The paradox is that as much as we might want change. That change does not come about in the world. The players change but the game remains the same.

What exactly does it mean to step outside the box in order to make a better world? How can you really effect change in your life that makes your world better. This is a extremely personal matter. What does a better world really mean to you personally? What will really result in a meaningfully positive change in your life? Two of the world’s most prominent religions point to an answer.

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What can you do?

Nothing. I want to re-quote Krishnamurti…

"The crisis is a crisis in consciousness… a crisis that cannot anymore accept the old norms, the old patterns, the ancient traditions… and considering what the world is now, with all the misery, conflict, destructive brutality, aggression, and so on, man is still as he was. He is still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive,  competitive, and he has built a society along these lines.

What we are trying in these discussions and talks here is to see if we cannot radically bring about a transformation of the mind… not accepting things as they are, but to understand it, go into it, to examine it… give your heart and your mind to everything you have to find out [about] a way of living differently… but that depends on you and not somebody else… to understand is to transform what is."

This doesn't mean that they need to change their consciousness. It means you need to change your consciousness. The simple fact is that the President, the Supreme Court, the Congress, and all the talk show hosts don't care a single thing about you. They are not even aware that you exist. You are only an abstract member of an abstract thing called the citizens. If you play the game of political rhetoric with others… even your friends… nothing much will happen. Really! When people are confronted with "truths" that don't fit their emotional beliefs, they simply shut down. All this is not in the realm of logic and attempts to put it there will be entertaining, perhaps, but results are achieved at a different level.

Look at the big picture, not the minutia, and ask yourself, "When has it been different?" Can you think of one example in history of an enlightened culture? Can you think of any examples in history where one group of people did not take advantage of another group of people? Democracy, socialism, Marxism, communism, fascism, capitalism, Catholicism, Judaism, and all the other isms have ultimately produced an elite class. That seems to be hard wired into human beings. In fact, human beings have a real tendency to kill the people that give them an alternative… like Jesus and Ghandi.

What you CAN do!

Step outside the box. In the box efforts will only produce variations on the same things you're already seeing. That will not produce the change in consciousness that Krishnamurti is talking about. Distinguish actual change from mental or emotional entertainment. It's fun to watch Sean Hannity or Keith Olberman and get upset at the bad guys. It doesn't make for change. Change yourself and make the world that you want for yourself. Become a living example of the world that you want to create and teach by your example. Reflect on your own mind and see what keeps you stuck where you are. Use the principles of the Law of Attraction to produce real results. Use Egyptian Healing Rods to cause actual shifts in your Energy. Use simple things that can dramatically change your entire life instead of continuously running around in circles.

That can lead to the changes in the world that you want. The secret is that as long as you circulate in the world as it is you won't see what the actions are that can actually change the world. You Enjoy A Better World by changing your basic perception.

What is happening to the American democracy?

Uncle Sam Needs You

Do you remember the movie Rollerball? The governments of the world had become passe and corporate monopolies had taken their place. There was the communications corporation, the energy corporation, the entertainment corporation, and so on. Well, hold on to your hats because it's just about here.

The Supreme Court's decision to allow unlimited spending on political campaigns should scare the hell out of you whether you are a flaming liberal or a ticked off teabagger. I would like to share a couple of imaginary future scenarios with you.

Novatek wants to do exploration for natural gas in protected American wilderness. So, exercising their "free speech" under the new Supreme Court decision they spend $100,000,000 on television advertising to elect their chosen candidates to serve as chairman on the House and Sentate Committees on Natural Resources. The ads are designed to link the candidates to more conservative positions on gas and oil. Sure enough, the people running against their candidates in both the primary and general elections cannot effectively campaign against this amount of moneIy and the selected candidates win and are beholding to Novatek. Well, they get legislation passed that allows them to go for the gas. The problem… Novatek is a Russian company and it now has Senators and Congressment bought and paid for to represent their interest instead of the American interest.

Terra Solar is seeking special legislation to give it an advantage in the new green technology market. They spend money on advertising to link particular politicans in key positions to green technology. Of course, most voters, but particularly moderate and libreral voters are in favor of more energy with no damage to the environment. Nobody would argue with that. Their candidates get elected. The problem… Terra Solar is in a strategic partnership with the Chinese.

America for Americans?

Are you getting the picture here? Let me spell it out.

• The voices of individual Americans will not be heard over the massive dollars corporations can spend on political ads.
• The corporations may be foreign corporations (it's easy to set up an American shell company).

