and Discover .
Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

ONLY THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY

Power And Privilege Versus Truth And Justice

POWER AND PRIVILEGE VERSUS TRUTH AND JUSTICE

The dilemma of today's world is that the pursuit of power and privilege is usually at the expense of truth and justice and therein lies the achilles heal of the power elite and the myths they perpetuate: Allen L Roland

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 54% of Americans lack confidence in the U.S. banking system ~ and rightfully so ! Unfortunately, we have an out of control credit-based financial system whereas power and privilege have prevailed and most certainly at the expense of truth and justice. As to the current SEC indictment, it will most likely result in a whitewash of Goldman and its executives or, at the most, a financial slap on the wrist ~ and, interestingly enough, Goldman hired former Obama White house legal counsel, Gregory Craig, to represent or more likely lobby on behalf of Goldman. Do remember, that Goldman was one of the two top contributors towards Obama's presidential campaign.

Nouriel Roubini correctly notes the true financial crisis in a recent essay:
" This is a crisis of solvency, not just liquidity, but true deleveraging has not begun yet because the losses of financial institutions have been socialised and put on government balance sheets. This limits the ability of banks to lend, households to spend and companies to invest...
The releveraging of the public sector through its build-up of large fiscal deficits risks crowding out a recovery in private sector spending."

Thus, we have the current failure of the Obama administration attempts to re-inflate the same credit bubble that burst two years ago through the Fed's artificially low mismatched interest rates and bank bailouts ~ which were meant to spill down to increased consumer credit and debt.

But the real problem is Wall Street's addiction to a credit based economy at the expense of the stark reality of a deepening depression and debt ridden Main Street. As StatsGuy points out last Monday on The Baseline Scenario ~ " To the uneducated masses, replacing savings with credit may sound a bit frightening, but economists can demonstrate – mathematically – that this credit-based money system is far more efficient than injecting money through the crude process of “printing” and government spending. That’s because endogenous money creation is decentralized – anyone with an opportunity and willingness to take risks (and collateral) can (theoretically) get credit to fund an investment. This, presumably, is why Larry Summers is so infatuated with the credit system, and why Obama argues that credit – not money – is the lifeblood of a modern economy."

We are presently stuck with an over extended credit based system and most certainly a mountain of dangerous unfunded obligations. StatsGuy points out the obvious regarding the need for regulation under the current precarious circumstances and the myth of stability ~ " any talk of financial reform rings hollow unless it’s accompanied by serious proposals to fix the discount rate mismatch problem and deal with unfunded obligations ...
" But maybe – if we’re lucky – we’ll get a modern day Pecora who will haul Goldman's Lloyd Blankfein to the witness stand, and taunt him till he breaks. Imagine, for a moment, Mr. Blankfein losing his cool while ranting in Jack Nicholson’s voice . . .

“You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth. Son, we live in a country with an investment gap. And that gap needs to be filled by men with money. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Middle Class Consumer? Goldman Sachs has a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Lehman and you curse derivatives. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know: that Lehman’s death, while tragic, probably saved the financial system. And that Goldman’s existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves pension funds. You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want us to fill that investment gap. You need us to fill that gap."

“We use words like credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligation, and securitization… We use these words as the backbone of a life spent investing in something. You use ‘em as a punchline. We have neither the time nor the inclination to explain ourselves to a commoner who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very credit we provide, and then questions the manner in which we provide it! We’d rather you just said thank you and paid your taxes on time. Otherwise, we suggest you get an account and start trading. Either way, we don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!” http://baselinescenario.com/2010/04/19/discount-rate-mismatch/?


So there it is ~ you heard it ~ the voice of the power elite wielding its power and privilege and advertising it as the backbone of our morally decayed financial industry. Paul Krugman correctly states that much of our financial industry is a racket ~ " a game in which a handful of people are lavishly paid to mislead an exploit consumers and investors. And if we don't lower the boom on these practices ~ the racket will just go on."

