The moon was secluded by the earth's shadow on a recent night, and it is at such times that a new perspective can over come you, as you watch the shadow creep across the full, bright disk of the moon. As the line of the shadow moves, the true shape and feel of the moon becomes clearer - not less clear. The light is red, and instead of a disk, which is what you usually see when you look at the full moon, you can clearly see that it is an orb; the shape is more defined, and the details easier to see.
At times, and in different ways, perspectives can change in an instant. But all it takes is a few clouds, or a distraction to miss that change in perspective. It can involve many things - personal revelations, or revelations on a larger scale - but once seen something cannot be unseen. It is then to choose it, or to choose to ignore it, that becomes the question.
From different sources, and from different types of people I have heard rumors about Barak Obama being raised as a Muslim and a terrorist because he attended school in a majority Muslim country, Indonesia. In point of fact, it was elementary school, and not any type of religious school, or madrassa as fundamentalist Muslim schools are known.
But Obama claims Christianity as his religion, and there is no reason to doubt him any more than you would doubt George Bush when he says he is a Christian, or any other person that says that. With each person, you look at their actions, and decide if what they say is the truth. That is true with people on a personal level, and just as true with people on a public level.
Several things bother me about this. The first is, it is an easy sidestep for the black issue. We don't care that he's black, the bigot can say with a straight face, it's that he's a Muslim - a terrorist.
Well, what if Hillary or John Edwards had been raised overseas and been sent to a public school in a Muslim country - would they then be called a Muslim, with the implication that they were automatically in league with those people who wish to do us harm, and who attacked us on Sept 11th?
I think that we all know the answer to that.
The second thing is what that idea does to the idea of Islam. One of the main tenets of Christianity is not to judge, lest you be judged. That does not mean if you have proof that someone is a thief or a liar or cheat, you should not judge their actions. What it does mean is that no matter what a person's religion, or color, that person is not more inherently evil than any other person, and no more likely to be a terrorist, and should not be judged on anything but their actions.
I do not support Democrats generally, nor do I support Republicans, for they are in my opinion much the same beast. They both say some things that I like, and neither say that which I truly want to hear.
Mr. Obama does not have as long a political public record as the other two frontrunner's for our next president, but to assume that he is a Muslim because he is black and went to a elementary school in a predominantly Muslim country is bad enough - to then assume that if he is a Muslim he is a terrorist, which is the direct implication of these rumors, is despicable. Even if he is a Muslim, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that, for the reasons stated above, what difference should that make? People are individuals, and a Muslim is just as likely as a Christian in this world, or a Buddhist. And they are all just as likely to be people without mercy or compassion.
A Muslim is not a terrorist - he is a fanatic that has been fooled into a deformed branch of that religion, just as Timothy McViegh, who triggered the Oklahoma city bombing, was not a true Christian - he had simply been seduced by a radical sect of what is a good religion.
I won't say that Mr. Obama is my best hope, for though his rhetoric does sound good, he does not tell me the specifics that I want to hear; one example, and the most glaring on the Democratic side, is that for every gallon of gas we as American's buy we are funding our enemies.
We are funding them directly. Is that hard to understand? The message was sent loud and clear by Bin Laden's choice to use all Saudi men in the attacks of 911. The roots of the fundamentalist sects of Islam go back to the roots of Saudi Arabia, to the Wahabi sect's which allied with the Saud princes to gain power. And the Saud princes wielded the power of the American military machine after WW II.
Nothing is easy in these modern times, and we have not seen the worst yet, but to understand the basic dynamics of the situation you must peer around the corners. And to do that, you must realize the power and the danger of oil. A hundred years ago, it was no big deal. But as our thirst for it has grown (and the world's thirst), and as the oil powers have systematically crushed any potential competition, the problem has grown largely unseen by those who live in the first world countries.
What needs to be said, and I can understand why no candidate says it during the campaign, is that we fund our enemies directly, because the people we buy oil from are direct funders of our enemies. This is not hard to understand, and it is not hard to prove. But it is never pointed out by most of the media, or by any of our major politicians.
On the Republican side? Well, it is the same with oil - don't talk about that subject, there's simply nothing we can do, not one single sacrifice we can make to try to conserve. They haven't even asked us to carpool, for the love of God, as they did in the seventies during the oil embargo.
But the Republicans also say that they think Government should leave the indivdual alone - that personal freedom is our right, and that the Government has no right to say how we live our lives. But they don't hesitate - they do not hesitate - to put a person in jail for growing a plant. Half the countries to the south of us are in near ruins because of our drug war, and we have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world because of it. Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of failure bacause the money from the opium crop is directed, by our policies, directly into the hands of criminal and terrorist organizations, and the immigration problem is exacerbated tremendously by the same thing.
And yet no one says, "These are plants - coca, opium, and marijuana - just plants."
Perspectives shift and change - sometimes in time, and sometimes not. Look at your own conceptions of the three people who will most likely become our president, and then look at where we are as a nation. We got here through decades of policy, and a few years effort will not be enough to stop what is coming. The shadow is beginning to creep over the full moon, and events will be rushing upon us in the years to come. Perspective often comes at a horrible price - it comes at the time of the flood, or the tornado, or the crises. No matter who is elected President, I can only pray that that that person will finally begin speaking the real truth to us.
But if we don't demand it amongst ourselves, how can we demand it demand it of our leaders? How can we expect it of them, if we can be fooled and tricked so easily?
At times, and in different ways, perspectives can change in an instant. But all it takes is a few clouds, or a distraction to miss that change in perspective. It can involve many things - personal revelations, or revelations on a larger scale - but once seen something cannot be unseen. It is then to choose it, or to choose to ignore it, that becomes the question.
From different sources, and from different types of people I have heard rumors about Barak Obama being raised as a Muslim and a terrorist because he attended school in a majority Muslim country, Indonesia. In point of fact, it was elementary school, and not any type of religious school, or madrassa as fundamentalist Muslim schools are known.
But Obama claims Christianity as his religion, and there is no reason to doubt him any more than you would doubt George Bush when he says he is a Christian, or any other person that says that. With each person, you look at their actions, and decide if what they say is the truth. That is true with people on a personal level, and just as true with people on a public level.
Several things bother me about this. The first is, it is an easy sidestep for the black issue. We don't care that he's black, the bigot can say with a straight face, it's that he's a Muslim - a terrorist.
Well, what if Hillary or John Edwards had been raised overseas and been sent to a public school in a Muslim country - would they then be called a Muslim, with the implication that they were automatically in league with those people who wish to do us harm, and who attacked us on Sept 11th?
I think that we all know the answer to that.
The second thing is what that idea does to the idea of Islam. One of the main tenets of Christianity is not to judge, lest you be judged. That does not mean if you have proof that someone is a thief or a liar or cheat, you should not judge their actions. What it does mean is that no matter what a person's religion, or color, that person is not more inherently evil than any other person, and no more likely to be a terrorist, and should not be judged on anything but their actions.
I do not support Democrats generally, nor do I support Republicans, for they are in my opinion much the same beast. They both say some things that I like, and neither say that which I truly want to hear.
Mr. Obama does not have as long a political public record as the other two frontrunner's for our next president, but to assume that he is a Muslim because he is black and went to a elementary school in a predominantly Muslim country is bad enough - to then assume that if he is a Muslim he is a terrorist, which is the direct implication of these rumors, is despicable. Even if he is a Muslim, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that, for the reasons stated above, what difference should that make? People are individuals, and a Muslim is just as likely as a Christian in this world, or a Buddhist. And they are all just as likely to be people without mercy or compassion.
A Muslim is not a terrorist - he is a fanatic that has been fooled into a deformed branch of that religion, just as Timothy McViegh, who triggered the Oklahoma city bombing, was not a true Christian - he had simply been seduced by a radical sect of what is a good religion.
I won't say that Mr. Obama is my best hope, for though his rhetoric does sound good, he does not tell me the specifics that I want to hear; one example, and the most glaring on the Democratic side, is that for every gallon of gas we as American's buy we are funding our enemies.
We are funding them directly. Is that hard to understand? The message was sent loud and clear by Bin Laden's choice to use all Saudi men in the attacks of 911. The roots of the fundamentalist sects of Islam go back to the roots of Saudi Arabia, to the Wahabi sect's which allied with the Saud princes to gain power. And the Saud princes wielded the power of the American military machine after WW II.
Nothing is easy in these modern times, and we have not seen the worst yet, but to understand the basic dynamics of the situation you must peer around the corners. And to do that, you must realize the power and the danger of oil. A hundred years ago, it was no big deal. But as our thirst for it has grown (and the world's thirst), and as the oil powers have systematically crushed any potential competition, the problem has grown largely unseen by those who live in the first world countries.
What needs to be said, and I can understand why no candidate says it during the campaign, is that we fund our enemies directly, because the people we buy oil from are direct funders of our enemies. This is not hard to understand, and it is not hard to prove. But it is never pointed out by most of the media, or by any of our major politicians.
On the Republican side? Well, it is the same with oil - don't talk about that subject, there's simply nothing we can do, not one single sacrifice we can make to try to conserve. They haven't even asked us to carpool, for the love of God, as they did in the seventies during the oil embargo.
But the Republicans also say that they think Government should leave the indivdual alone - that personal freedom is our right, and that the Government has no right to say how we live our lives. But they don't hesitate - they do not hesitate - to put a person in jail for growing a plant. Half the countries to the south of us are in near ruins because of our drug war, and we have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world because of it. Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of failure bacause the money from the opium crop is directed, by our policies, directly into the hands of criminal and terrorist organizations, and the immigration problem is exacerbated tremendously by the same thing.
And yet no one says, "These are plants - coca, opium, and marijuana - just plants."
Perspectives shift and change - sometimes in time, and sometimes not. Look at your own conceptions of the three people who will most likely become our president, and then look at where we are as a nation. We got here through decades of policy, and a few years effort will not be enough to stop what is coming. The shadow is beginning to creep over the full moon, and events will be rushing upon us in the years to come. Perspective often comes at a horrible price - it comes at the time of the flood, or the tornado, or the crises. No matter who is elected President, I can only pray that that that person will finally begin speaking the real truth to us.
But if we don't demand it amongst ourselves, how can we demand it demand it of our leaders? How can we expect it of them, if we can be fooled and tricked so easily?