Whether you are conservative, moderate, or liberal; far left or far right; atheist or born again Christian these two scenarios should scare the living daylights out of you.

The Root of The Problem

In a landmark decision in the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court established corporate rights under the 14th Amendment. It essentially gave the corporations the same citizenship rights as human beings… or did it? Read the following…

The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteeth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporation. We are all of the opinion that it does.

OK,  that seems to say that corporations have the same rights as natural persons under the Fourteeth Amendment. Now the interesting thing is that this actually appears in the headnote to the case written by J.C. Bancroft Davis, but does not appear in the text of the Supreme Court decision itself. J.C. Bancroft Davis was the Court Reporter and the former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway. Hmmm, perhaps a conflict of interest. Chief Justice Morrison Waite send a reply to a memorandum written by J.C. Bancroft Davis asking if his headnote was, in fact, correct. It said…

I think your memorandum in the California Railroad Tax cases express with sufficient accuracy what was said before the argument began. I leave it with you to determine whether anything need be said about it in the report inasmuch as we avoided meeting the consitutional question in the decision.

I have added the emphasis. Waite clearly responded that the court avoided the issue of corporate personhood, yet Davis included it. In fact the actual decision was that the state of California illegally included fences running beside the railroad tracks in its assessment of the total value of the railroad's property and that Santa Clara county could not collect taxes from Souther Pacific that it was not allowed to collect in the first place.

Is this unbelievable or what?

The Branches of the Problem

So, get the complete picture here

• Corporations are being allowed to squelch your individual voices
• Because they have citizenship rights of free speech
• Under the 14th Amendments rights in the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Souther Pacific Railroad case
• That were actually never given them by Supreme Court decision.

And that means that the people who are actively supporting this decision are either misguided free speech advocates or are servants of the corporate interests. That's it. I want to emphasize again that this is not a conservative v. liberal issue. The people who are trying to make it that are, frankly, trying to deceive you.

The interesting question is how this might link to the Bilberberg Group. We saw how back room deals are made in the Heathcare Reform debates. Perhaps it's time to stop attributing good motives to government officials and begin to attribute evil, self-serving motives to most. And the danger here is that as a country we are going to be played for suckers by people in foreign countries who understand that our weakness is the greed and self-interest of our politicians and media.

What Is To Be Learned?

If you want to make a better world and enjoy it, then you need to take personal responsibility for the world you want and make it that way. It's not for me to tell you what your world is supposed to be like. Just get to your core values, figure out what kind of world those core values requires, and take responsibility to make that world.

If you are concerned about this Supreme Court decision please go to savedemocracy.net.

Scott Brown

Ok, Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts.  Good for him. The really baffling thing is why people who voted overwhelmingly for Obama one year ago suddenly shifted their votes. No doubt that one factor was simply that the Republicans turned out more than the Democrats. The confusion is why independents and some Democrats shifted their votes.

The simple fact is that Scott Brown has definite conservative leanings. Some have described him as to the right of Dick Cheney. So people voted for him despite the fact that exit polls showed that the majority of voters approve of the job that Obama has been doing. Exit polls also showed that the number one issue determining their vote was health care reform and Mr. Brown was clear that he intended to be the 41st vote against the health care reform bill.  The pundits also attribute Coakley's arrogance and taking the voters for granted as contributing factors. He went to the baseball stadium and she did not. He went out and shook hands while she went on vacation. He drove around in a pickup truck and she drove around in a limo.

Jocelyn Fong  of Media Matters for America describes the active participation of Fox News in assisting Mr. Brown's campaign. They actively supported his campaign, misrepresented Ms. Coakley's remarks to make her seem stupid, raised false issues designed to create fear in the electorate, and told viewers that Brown's election would improve their 401Ks despite the fact that the market actually dropped after his election.

So, all of this persuaded people to elect a guy that represents a return to the policies and thinking that got us into the mess we are currently in… as some kind of protest vote? Go figure? The people who should be admired are the people who really believe in Scott Brown and the people who really oppose him based on his prior history. If they voted based on what they really believe they are functioning in the best traditions of our democracy. The people who voted because of some emotional frustration are the great mystery and time will only tell how Mr. Brown actually behaves in office.

The simple fact is that if we are to enjoy a better world, then we must take personal responsibility to make it better. Be conscious in your actions. Decide on the people who will impact your lives on the basis of something other than baseball stadiums and pickup trucks. For now, give Steve Brown your blessings in the hope that he will really turn out to be the independent Republican he claims.