And when it comes to privilege, according to Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times, “more than 125 former Congressional aides and lawmakers are now working for financial firms as part of a multibillion-dollar effort to shape, and often scale back, federal regulatory power.”

For example, Federal records show that "Financial services companies increased their spending to influence Congress during the first three months of the year, while also hiring well-connected lobbyists to press their case on new Wall Street regulations." Goldman Sachs spent $1.2 million in 2010's first quarter, 72 percent more than last year, while Citigroup spent $1.4 million, a 13.5 percent increase.

Here's Gerald Celente's five minute scathing analysis on what's really happening with Goldman, Obama and Wall Street reform.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6_iR5C_BzU&feature=player_embedded


It's been three years since the over-inflated housing market began its crash and it's been a year and half since the Wall Street meltdown. We can no longer afford this ongoing pursuit of power and privilege at the expense of truth and justice !

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and others in Congress are boldly urging the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation of Goldman and others who may have broken the law as they devastated our economy.
Now is the moment to make clear: Nobody on Wall Street is "too big for jail."

Can you sign this petition supporting members of Congress who are calling for a CRIMINAL investigation of Wall Street? Click here.

http://act.boldprogressives.org/cms/sign/petition_wallstreet_criminal_pet?akid=843.140349.dqIFqW&rd=1&source=e1-late-prog-restact&t=2


Allen L Roland
http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/power-and-privilege-versus-truth-and.html

This weblog is sustained through donations from people like yourself. Please send check or Money Order to Allen L. Roland, PO Box 1221, Sonoma,CA 95476 Also accept Visa, MasterCard and Discover ~ call (707) 935-1908.

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is also available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

ONLY THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY

Iraq Rules Of Engagement / Fire At Will

IRAQ RULES OF ENGAGEMENT / FIRE AT WILL

This frame grab taken from a video shot from a US army Apache helicopter gun-sight, posted at Wikileaks.org, shows a group of men in the streets of the New Baghdad district of eastern Baghdad just prior to being fired upon by the helicopter July 12, 2007. Among those killed in the attack were two Iraqi journalists working for Reuters ~ Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and his driver Saeed Chimagh. Two children were wounded. Video Clip ~ http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/04/06/iraq.journalists.killed/?hpt=T2

Many Iraq War veterans tell of civilian atrocities which were seemingly justified by constantly changing Rules Of Engagement ( ROE's ) which eventually justified indiscriminate murder: Allen L Roland

It was Albert Einstein who said this about war ~ " how violently I hate all this, how despicable an ignorable war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

President Obama has just widened the rules of engagement regarding murder to include Americans who are considered a threat. Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, told a House Intelligence Committee hearing in February that the CIA can assassinate Americans abroad suspected of being involved in terrorism ~ "Those are the factors involved," Blair said. "We don't target people for free speech. We target them for taking action that threatens Americans or has resulted in it."

What happens, if it most likely has already happened, when a US citizen here in America is targeted by the CIA, with the President's permission, to be taken out for taking some action that the CIA determines is threatening ?

With this top down mentality ~ is it a surprise that an Iraq veteran recently said "We Were Told to Just Shoot People, and the Officers Would Take Care of Us"

Dahr Jamail reports Wednesday ( Truthout ) on the Rules of Engagement ( ROE ) in Iraq which eventually became mass murder ~ Hurd said the situation deteriorated rapidly while he was in Iraq. "Over time, as the absurdity of war set in, individuals from my unit indiscriminately opened fire at vehicles driving down the wrong side of the road. People in my unit would later brag about it. I remember thinking how appalled I was that we were laughing at this, but that was the reality.... Other soldiers Truthout has interviewed have often laughed when asked about their ROE in Iraq.... Jason Wayne Lemue is a Marine who served three tours in Iraq ~ "My commander told me, 'Kill those who need to be killed, and save those who need to be saved'; that was our mission on our first tour," he said of his first deployment during the invasion."After that the ROE changed, and carrying a shovel, or standing on a rooftop talking on a cell phone, or being out after curfew [meant those people] were to be killed. I can't tell you how many people died because of this. By my third tour, we were told to just shoot people, and the officers would take care of us."
http://www.truthout.org/iraq-war-vet-we-were-told-just-shoot-people-and-officers-would-take-care-us58378

