Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

A word to Rush Limbaugh. Baloney.

After listening to his tirade blaming feminists and women generally for Anthony Weiner’s poor choices, he has now affirmed for me what I have always suspected. He is a mean-spirited, ideologue jock with a gift for gab and business.  Kudos to him for the latter and shame on him for the former.

Yes, I know he was responding to Claire Shipman’s comments on This Week with Christiana Anampour, and yes I know the This Week segment seemed to say that if more women were in positions of public and private sector authority the world would be a better place, but really…. do two wrongs make a right?

It’s not about male versus female.  Isn’t it time we got past the “us or them” mentality that has brought humanity to the brink of its own destruction?  Just how much havoc do we have to wreak before we get it?

Like everything else in life it’s about balance.

Limbaugh is stuck in the 70’s. Consequently, his reaction is understandable.   Feminism was a reaction to 5000+ years of what author Riane Eisler calls in her book The Chalice and The Blade “dominator social systems.” Dominator systems are based on aggression, domination and exploitation.  They are maintained through fear.  Think subjugation, slavery, slaughter, Inquisition, crucifixion, burning at the stake, gas ovens, atomic bombs, and terrorism. The list is, sadly, endless.

We’ve had 5000+ years of dominator driven advice and rule because men have done the advising and the ruling.  Are they inherently bad? No. Do they need to be more in balance? Yes.  Is partnership with women the answer? Partly.

You see, it’s not a simple as gender.  If women rise to positions of power, only to act like men when they get there, then women will be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

The solution is social systems wherein both women and men contribute their inherently unique characteristics, and God-given gifts, so that together they are able to achieve something greater than either could achieve on their own.

Getting to this realization and then exhibiting an openness to explore the possibilities is the key here.  Both genders have some hurdles to jump if they hope to be successful.  Men will have to moderate their propensity for aggression (testosterone driven) and women will have to moderate their propensity for emotionalism (estrogen).

But think of it.  If these two forces of Nature can first bring themselves into balance, then join with the other in a balanced union and effort, imagine the possibilities. I think we have to imagine the possibilities.

At this point, imagining the alternative is just too scary.

 

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner apparently has no survival instinct.  He is patently self-destructive. Not only did he place at risk both his marriage and his career by blatantly pursuing perverse sexual behavior through the internet and social media sites, but having been exposed (no pun intended,) he exhibits neither remorse nor an inclination to admit to his behavior. He’s in denial… publically at least.  Personally, only his humiliated and presumably pained wife knows if he’s in denial privately as well.

Brooklyn Democratic Chairman and power broker Vito Lopez has been quoted as saying “Something like this better be put to rest. If it’s left outstanding, it could have damaging impact, even if it means the difference of 3 or 4 percent of the vote in a very competitive four-way or five-way race” regarding Weiner’s chances in a future mayoral contest.

Is that really the issue? Is the potential damage to Mr. Weiner’s political career what the media…what we… need to be focusing upon?

Given the dire economic straights the economy is suffering and the worldwide propensity for revolution, isn’t this a little reminiscent of how the country handled the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinski revelations?  Didn’t we learn anything from that sordid moment?  It’s not about the economy, political careers or even the wanton misuse of power.

It’s about how We The People continue to look the other way… in our personal lives and in the lives of public figures when its simply easier and more convenient to do that than confront the reality.

The reality is that as a culture and a society we have so lowered the bar that we barely blink… and are almost never heard…when behavior is demeaning, degrading and socially harmful.  So Weiner gets 15 minutes of media focus for his disgusting behavior and our kids are exposed to one more sexual deviant. So everyone laughs when the “F” word is used at the MTV awards and our children are watching and making a mental (even if subconscious) note.  So the likes of Schwarzenegger, Strauss-Kahn, and Edwards are momentarily exposed and perhaps embarrassed (I think that requires a conscience and I’m not sure these guys qualify) and then life goes on for us… and further downhill it goes as well.

It’s really up to each of us to begin to examine our own lives and hold not only public figures accountable but ourselves as well.  It’s time (actually its almost past available time) when we redefine and restructure our values, our priorities and our tolerance levels for what kind of world we want to create and live in.

Anthony Weiner and deviants like him are symptoms of an ailing culture. We are both the illness and the cure.  Which of those we end up cultivating will be determined by the our choices starting now… and the personal responsibility for those choices we are each willing and able to accept.

 

Fundamentally, everything in the physical world is made up of energy.  Life is all about managing that energy.  Now if you believe that we create our reality with our thoughts, then it would make perfect sense that we find ourselves in the middle of a global energy crisis!

To wit:  Just today, Goldman-Sachs is predicting $5.00 a gallon gas by mid-summer.

So what does managing personal energy have to do with a global energy crisis?  Well, while we tend to focus only on external conditions… such as OPEC’s control and manipulation of oil prices… or the lack of sufficient renewable or affordable energy… what if you and I are actually the cause of the energy crisis?  What if you and I fail to properly manage our own internal energy we then collectively, though our combined thinking, create a literal global energy crisis?

How?

Well, there are only two emotions: Love and Fear.  We are frightened and controlled by fear every minute of every day by the media and, too often, by our religious beliefs.  What if widespread fear is a reflection of the misuse of individual energy?  And what if enough individual misuse combines to manifest as…wait for it…the global energy crisis?

What to do?

Immediately and permanently, dismiss fearful thinking. Focus on loving thoughts… on what’s right with your life…on what you have to be grateful for…on the best of humankind.

If enough of us move from Fear to Love we may just find, for example,  fuel prices coming down… and that could just be the first step in turning around not only the global energy crisis but a great deal more about our world that is created and controlled by fear.

 

 

Lately, there is much talk of personal responsibility.  Perhaps nowhere is this concept more relevant than when applied to our thoughts.  As we look around the globe at social, economic, and political conditions it seems appropriate to ask, “What are we doing, or not doing, that is directly related to what we are experiencing?”

But what if the same question is equally relevant to the escalation of violent weather conditions we are experiencing worldwide?  What if we are causing those conditions, not by global warming or disregard for natural resources, but by our thoughts?

At the quantum level, physicists have proven that the conscious presence of an observer affects and changes the outcome of the event being observed. Consciousness, awareness, is energy that affects matter. “Pay attention”… that admonition you often heard repeated as a child… now takes on new meaning.  Your attention is energy.  How you use it, where you place it, matters. Literally.

We have the freedom, Free Will, to place our attention on anything we choose. When millions, maybe even billions, of people place their attention on the same thing, the effect is likely to be profound.

Which got me thinking.

It’s often said by environmentalists and others that Earth and weather upheavals in the form of volcanoes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, warming, hurricanes and the like are “Mother Earth” telling us, in her own inimitable way, that She has had enough.  But what if Earth and Nature are not reacting to our behavior, but to our thoughts?  What if as we think imbalanced and violent thoughts we create  imbalanced and violent Earth conditions?

What if the more people who think violent thoughts then the more extreme and widespread are manifested Earth conditions?

Maybe President Obama and others want to rethink encouraging “revolution” across the globe.  Change need not be violent unless we choose it to be.  Maybe we ought to rethink how we communicate and apply certain words and concepts.  Maybe thoughts are things which, once given voice, are made real. Maybe all the violent change humanity seems to be experiencing globally starts in our minds.

Perhaps starting today we each can be more circumspect around what we think and say.  Perhaps there is good reason to put an end to watching, and thereby energizing with your attention, the violence the media loves to disseminate.

A Native American proverb makes the point.  A grandfather talking to his young grandson 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 is the wolf of fear, greed and hatred. “Which wolf will win, grandfather?” asks the young boy.  “Whichever one I feed,” is the reply.

Today, by your thoughts, starve violence and feed peace.

Personal Responsibility starts there.

 

For a new way to think about personal responsibility, language and global change see my new book The Lightworker’s Handbook: A Spiritual Guide to Eliminating Fear. CLICK HERE to learn more.

In a rapidly changing world in which the flow of information by major media outlets is controlled by corporate ownership and investors with an agenda we, the public, are easily manipulated by selective and biased reporting.  Therefore, it is critical that you think for yourself and dig deeper than surface reporting in an effort to be truly informed.

In fact, inner guidance, more than any other source, will be the most reliable place to verify reality.

Example:  The Egyptian Revolution.

President Obama, as well as mainstream and social media, were enamored with the recent revolutionary uprising in Egypt.  Each was certain the uprising was democracy in action and a harbinger of better things to come regarding Middle East relations with the U.S. and Israel.

Now that the dust has settled, so to speak, the reality appears to be something altogether different.  What is emerging from the chaotic aftermath of the riots in Egypt is a very vocal and vehement expression of defiance against the United States and a blatant intention to destroy the State of Israel.

I find two conclusions instructive from events as they have unfolded:

1.  This Administration and the media fueled the flames of uprising with a false premise and now that the winds of change are directing the fire on a deadly path, both are disturbingly and shamefully silent.

2.  Mubarak may have been a dictator but he was also an impediment to Muslim extremism taking hold within Egypt.  (Not to excuse his dictatorial hold on the country, but rather to highlight the possibility that unless you have set in place enlightened leadership or a viable alternative plan for governance, it may be best to bypass revolution as a vehicle for change).

As to my point about inner guidance, I think that as the days of rage unfolded on camera, common sense (or just plain checking in with your “gut”) probably told anyone who was conscious and not living in a fairy-tale-wishful-fantasy world that events in Egypt were at best precarious and at worst foreboding.

Unfortunately, time has proven the latter to be the case.

The most valuable lesson to take away from this experience is that reality is best obtained from within rather than imposed by external sources…  too often motivated by an agenda that is little concerned with our well being.

Let us not behave like sheep but rather individuals who possess the wisdom to tune in within and surf our own channels.

 

 

 

There are lots of obvious challenges currently confronting the nation.  Each demands and deserves significant attention and creative thinking to resolve.  Yet, what if I told you there was one solution that would fix all of the problems facing us and it’s within your power to do something about it?

Curious? Intrigued?

Well, first, a little background.

Over the past 50 years, the technological explosion has outpaced our social and spiritual development.  As a result, our application of the technology can be likened to a 12-year-old who is given the keys to the family car.  While he or she may know how to put the key into the ignition, press on the accelerator and turn the wheel… what is intended to be a means of transportation turns into a deadly weapon.  Without maturity, understanding and formal training, a 12-year-old with access to driving a car is… no pun intended… an accident waiting to happen.

So, too, is humanity in relation to technology.  Whether it’s the misuse of nuclear power for aggressive purposes or living lives propelled to the point of insanity by cell phones, blackberries, faxes, ipads, or 24/7 news… we are that 12-year-old with the keys in hand lacking the maturity, understanding and training to moderate how, when and why we use what’s before us.  Absent those safeguards, we are not driving the technology, the technology is driving us (again, no pun intended but I can’t seem to help myself!).

Understanding the point at which we’ve arrived, and the inherent dangers, can be very helpful.  To go back to the car analogy, the 12-year-old is unlikely to self-regulate.  After all, the car is fun and faster than walking.  The most likely event that would change his or her mind would be a collision.  The more serious the collision, the greater the change of mind and perspective.

Unfortunately, humanity cannot afford the equivalent of a significant auto collision.  We have become too interconnected globally, and too reliant personally, to withstand a technologically based accident without severe and long lasting consequences: e.g. Japan’s nuclear meltdown.

What can we do?  Well, here’s what you can do.  Get off this train.

First, evaluate your own life and decrease the role that technology plays in it.  Each self-limitation you impose will restore an equal or greater amount of sanity to your world… and the world at large.  Secondly, daily study and teach, by way of example, choices and behavior that are ethically and morally driven.  Thirdly, reconnect with or enhance the role that God/spirituality/Source plays in your life.

If you think that changing your personal relationship with technology will make little difference, let me remind you of a scientific fact.  When a butterfly flaps its wings in New York wind patterns change in Europe.  It’s just a matter of time.

We, like Nature, are all One and everything each of us does affects the whole.  For good or for ill.  And so your changes matter.  They matter most immediately to the quality of your own life.  Eventually and inevitably, however, they matter to the quality of everyone else’s.

That’s what you can do and that’s how you can change the world.

One decision at a time.

History can be instructive. So can dreams.

It was Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream that led to ancient Egypt’s readiness when it encountered seven years of famine following years of plenty.  Joseph, a Jew, was appointed Viceroy of Egypt and put in charge of the grain supply.  He ordered that grain be stored in anticipation of a shortage and, sure enough, the shortage followed and Egypt weathered the storm.

Instead of condemning the naysayer…Pharaoh promoted him.

Instructive? Maybe.

The price of oil is rising and with it the cost of almost everything else.  Inflation is on the rise and the dollar is on the wane.  The U.S. economic outlook has been downgraded from “stable” to “negative.” We don’t have 7 years of grain reserves. In fact, we have about 15-18 day’s worth with grain production for ethanol use being about 5 times the amount we’re using for food.

While I don’t know if President Obama has had any dreams such as Pharaoh did…I do know where I got all the above facts.  I got them from Glenn Beck.  And while many people, including the President, are busy condemning Mr. Beck for his naysaying they would be wise to take a lesson from Pharaoh.

The saying goes, “Don’t kill the messenger.”

Mr. Beck may irritate some and infuriate others, but there are a significant percentage of us out here who know that he is, and has been, copious in his fact checking and amazingly prophetic in his outlook.

I use the word “prophetic” not in the biblical sense and yet… one has to wonder why we would be any less deserving of Divine intervention than were those ancient Egyptians.

 

 

This is my second post in two days on the movie Social Network.  I think an analysis of it deserves at least two days of my time.

Why?

Well for starters, as I said at length in yesterday’s post, we’ve made a “winner” out of a thief.  But I’d like to get past Mark Zuckerberg for a moment and move on to the filmmakers.

The screenplay was adapted by Aaron Sorkin from the book “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich.  The film was directed by David Fincher.   The Producers were Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca, Cean Chaffin and Kevin Spacey.  I take time and space here to list their names because I think they are all culpable in doing harm.

How?

Well, fact checking the movie seems to support the allegation by Mr. Zuckerberg that it’s a work of fiction.  At least it’s embellished and conveniently twisted fact to achieve a self-serving end.  What end?

Profit.

It appears that both the Producers and Mr. Sorkin felt that a completely amoral, asocial and criminal lead character would sell better at the box-office and on DVD than would an otherwise not so asocial, not so amoral, yet still criminal, Mark Zuckerberg.  In reality, it seems Mr. Zuckerberg wasn’t nasty or greedy enough for the film’s makers.  So they went instead in search of the lowest common denominator:  our collective and insatiable desire to be rich and famous… regardless of the real cost.

There’s a parable about a Polish man who is dying and been in a coma for weeks. Despite efforts by every visiting relative and friend, no response can be elicited from him to indicate consciousness.   Then, his Priest comes to visit and sitting close, whispers in the dying man’s ear, “I have zlotys do you want some?”  In reply, the dying man unclenches his fist to receive the Polish coins.

It is said that the last desire to leave us is not the desire for sex but the desire for money.  It’s why the prospect of perhaps having more of it is always so seductive and effective in motivating us… although not always to our credit.

Which brings me back to Social Network.

In making a very appealing, very seductive movie about a very successful entrepreneur with no ethics or morals to speak of … the real cost is to, yet again, nourish and promote the misguided and destructive principal that “the means justifies the ends.”

It is not fair to blame only those who made the decisions that led to the film’s message and creation of a darker character than Mark Zuckerberg already was. Equal responsibility lies with us. For as long as we continue to patronize movies that glamorize our darker selves, with total disregard for how doing so contributes to our lower selves and our lowest common denominator, the creators of such films (and books) will prosper as will the incentive for them, and others in every walk of life, to keep up the bad work.