Yesterday the supreme court reversed 100 years of precedent and reversed the rulings that have prohibited corporations from directly contributing to political campaigns. One side of the case (the winners) said that this was a freedom of speech issue. That it was not right to "criminalize" one type of speech. The other side of the case argued that corporations are not, in fact, people, that individual people in corporations are not restricted from free speech, and that the Constitution guarantees free speech only to human beings not corporate entities.  This is a very complicated issue and the people who would normally line up as liberal or conservative are not, in fact, falling into those convenient categories. For example, the ALCU was on the free speech side, and the attorney for that side has achieved recognition for fighting First Amendment rights issues for more liberal causes. The decision was a 5 to 4 decision. The same 5 justices that shot democracy in the heart in 2000 by shutting off the Florida recount in the Bush/Gore presidential election formed the majority opinion in this case.

The feared impact of this decision is that large corporations, in particular, will be able to essentially negate the voice of average American citizens. With one single check they will have the ability to override all the checks sent in to a particular political campaign by private citizens. In other words they can essentially determine the outcome of elections by advertising directly on behalf of one candidate or against another. The recent healthcare debates in the Senate demonstrated how this might work. The Senators that were key to delaying the legislation and for watering it down had also received significant contributions from the Healthcare or Insurance industries. Well, multiply that by infinity because the new ruling sets no limits on corporate contributions. The fear is that within a few election cycles politicians at all levels will understand that the only way they can get elected is by following the dictates of their corporate masters… and that is essentially the definition of fascism.

Congressman Alan Grayson has started a new web site http://www.savedemocracy.net .  The following is taken from that web site.

Dear Friend,

This morning, five Supreme Court Justices stabbed at the heart of democracy, our electoral system. They overturned over 100 years of statute and precedent, and declared that corporations can spend all the money that they want to buy elections. In fact, these five men in robes declared, they have a constitutional right to do so. Now, we have to fight. That’s why I just signed Rep. Alan Grayson's petition to support his "Save Our Democracy" platform, because we cannot have a government that is bought and paid for by huge multinational corporations. We need a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

I hope you'll join me.

If you are concerned about this decision, you can do something by going to that web site and signing the petition.

In Part 1, the massive transfer of wealth to the most wealthy corporations in the bank bailout was discussed. This ruling represents a massive shift of political power to large corporations. Is there a pattern here? It's important to understand that there are things happening that have historically led to bad things in the world. If you want to make your world better so you can enjoy it more then change your own consciousness. Whether liberal or conservative, the first thing to do is to stop simply consuming what the corporations are pushing on you… whether material stuff or information. We are dependent on the corporations because of our addictions to their "stuff". They get power because we give them power. You take back your own world by becoming less invested in theirs. The more you are in control of your own world the better it will be.

This web site is about making the world a better place so that you can enjoy it. So, when big things happen it's important to think about whether it is going to make the world a better place or a worse place… and to do that it's important to determine what it means for the world to be better. Different people have different ideas, but at the heart of any definition must be the basic notion that better for anybody means that life is easier, more happy, more satisfying, and more secure. Then, by extension, something that makes the world better makes it better for the greatest number of individual people. In the USA, that means that something that makes citizens have easier, happier, more satisfying, more secure lives is a good thing.

So, by that definition, the current recession is a bad thing. That's an easy thing for just about everyone to agree with because very few people are happier, more satisfied, more secure, or have easier lives… very few except for the folks on wall street. Think about it. The facts are very simple.

• The wall street crowd did such an incredibly bad job that they put their companies and the economy of the entire nation at risk
• America bailed them out. In other words, the government took your money and gave it to the wall street banks.
• At the same time Americans were loosing their jobs and homes in record numbers.
• The wall street banks used your money to secure additional profits for themselves by doing additional speculation. They had an unbelievable deal that let them get all the profits if they won and let you take all the losses if they lost.
• The banks have done very little to help ordinary American citizens. They have not been loaning out your money to businesses that would hire you and would let you pay your mortgage.
• Now the wall street bankers are paying themselves huge bonuses with the money that was made with your money. This money would go a long distance to solving the money and jobs problems they helped to create.

We all want to change something in order to make our world better so that we can enjoy it more. At this time of year those changes often take the form of New Year's Resolutions, and right about now some of you are about to give up on a resolution or two. Don't! The secret is to do 3 simple things to make your Resolutions really work for you instead of against you.