And now, this ~ The head of the Afghan Ministry of Interior investigation said publicly for the first time his investigators had accepted the testimony of family members of the victims of the Feb. 12 night raid by U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) that the U.S. troops had dug bullets out of the bodies of their civilian victims in an apparent effort to cover up the killings and that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal had agreed with the team's conclusions.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25157.htm

Is it any wonder that over 40% of the Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have PTSD ~ which I maintain and have proved is Post Traumatic Heart Dysfunction. When we kill or murder indiscriminately we kill or main our own soul and our innate loving connection to all living beings ~ which makes it almost impossible to give or accept love.

This is just more proof that our ongoing illegal and needless occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are emotionally crippling our military and driving us into both financial and moral bankruptcy.

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/iraq-rules-of-engagement-fire-at-will.html

This weblog is sustained through donations from people like yourself. Please send check or Money Order to Allen L. Roland, PO Box 1221, Sonoma,CA 95476 Also accept Visa, MasterCard and Discover ~ call (707) 935-1908.

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is also available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations (allen@allenroland.com )

ONLY THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY

On Being A Rebel

ON BEING A REBEL

I've always been a rebel in that I impeccably trust myself and my truth. Even when things look politically grim, my heart is open and I share my truth from a place of inner validation while articulating my constitutional right to dissent ~ regardless of the consequences: Allen L Roland

Chris Hedges wrote a timely and most interesting article on March 8th on Truthdig entitled, Calling All Rebels where he concluded " Those who do not rebel in our age of totalitarian capitalism and who convince themselves that there is no alternative to collaboration are complicit in their own enslavement. They commit spiritual and moral suicide."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/08-2

Hedges uses the French moral philosopher Albert Camus to justify his point that we need rebels to halt America's slide into totalitarian capitalism. Camus wrote ~ " But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object."

I would argue that other kind of human nature is a strong moral force which can never be extinguished ~ particularly among the oppressed and impoverished of the world. Vaclav Havel referred to this moral force when he fought against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia ~ " The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public. He offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin ~ and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost."

The ongoing illegal and brutal military occupations of both Iraq and Afghanistan are inflicting serious financial, political and moral damage to America and they demand a moral response.

Never underestimate the moral power of love, mutual cooperation and altruism for it is also the driving force of nature, evolution and a Unified Field. We all have a part to play in this constantly evolving loving plan ~ and I most certainly am playing mine through my work and writings.

It is William James who eloquently speaks to the power of moral forces ~ " I am done with great things and big things and great institutions and big successes, and I am for those tiny invisible moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping though the crannies of the world like so many rootlets or like the capillary oozing water, yet which, if you give them time , will bend the hardest monuments of human pride."

We can all be part of a powerful moral force, as Martin Luther King Jr most certainly was, that will eventually dismantle the Corpocracy and restore our crumbling Republic.
Forty three years ago, our ultimate rebel, King preached in Riverside Church in New York City that “a time comes when silence is betrayal.” He went on to condemn the Vietnam War and the system which created it as well as other apparent injustices ~ which still remain today “ We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing oriented” society to a “person oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

As such, we must now all become rebels or dissidents in demanding the leaders, the government and the moral values we deserve.

Allen L Roland
http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com

This weblog is sustained through donations from people like yourself. Please send check or Money Order to Allen L. Roland, PO Box 1221, Sonoma,CA 95476 Also accept Visa, MasterCard and Discover ~ call (707) 935-1908.

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is also available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

ONLY THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY