Keeping Up The Front

The New Zealand Parliament has just enacted a new law that makes it a crime to use video footage taken within Parliament for the purpose of "satire, ridicule or denigration."
Under the promise of imprisonment- such acts are now outlawed.
Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen accused the media of trying to portray the restrictions as "some sort of fascist state where the heroic media of New Zealand are being denied the right to lampoon politicians."
But what other road are they on?
In order to portray themselves in the best light possible, they are sacrificing free speech for image. Only 6 members of the 121-seat parliament voted against the measure.
In March 2005, speaker Margaret Wilson banned cameras from TV3 for seven days after the network showed associate education minister David Benson-Pope asleep during a parliamentary session.
The people that make up government are not gods- they have been entrusted with immense power, the power to enact laws that effect everyone in society. The very fact that they have power means there should to be more oversight, not less.
The New Zealand Parliament have become completely identified with their image- how they are perceived by the people. But this careful crafting of media portrayal will be based on falsities, not actual events or real displays of emotion.
They are trying to hide behind the guise of professionalism, stature, and civility- but what is it they are working for? Why are they there?
They have forgotten their original pure motivations... if they ever existed.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10448159http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/16541

Salvia

Safe, protected, secure, assurance, risklessness, invulnerability…
these words have cloaked us in artificial meaning and false reality.
The powers of the world have tried to establish some semblance of order and control, mostly through laws establishing separating all actions into two main categories- legal and illegal.
Where we were once connected with tribes and leaders, healers and wise elders, we are now, for the most part, small nuclear units in a larger world, held together by national borders, language, government.
The universe is still wild, uncontrollable, and unpredictable. Stars are created and burst, earthquakes open the earth, humans continue to die despite modern technology.
There is so much out of our hands.
Instead of accepting this fact, embracing beauty in an existence of chaos and moving artfully with the flow of energy- we struggle, we crave safety. Our wise leaders have no place in this society- there are simply too many people, like sheep we move and exist- the government, like punitive, cautious parents, holding tight to their rigid ideologies and morals, makes the decisions.
They decide what is good and bad for us. Laws are crafted- determining what is legal and illegal, moral and immoral.
The US government has clear definitions of what is safe. Non-safe things, whether they are substances, food, plants, etc. are illegal, supposedly to protect us.
The government has declared marijuana, LSD, opium and many other plants/drugs dangerous. Dangerous for our bodies, minds, society, children…most of these substances have been known to alter-reality, to change the user, to offer a new experience or frame of mind.
Salvia. Also known as diviner's sage, "magic mint" or "Sally D", Salvia divinorum is a white-and-blue-flowered sage plant that grows in the Oaxaca mountains in Mexico.
It has been used for centuries by the Mazatec people in shamanistic rituals and in healing.
Salvia is legal in the US, but with the increasing popularity and out-of-body experience it can offer, the government will no doubt be banning it soon- these experiences are deemed dangerous.
And perhaps they are.
Shamanistic rituals have never had a safety seal. To truly live- to be alive, to awaken is uncomfortable, scary, and dangerous.
There is danger as the machine perceives a threat, there is danger while moving against the current.
Wise leaders do not necessarily discourage danger.
Within a ritual, there are elders, knowledgeable about the plant, the effects, etc. and they can offer guidance within a specific ritual and experience.
Most of us now are alone, without this essential element, and when experiences have gone beyond our own control, when they begin to be scary, we become terrified and desire safety. The saftey of routine, the risklessness of normal life.
Salvia is touted as a legal "high."
But these plants were not traditionally used as recreation, for a "high." They were sacred, and still are, to be used with respect and fear, with clear intention.
They are powerful, and thus, in the eyes of this government, this society based on fear and image- very dangerous.
When used, perhaps one will never be the same.
But that is the purpose.

Religion and Cult

Tom Cruise has "publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult", stated the German defence ministry, which is why filmmakers of Valkyrie have been banned from German military sites. The film is about Col. Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the German army officer who tried to assassinate Hitler with a suitcase bomb.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has considered Scientology to be a dangerous cult, conducting activities that are "directed against the free democratic order" in the country.
"Germany is a country of established churches, and so Scientology is viewed as a cult and, worse, totalitarian and exploitative. A professing Scientologist in the role of Stauffenberg is like casting Judas as Jesus. It is secular blasphemy," said Josef Joffe, a German journalist.
In a world where "church" and "cult" ride a razor’s edge of definition, restricting people based on ideology, religious practices, etc., may set a dangerous precedent. Who defines what is cult-like? Despite being relatively more established, what makes any of the churches in Germany different?
"In Europe, but in Germany especially, we are more sensitive to totalitarian ideologies," said Ursula Caberta, the head of a government task force in Hamburg that opposes Scientology’s expansion in Germany. "Tom Cruise is not just an actor who is a Scientologist," Ms. Caberta said. "He is an ambassador for Scientology. All totalitarian systems have their celebrities to open doors for them."
Banning Scientologists from Germany is their attempt to control, the keep a lid on a fragile human psyche, a delicate society. Recent history has shown just how easily humans can be manipulated, but once we begin to ban and outlaw people, religions, cults, etc, the "black list" only grows longer. Anything new, "other," strange, etc. will be targeted and labeled. All non-established, non-mainstream people and activities can be viewed as suspicious.
Church and cult are just two words- words given separate powers and meanings, depending on an individual viewpoint. We should look at both objectively- we are not completely safe or in immediate danger from either. Both have the power to influence politics, people, and societies. The trend should not be to restrict- where channels then run underground.
The human mind cannot be liberated by restricting the spaces where it may go. The only real weapon against totalitarianism is openness. Anything else is a step in the wrong direction.

The Crime of Sex

Genarlow Wilson, probably never thought he would find himself behind bars at the age of seventeen for receiving a blow job, and two years into a ten-year sentence, his future is gray; especially with the Georgia State Attorney General, Thurbert Baker vowing to appeal a court decision to overturn the felony charge into a misdemeanor. Baker sees the world in only two colors, without which there is a steady dissent into chaos. "As attorney general, I took an oath to uphold the laws of this state," Baker said during the news conference he called to explain why he is appealing a judge's order to free Wilson. "And in taking that oath I don't have the luxury of taking the law into my own hands, or picking which cases to defend."
Wilson was convicted of aggravated child molestation, despite the consent of the 15 year old girl. And although the law which put him in prison was changed last year, Baker said the Monroe County Superior Court judge overstepped his authority Monday when he granted Wilson's appeal.
But we DO need to review the human laws- there is a deeper, more complicated world that exists beyond legislature- the wild, the primitive, the unconscious- the very places these laws try to control and manipulate. They aim to not only castrate but alienate our machines from our deeper impulses.
The awakened state one can experience during sex is powerful and sacred. Most humans feel something incredibly powerful with the sexual energy- perhaps most don’t understand it or know how to use it- but its power is evident. The laws that punish sex acts (especially among consenting partners) could only have been designed by machines fearing the Wild. Indulging and upholding these laws, prosecuting people despite all reason or rationality does not even whisper at safety. Attorney Bakers is responding mechanically to his perceived threat, the threat of chaos, of sex…and he holds tight to his illusion that laws are meant to be obeyed, not questioned.

Drowning

The desire for human safety holds tightly to its delusion, struggling to look away from the edges of darkness that beg to steal us away.

Death is the end result of this body.

"Keep us safe!" they scream.
A child has drowned in a backyard pool, one of the 260 under the age of five to die in the same manner. "Keep us safe!" they scream.
The willful 4 year old managed to climb over his child-escape door gate and then over the 4 ft high fence surrounding the pool. Despite the gate, intended to prevent accidental drowning, the parents of the boy hope for new legislation; a bill that would require the installation of pool alarms. Safety advocates have accused the pool industry of downplaying hazards and resisting regulation to avoid worrying consumers.
"Every single death is preventable," said Alan Korn, the public policy director of Safe Kids Worldwide, a nonprofit group
based in Washington.When has death been preventable? Squeezing every last breath out of the elderly with medications and technology…safety features in every car and gadget, we are a country desperately seeking safety…keep us alive, we scream. Politicians oblige, milking our fears. They keep writing and passing laws, but we just can’t stop dying.
"Safety advocates recommend a variety of measures besides fences and alarms: weight-bearing pool covers, self-closing and self-latching gates, anti-entanglement and drain-release devices for hot tubs, rescue equipment and training, swimming lessons and Coast Guard-approved life preservers."And when we have covered ourselves in knee pads, wrist guards, helmets, and all the latest technology has to offer, we will still not be safe.
You are not safe…death will claim your body, pain tempts to take you under. There will never be enough legislation to prevent our humbling. All the organizations, systems, strategies, the seeming order and structure of it all…nothing is safe; and perhaps if you cannot see that now, you will understand it in the seconds after you have taken your last breath.

Reason and Fear

We work with the machine. We work with care and diligence to blend all aspects of the machine: the emotional center, the intuition, the intellectual center. All aspects have their relevance and function, lending themselves well to each other, and when all is working properly, making each aspect more finely tuned and perceptive…ripe and able to Awaken.
All our aspects can work for us. Our intellectual center has its purpose, although, like anything, it should not be allowed to take over.
In his recent book, The Assault on Reason, by Al Gore, argues the opposite: That most Americans have allowed their intellectual center to be muted and numbed…ignoring reason and logic and replacing it with blind faith. Faith in leaders and authority. Faith…trust in the military, in the president, basically, anybody but ourselves.
Gore says:
"The point of this book is that our nation is so shockingly vulnerable to such crass manipulation. Whether it’s New Orleans or Iraq or the climate crisis. And it's happening over and over again – the censorship of scientific warnings about the climate crisis; the warrantless mass eavesdropping on American citizens; the overturning of a prohibition against; and the fact that there is so little protest or outcry points to the much deeper problem not of just the culpability of those in the White House at the present moment, but at the fact that we are so vulnerable to these mistakes and that we allow them to occur with hardly any impressive outcry of resistance or protest."
The "why" of this interval is complex, but the first example is our culture of fear.
"Our systematic exposure to fear and other arousal stimuli on television can be exploited by the clever public relations specialist, advertiser, or politician."
Most Americans watch more than two hours of TV a day. Subjected to the latest news of murders, accidental deaths, terrorists, suicide bombers…a world out of control and we want safety. We have given up many rights for this image of safety…even our ability to reason has gone out the window. We are more likely to be struck by lighting than be killed by a terrorist attack, yet, despite the logic, in recent years, Americans have hardly peeped while right after right has been stripped away in the name of safety. The intellectual center has given way to the primal desire for survival, the most basic machine tendencies are now in control. The lizard brain is in command of the ship.

Paris finds God

Like little leaves in the wind, flittering into gutters…a yellow ginko leaf, a bright green maple leaf…the color, the shape don’t matter. The wind just blows and they move, with no order or purpose.

And why…the question that conscious thought has been trying to answer. Humans have given this "why" a name. In a world where people look like leafs, seemingly out of control in a place of chaos, we have attempted to grasp at meaning.

Most humans believe in "god," they change the name and attributes, but basically, it helps explain existence. With stories, myths, and laws…religion attempts to give structure and meaning. When we find ourselves in situations that hurt our hearts, we need explaination…we need meaning or this whole earthly experience makes no sense.

Why? Why here? What for? God provides the answer.

Paris Hilton must have been asking these questions in her jail cell when she "found god," according to a telephone interview with Barbara Walters. It is the machine attempt to find safety, to feel stability and a sense of control in a universe that cannot provide it. It is the underlying fear of most humans, the fear of meaninglessness, the fear of the unknown.

She said, "I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance."Once all the distractions are taken away. When you lie in a cell all alone, with no cameras, clothes, parties, friends….the painful reality can not be ignored. Without any other knowledge or apparent paths, god is the easy choice for explanation for the machine seeking control.