Before going into the three simple things, take a moment to consider the form of typical New Year's Resolutions. They are things like "I'm going to lose weight." or "I'm going to start feeling better." Those are very broad topics. The problem is that these are like someone asking you to shoot at a target that's "over there somewhere." You can only hit a target if someone says, "Hit that target right there." In the same sense you need a clear target. "I'm going to lose 30 pounds." and "I will make my knees stop hurting." are much less lofty Resolutions because you can definitely say whether or not you acomplish them. Even so, there is a problem with them. This goes into what can be called The Psychology of Daily Defeats. If you set your Resolution to lose 30 pounds, the fact is that you can't acomplish that in a short amount of time. It just can't be done. So, everytime you get on the scale you will say to yourself, "I haven't lost the 30 pounds yet." or "I still need to lose 25 pounds." That means you experience defeat because you haven't achieved your Resolution… evenutally you give up.

So the second step is to create micro Resolutions. Things you can easily accomplish on a day to day or weekly basis. For example, the lose 30 pounds Resolution can be broken up into micro Resolutions like…

1. Find out about glycemic index based eating this week
2. Do 1 Vitalogy Recipe this week
3. Eat Vitalogy meals 80% of the time this week
4. Lose 1 pound this week

These are simply, easily accomplished micro Resolutions you achieve one small thing each week. Then you begin to experience Daily Successes. That reinforces what you are doing.

Many people will recognize this as setting goals and tasks from objectives. Those words work great in business, but the problem is that they are too weak psychologically for personal change. So, the third simple thing to do is to make a commitment in writing to someone you care about for each micro Resolution… and report back to them on how you did. If you make the commitment to lose 1 pound, then report that back.

These three simple steps of

1. defining clear targets
2. setting easily acomplished micro Resolutions
3. making commitments about your micro Resolutions

Will help you achieve the Resolutions that you made.

I've been reading a few comments, and, frankly this has inspired me to write an addendum to The Value of Nothing and the Wisdom of the Bodhisattvas. One of my favorite movies is Oh God You Devil staring George Burns who plays both God and the Devil. One scene where someone is interviewing the devil goes like this…

Interviewer: What is your greatest invention?

The Devil: Language

Another approach to that concept was provided by on of my teachers who said, "Modern man has lost the ability to distinguish reality from symbolic abstractions." Let me provide an example.

Most people would say that a flower is a real thing. Yet, if you get a room full of people together and ask them to write down a description of a flower you will get some that say "a plant", others that say "a rose", others that say "a tulip", and so forth. So really, flower is really an abstraction for a category of things. It is not a real thing itself. What about a "rose"? If you go through the same exercise you will get "red roses", "yellow roses", "bush roses", "climbing roses", and so forth. So rose, as real as it sounds, is another symbolic abstraction. Well, you can keep taking this to the next level and the next level until it starts to drive you crazy. What about things like love, freedom, conservative, liberal, and all the other similar abstractions we find in our language. I suspect that no two people agree on precisely what any of those terms mean.

Let's shift for a moment to human beings. When you think about it, all human beings have the same real concerns. They want to eat, they want to have a place to sleep, they want to feel safe, they want to have companionship. Whether you are liberal, conservative, American, Russian, Arabic, Christian, Jew, Socialist, Lawyer, Doctor, or Indian Chief, your basic needs are the same as other the needs of other people. That is what is real and that's an extremely important to point. When it comes to the realities of living, all people — past, present, and future — face the same issues.

Yet, throughout history certain individuals have discovered that they can promote their own self interests by creating linguistic abstractions that obscure the sameness of all people and, instead create divisions. By creating the abstractions that mentally create the "good guys" and the "bad guys" somebody ends up with more money or power. Yet, that is precisely the illusion that many religions talk about.

So, the question is whether it is a higher value for everyone to focus on the abstract divisiveness in order to get what's yours or to focus on the sameness and try to ensure that all people get their real human needs met.

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

Blessed are the peacemakers

Jesus clearly gives us the commandment to focus on the sameness of our neighbors and not on imagined diversity. That is our challenge in making the word better because it's critical for us to understand that can only happen if it's better for everyone. It is, again, the Bodhisattva Vow. Returning to the so-called "free market" value system, keep in mind that our cultural moral ideal overturned the tables of the money changers and said, "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." Enough said.