 

I watched Social Network last night and found it disturbing on too many levels to cover all in one post.  So I’ll focus on the one I found most disturbing.

We have made a legend and role model for our youth out of a thief.

No matter how Mark Zuckerberg tries to distance himself from his character as portrayed in the movie, one fact remains.  In the final analysis, Zuckerberg paid 65 million dollars to two other young men because he stole their idea.

For me, everything else in the movie pales in comparison.

I knew virtually nothing of Zuckerberg’s creation of Facebook and his meteoric rise to fame and fortune prior to sitting down to see the movie other than snippets here and there from the media.  My impression, based upon how he is covered in and by the media, was that he was some young, technological genius who created and designed the powerhouse “Facebook.”

However, after watching the movie, what I knew was that Zuckerberg built his “platform” on the backs of some other people he had no apparent problem climbing over, kicking in the teeth and crushing in the process.  He reminds me of Ivan Boesky, the 1990’s Arbitrageur who, in an address to a Stanford University graduating class, said “Greed is good.”  With that hubris, Boesky set the stage for two decades of plunder and materialism in this nation not seen since, probably, the Roman Empire.

Presently, we focused on the technological wonder of Facebook to the almost disregard for the total absence of ethics upon which it was created.  It’s like saying the economy was good during the Clinton years giving little mention to the immoral virus this nation was infected with as a result of Clinton’s wanton lust.

Today, the day after watching Social Network, I went in search of fact checking the accuracy of the movie.  It seems Zuckerberg was portrayed more asocial and more insensitive that he actually was.  That’s the good news.  The bad, very bad, news is that he did, in fact, steal the idea from two classmates and paid 65 million in restitution.

We should be very careful who we hold up as role models for the young.  In a world where Ivan Boesky is king and greed is good… Mark Zuckerberg is royalty. It’s not a world I want to inhabit.  Nor is it one in which we, as a nation, can survive in much longer.  It’s gotten us where we are at the moment… and the moment is tenuous.

There is nothing wrong with success or money if how you achieve either one of those is respectful of yourself and others.

In such a world, the Ivan Boeskys and Mark Zuckerbergs would be pariahs.

 

Looking recently at Madison Wisconsin and today London, it seems that violence… the preferred method of change in the Arab world… has finally infected the West as well.

Not to our credit, I might add.

One of the great tragedies of human history is that we have always confused e-volution with revolution.  Re-volution, especially violent re-volution, has always been just that: a return trip around a failed and worn out path strewn with the casualties of war.

Is it conceivable we will allow ourselves to be led like lambs to slaughter down that road yet again?  To watch the youth in England today destroying everything in their path, its an easy leap to conclude the answer is “Yes.”

I don’t blame them.  I blame us.

They’re young.  They learned from us.  As too many of us in positions of responsibility remained silent, those with an agenda crept into our schools, universities and, more insidiously, into our children’s minds.  The young want what they want and they want it now… and if they can’t have it… well… they’re being encouraged by those with a hidden agenda to believe that violence is an acceptable expression of their discontent.

Our children grew up in a world where media violence, instant gratification, material acquisition, power for its own sake, and government subsidies were and remain the norm.   By example, we have taught them poorly.  And while we were neglecting our responsibility to the future, others were all too ready and willing to embrace it.

Now, if we allowed it to reach this point, it must be we who puts an end to it.

How?

By rapidly and visibly changing the way we do things.

By assuming responsibility for our every thought, word and deed.

By reprioritizing our time and our expression of what we value.

By acting like competent, capable adults able to make hard choices so the young have something, and someone, to emulate.

We’re running out of time.  Let’s not waste a moment.  Decide what you value.  Speak of it often.  Live it with certainty.

Before the momentum of violence becomes irreversible, join in the e-volution.  It’s a higher road that leads to a grander view.

Oh, and did I mention?… peace.