Removing Impact Blinders Archives - Page 19 of 26

The Curious Case of Bowe Bergdahl

June 6, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

America loves its POWs, right?

Well, maybe. Depends.

Here we have the curious case of Bowe Bergdahl.

From June 30, 2009, when Bowe, an American soldier, was captured by the Taliban, until May 31, 2014, when he was released, Bergdahl was a prisoner of war.

Those facts are not in dispute.

What is in dispute are the facts surrounding his capture.

But we have yet to actually hear a single word from Bowe himself.

Even so, the far right is completely ready to have him tried for treason…in the media.

The target of their ire is not so much Bergdahl, but Obama. Who released five members of the Taliban held at Gitmo in exchange for Bergdahl’s release.

Obama is the real traitor here…our sitting and twice elected President is the one that is treasonous. Really?

For starters, Bergdahl was NOT a terrorist hostage…he was a POW.

There is a difference. Just like there’s a difference between Fox News reporters who maintain their faculties of reason and those who don’t…as the video below demonstrates.

I am bothered by all this. Deeply bothered. Why?

Because the level of vehemence that the far right is displaying smacks of the deepest levels of hypocrisy. And it’s all done under the guise of “loving one’s country.”

It’s a bit sickening, really.

They have even gone so far as to attack Bergdahl’s father for growing a beard in solidarity for the release of his son.

Since when do the far right, whose support for the U.S. military is always unwavering, become so up in arms about the release of a POW?

When the President that is securing the release is Barack Obama, that’s when.

Can they not at least take a deep breath and give Bergdahl himself a chance to explain the facts surrounding his capture?

Oh no, there’s the possibility of an Obama scandal in the air, and that scent drives the far right into an irrational feeding frenzy.

And there’s certainly no bigger nor hungrier mouth to feed than that of Fox News.

You know, I talk a lot here about things like the Big US and removing impact blinders. One of the ways to do that is to avoid rushes to judgment.

People do things for reasons that seem right to them at the time. In hindsight, sometimes those reasons are exposed as faulty. But it always pays to try to see things from their perspective at the time.

Bergdahl may indeed have become disillusioned about the war and the treatment of the Afghan people by U.S. soldiers. I would venture to say that there is a large percentage of the entire U.S. population that harbors similar sentiments.

Does that make them all un-American?

Does that make Bowe Bergdahl less than a U.S. soldier who was captured by the enemy and treated pretty badly…to the point of his health being in serious jeopardy?

Does that mean that in the future if there are more wars…something I would certainly hope against…and more POWs, that we better examine the facts of each case of captivity before taking action to secure release?

Does that mean that if there are allegations of desertion, we should just leave the POW exactly where he or she is?

I believe the far right needs to step back and examine exactly where all this foment over the curious case of Bowe Bergdahl leads.

Because it might just lead to a very un-American result.

If Bergdahl is really a deserter as Fox News has unequivocally declared, he should be tried and convicted of the same.

I doubt very seriously that’s actually the case at all.

In the meantime, those of you on the far right who want to try and convict him in the media, why don’t you all just shut the fuck up.

You’re behaviour is very un-American.

image credit: Steve Corey via Compfight cc

I Am Here

June 3, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

Where do I belong?

There are many out there who claim to have that answer…

I only wish, at times, that I could be one of them.

You see, I’ve never really felt like I belonged…

anywhere.

Not on the lonely island where I grew up…

to learn what hate looked like…

and to be fearful in life.

Not with women, nor men.

Not with people in general.

Not even with family.

Not even in my own country.

Nor, where I find myself now.

A lonely and isolated expat whose romantic notions are routinely dispelled.

I just don’t seem to belong…

anywhere.

And you know what?

That’s OK.

I’m reading Still Writing by Dani Shapiro…

It seems she suffers, or has suffered, similar feelings.

Here’s what she says about them…

My inner life was barbed, with jagged edges. Left untended, it felt dangerous, like it might turn on me at any moment. Intuitively, I understood that I had to use it. It was all I had. By writing, I was participating in a tradition as old as humanity. I was here. Hieroglyphs on rock. I was here, and this is my story.

I don’t seem capable of accepting another’s conception of where it is that I belong.

Maybe, I’m just rebellious that way.

Or, selfish?

I don’t know…except that yes, I’m full of deadly faults.

I prefer to discover truth for myself, rather than be told what it is by sources I don’t altogether trust.

And truth is rarely discovered in comfortable places.

An advantage of being where I am, a perpetual state of un-belonging, is that I get to see things as an outsider…

someone on the outside looking in.

I believe that is what led me to blogging and ultimately to this blog, Revolutionary Misfit.

The name itself sort of sums up where I am and who I am.

A misfit searching for a revolution and revelation…of truth.

And did I mention that truth is rarely discovered in comfortable places…

some things bear repeating.

So I’ll keep searching and presenting my discoveries here.

As Shapiro alludes, the primary raw material I have to work with is me…

I am the canvass upon which this picture will ultimately reveal itself…

So, the answer to the question of where do I belong…

is that I belong exactly where I am…

And I am here.

Hieroglyphs on rock.

image credit: ЕленАндреа via Compfight cc

Label This!

June 2, 2014 by costaricaguy 2 Comments

I remember when those old-fashioned label makers first came out. I must have been in middle-school. Yea I am that old (but unlike some, I don’t try to hide it).

I mean they were kinda like the Ipod of that era…a typewriter you could hold in your hand.

And you could stick the output onto anything.

That made me want to label pretty much everything…and I drove my mom crazy doing so.

And so it goes with our society.

I believe the tendency to label actually pre-existed the label maker.

As much as I loved that clunky plastic label maker, I have “grown up” to despise labels…at least the kind people try to stick on me.

Isn’t labeling a major driving factor in the division we experience as a society?

Consider the following common labels and corresponding reactions that each label engenders…

If you are conservative (because somebody labeled you that way), then you will want to label everyone else, as well as every idea, as follows…

Conservative – Love ’em
Liberal – Hate ’em
Moderately Nuts – Ignore ’em
Completely Nuts – Lock ’em up

Conversely, if you are liberally labeled, it would be more along the following lines…

Conservative – Hate ’em
Liberal – Love ’em
Moderately Nuts – Ignore ’em
Completely Nuts – Recruit ’em

I am being slightly facetious with the above.

The truth is that labeling is an insidious impact blinder.

Why?

Because it is according to the label that we judge, rather than the substance.

For instance do you tend to vote a straight party ticket come election time?

Do you really know what each candidate’s position is on the issues that matter? Or, do you just assume you know because of the label?

Of course, if they have been labeled their positions do tend to march in lockstep with what is deemed consistent with the label…

Can’t you see a problem with all this? Take a look at the comments on political blogs. They’re all label ready.

The conservative commenters deem the liberal ones unfit for above ground existence and the liberal ones reciprocate with the same lack of respect.

Every once in a while a moderately nuts or completely nuts commenter will chime in and then both sides tend to jump on that poor sucker to remind him that his opinions really aren’t welcome in this, or any, forum.

I know that last one from experience.

It doesn’t matter if a “liberal” idea is a good one, or vice versa for a conservative idea…those bearing the opposite label just aren’t going to give it one iota of merit.

In that environment of idea hostility it becomes downright difficult to get anything done…as we experience routinely in the nation’s capitol.

So, I say toss the label makers.

They’re outdated in this day and age.

What we need are just good ideas.

A really good idea is good for everyone…not just the conservatives, or the liberals.

Is it even remotely possibly for us to see things that way?

I suggest that if we remove the impact blinder of our tendency to label, it just might be possible.

You can label this post completely nuts…

I don’t mind.

image credit: Kim Tracy Prince via Compfight cc

Superficiality

May 29, 2014 by costaricaguy 1 Comment

It often dawns upon me that there are two separate worlds.

One is the real world where real things exits, where life truly happens…

and then there is this superficial one, largely made up of status signs and symbols.

I ran across a Brain Pickings post today about a book by Alan Watts entitled, Does it Matter – Essays on Man’s Relation to Materiality.

No, I haven’t read the book, yet. But I certainly will…

Watts was a English born philosophising sort who was a 60’s guru on Eastern thought, like Zen Buddhism.

Don’t know much about him…I did read this morning that he experimented with LSD…

Don’t fault him for that, as I did too, although by the time I got around to it, Owsley has already exited the scene and the quality of the experience along with him.

Anyway, what particularly struck me from the post was this quote from Watts’ book…

All too easily, we confuse the world as we symbolize it with the world as it is.

Watts then goes on to write…

Money is a way of measuring wealth but is not wealth in itself. A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft. He needs real wealth, in the form of a fishing rod, a compass, an outboard motor with gas, and a female companion. But this ingrained and archaic confusion of money with wealth is now the main reason we are not going ahead full tilt with the development of our technological genius for the production of more than adequate food, clothing, housing, and utilities for every person on earth.

and finally…

It is an oversimplification to say that this is the result of business valuing profit rather than product, for no one should be expected to do business without the incentive of profit. The actual trouble is that profit is identified entirely with money, as distinct from the real profit of living with dignity and elegance in beautiful surroundings…

To try to correct this irresponsibility by passing laws (e.g., against absentee ownership) would be wide of the point, for most of the law has as little relation to life as money to wealth. On the contrary, problems of this kind are aggravated rather than solved by the paperwork of politics and law. What is necessary is at once simpler and more difficult: only that financiers, bankers, and stockholders must turn themselves into real people and ask themselves exactly what they want out of life — in the realization that this strictly practical and hard–nosed question might lead to far more delightful styles of living than those they now pursue. Quite simply and literally, they must come to their senses — for their own personal profit and pleasure.

I really like Watts’ admonition that financiers, bankers and stockholders turn themselves into real people.

The status symbols that we strive to erect to prove that we are alive, or worthy of life, aren’t real.

For example, it wasn’t “real” for the Wolf of Wall Street (Jordan Belfort) to own a 170 foot yacht…which he sunk off the coast of Sardinia in a frantic attempt to salvage his money.

True that it makes for an interesting story, in as much as we adore superficial stories…

but it ain’t real.

That’s not the real world that the majority of the human population faces on a day to day basis.

And I believe that’s what Watts is getting at.

This contrived world of status signs and symbols, primarily represented by money and the superficial things we use it for, infringes on the real one to the extent that the real one is threatened.

This quest for superficiality makes life hard on everyone…even those caught up in it.

Which is why Watts also states…

The moral challenge and the grim problem we face is that the life of affluence and pleasure requires exact discipline and high imagination.

Belfort had neither and his life of course suffered for it.

Using Belfort as an example is of course dramatic hyperbole…

but not really.

There are many caught up in this alternative world of superficiality in far less dramatic ways than Belfort.

They work hard, yes, that’s a given…

but for what?

To have way more than they really need?

And do they not stop to consider that we live in a world of finite resources and for them to have more than they could ever possibly need means that someone else has less than they truly need?

Well it actually does.

And just look at the human and environmental poverty that exists in this world as living proof.

Now that’s the real world.

And it’s one that could be dramatically improved IF and only if…

those in the superficial one…

get real.

image credit: wolfofwallst via Compfight cc

Letting Go – Redux

May 1, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

Here’s a post from the past that might be relevant to something going on in your life (or mine).

Letting go…

I have the hardest time doing that.

I would rather ride my problems into submission like a bronco-buster on the back of a wild mustang.

Sometimes that approach can leave you with a few broken bones, or an extremely bruised ego.

Hanging on for dear life is the surest way to assure that the suffering will last just a little longer than it really needs to.

So why not just let go?

The future might just be a brighter place if you do. Oh sure, there will be more, but different, problems to come.

That’s just the ebb and flow of life…

one day you’re up, the next day you’re down…

sounds a bit manic, but it is what it is.

Life is anything but permanent…

so get used to it!

Of course letting go can be a scary thing.

What will happen to me if I do?

Where will the shifting winds of life blow me?

Will I like it there?

Well, do you like it here?

Then why not give it a try?

I guess life becomes a cyclical series of attempts to hang on to the good and let go of the bad.

Problem comes when we can’t seem to distinguish one from the other (good from bad, that is).

That’s been my case at many points throughout my five decades of earthbound existence.

Often trying valiantly to convince myself that what was bad and unhealthy, was good and worth hanging onto.

Better to make the decision to just let go…

Para bien o para mal, se terminó, as Arjona sings.

Letting go allows the cycle of life to continue its proper course.

When we try to upset that course by hanging on too long, guess what happens…

depression.

Extend that a bit longer…

disillusion.

And just a bit longer…

insane asylum.

And I really don’t want to go to any of those places.

Oh for sure, there will be that lingering doubt that keeps nagging.

Are you sure?

Or, that sentimental hogwash that keeps reminding us of all the “good” times.

But the reality of the situation is that those times are history (as in, NO MORE) and living in the past does not generally make for a compelling future.

Letting go can be refreshing if we can just adopt a bit of an adventurous spirit.

What lies around the corner might just be pretty nice. Maybe ever better than what you’re so desperately holding onto.

Imagine that!

Could the universe be preparing something really good for you and it was just waiting for you to take the bold step forward into the dark void of the unknown?

Here’s my advice: Go ahead, take it and don’t look back.

Looking for some great advice on actually doing that?

Leo Babauta, one of my all-time favorite righteous bloggers, out of his abundant generosity, today (his birthday by the way) offered up this free little eBook, about…

wouldn’t you know it…

Letting Go

But don’t just read it…

do it.

Be The Change

April 23, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

The Revolutionary Misfit site and the mindset of Impact Mindfulness is about recognizing the need for and implementing change.

Change in ourselves and in the world at large.

But there are serious barriers to the change we seek.

And those barriers have a lot to do with entrenched ways of thinking about the world and the U.S. role in it.

I am a frequent critic of Fox News.

That’s no secret as I have been vocal about it in my older blog, Costa Rica Guy.

I believe Fox News is one of the staunchest defenders of the status quo stream of thought …

a barrier to change…

and therefore a threat to humanity.

Wow…I realize those are some pretty strong words…

but nevertheless, I believe words that need to be spoken (or written).

I recently ran across a video from a few years back in which Bill O’Reilly was interviewing a young man who had lost his father in the 9-11 tragedy.

His name was Jeremy and O’Reilly had him on the show for the sole reason of attacking him for signing a petition against the war in Iraq.

Jeremy made the “outrageous” claim that perhaps the U.S. had been partly responsible for creating an environment in the middle east that would give rise to a group like Al-Qaeda.

And that invading Iraq would only exacerbate the situation.

O’Reilly, who is known for his sometimes violent on-air meltdowns directed at guests who dare to disagree with his world-view, had one of his worse (and scariest) moments.

O’Reilly claimed that Jeremy had a “warped view” of this world and of the U.S.

And that Jeremy’s father would certainly be ashamed…

even though O’Reilly didn’t have a clue about the geo-political views of Jeremy’s deceased dad.

Now, I’m pretty sure that O’Reilly has heard of a fellow named Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.

Kermit was the grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt. He was also a CIA agent who orchestrated a coup d’etat in Iran that overthrew the democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddegh (who nationalized the oil industry) and replaced him with the U.S. (and British) choice of Mohammad Rezâ Šâh Pahlavi, aka, the Shah of Iran.

And if you’re as old as I am, you’ll remember that this action didn’t sit too well with Iranian citizens, who ultimately deposed the Shah himself in a revolution that culminated in the taking of 52 American hostages for 444 days.

Now, I don’t think Jeremy was specifically referring to those incidences when he drew out O’Reilly’s rage…

but they are historic facts.

The U.S. has done things in the middle east that have pissed people off. It’s not that they “hate our way of life” as many on the right like to say…

It’s that we have screwed around in their affairs, usually for oil-related reasons, in ways that have made life difficult for some people…

generally the poorest some people (who also happen to be the majority).

In much the same way that the U.S. screwed around in the affairs of almost every single country in Latin American!

Yea, they’re pissed too. I know. I frequently hear about it from my neighbors.

But if you dare mention any of this on the O’Reilly show, you’ll be violently dismissed as a left-wing nut job…

and probably have your mic cut.

Why is that?

OK, here’s my point…

Change will only come when we can discard O’Reilly’s gospel of the status quo…

the one that suggests that “America” is somehow singularly (well, perhaps along with Great Britain and Israel) endowed with some absurd notion of manifest destiny to rule the world with it’s brand of capitalistic-fueled consumption.

It’s a view imbued or infused with religious notions.

And O’Reilly is as intolerant with this quasi-religious notion of “the way things are” as is Al-Qaeda with it’s radical Islamic views.

Intolerance breeds intolerance.

Maybe O’Reilly would have done well to shut up himself and listened, really listened, to what Jeremy was trying to say?

American-style capitalism and consumption is NOT a right bestowed by god.

I’m afraid nothing is going to change until the majority can get that notion out of their collective (and extremely hard) heads.

Not holding out much hope for O’Reilly, however.

But for you…

yes I am.

To be the change starts with that muscle upstairs!

It’s not un-American to embrace truth…

and change.

Listen, it’s NOT the intent of this blog to convince anyone that “America” is bad…

However, it is the intent of this blog to encourage people to open their minds about how it’s possibly true that certain American notions of the way things are…

really aren’t at all.

In impact mindfulness parlance, we call that removing impact blinders.

And unless and until the majority of folks in the biggest and richest country in the world can do just that…

the change this blog seeks just ain’t gonna happen.

image credit: khoory123 via Compfight cc

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