Craig Smith: ‘What are we so unhappy about?”

My mom recently sent me this email explaining how 67% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way their country is going. The author explains that Americans are ’spoiled brats’ because we have so much to be thankful for (electricity, running water, freedoms etc.) and that rather than look at the bigger picture we should be grateful for what our leaders are doing for us. Here is my response. I encourage you to check out the original email from Craig Smith, but essentially it’s neatly disguised pro-bush propaganda. Remember folks, interpret all the information you are exposed to and then come to your own conclusions; don’t let anyone think for you.

Dear Mom,

I like the emphasis on seeing the good and appreciating all that we have. We are truly blessed to be alive in the most exciting time in all of human history. Life is an amazing gift and to be able to truly live in the magic of the moment is what God asks of us. Re-read the 9 steps of spirituality by Brother Wayne Teasdale (I believe i sent this to you a long time ago… i’ll look for it again and re-send it to you)….. When you truly achieve oneness with yourself, with the universe, you have reached step 8. At this point you realize that selfless servitude to others to help them along their spiritual journey so that they may also achieve the oneness/satori/the zen etc… is part and parcel of our own spiritual quest. This means making a difference in the people’s lives that mean the most to you… family and friends can gain much strength from each of us…. However, it also means creating change on a more massive scale. Analyzing the politics/policies/laws/ etc. that impact our fellow man’s ability to be free, to have their basic needs met, and to realize that a MUCH better future is very easily possible if we actually become active members of society is how we can influence change on a major scale that ultimately can help more and more of us wake up from our daze and start to live life passionately again.

In many ways the average canadian/american lives life more comfortably than the wealthiest kings of past eras. In many ways our culture/lifestyle is preventing many of us from fully realizing our potential. There is a massive rise of anxiety and attention deficit disorders, depression, suicide, workplace violence, addiction… According to a 1992 World Health Organization study we are 3 times more likely to become depressed than our grandparents were at our age. A quarter of the US population will experience some symptoms of depression during their lives. While we may have adequate drinking water, police protection, clean hotels, etc. we as humans are still in a state of evolution. We work 8-10 hours a day (many of us in a job that we despise), we come home exhausted, put a microwave dinner in the microwave, turn on the reality t.v. and deep inside wish we were alive. Sure this cozy lifestyle is better than a lot of places in the world that experience great political and military turmoil. But are we truly better off and more ‘free’ than that tribe that was recently discovered in brazil that may be one of the last tribes that has not been exposed to the ‘real world’? The old evolution has always been about the efficiency of society… the agricultural revolution, the industrial/scientific revolution…. the new evolution is about the evolution of the individual… the new evolution is about the individual’s growth in the spiritual, emotional, mental and physical realm. Quantum mechanics (science) has come full circle… science originally branched from religion to seek truth and rationality and to get away from faith based logic….. what science is telling us now is that the power of our minds, the power of love, the power of living life in harmony with ourselves and with each other is helping us to realize the potential of our evolution. We are in the dawn of the new era… the age of aquarius is upon us… the spiritual prophets and visionaries have spoken about this time since the beginning of time. This is a new era of human consciousness…. We need leaders who are truly in tune with humanity, with the planet, with themselves to guide us. The policies of George Bush and Stephen Harper are steeped in corruption and evil… they are not true leaders…  They are not spiritually in tune with themselves, with the planet, or with humanity as a whole…George bush can go to church every single sunday but it doesn’t take a prophet to recognize that he is spiritually empty. We are all spiritual beings and we are no better or worse than any one else, therefore we cannot judge. However, we can recognize when someone is ‘in tune’ and we have to use our judgement when electing leaders, especially the leaders who make the most impact on all of humanity and the planet. We have much to be extremely grateful for, but if our good fortune is at the stake of someone else’s than we can not be truly satisfied until everyone has the same opportunities to be free and to pursue their spiritual journey. Killing the taliban and replacing them with warlords is not the solution… how long will it take before we wake up and learn from our mistakes? A visionary like Depak Chopra makes wonderful arguments about the political force of love and spirituality, and 4 years under the guidance and leadership of a man like him could make the whole world wake up. Big business, big agriculture, big pharma, big industry, big oil have benefited from spiritually inept, corrupt, dishonest, deceitful, evil ‘leaders’ like bush, reagan, harper etc. for too long. Unfortunately when a visionary leader comes into power in a country like venezuela or guatemala and tries to free their people from the chains of american ‘big’ interests, they get assassinated. The CIA has mingled in the affairs of every leader who displays courage, a desire for change, a desire to truly help the poor and disenfranchised and the CIA has readily admitted to doing unspeakable things. Read the book “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” to learn more about this, and to verify any doubts you may have. The countries that we love so much have done many horrible and unspeakable things around the world because of the greed and lust for power that our system creates. I love life to the brim; without living in a location as free as Vancouver I likely would not have evolved into the person that I am today. That being said, I think we need to look at the direction that we are headed in as a country and find the strength to do what is right…. in our day to day lives as well as on the political scene.

I have hope for obama. he sounds like he speaks the truth. I am also hesitant to place complete trust in him. I know that he is backed by a lot of very powerful men. I also know that he is upsetting a lot of very powerful men. I hope he is able to initiate major change, and I hope he is able to open up the eyes, the minds and the hearts of the American people to help America as a whole lose their ego. Disconnection from our ego is a very potent spiritual message delivered by many very wise spiritual men and women, and America as a whole needs to lose its ego. Gorbachev referred to it as America’s “winning complex”, the idea that America believes it is the best and needs to always win and be the best. This is a horrible trait in an individual…. arrogant, snotty, ignorant, bullyish, naive….. and it is very evident to the rest of the world that America displays these same traits in both their domestic and foreign policies. Neither America or Israel are any more God’s chosen people than the Australians, the Argentinians, the Bangladesh, the Rawandans, etc. and it is blasphemous to believe that. We are all God’s children, and until America the great wakes up, realizes that, and truly starts to act like that I will continue to be critical.

Yes we are extremely lucky… Yes there is a lot more goodness in our lives than bad… However, the arguments made by Craig Smith are redundant, superficial, and are part of the ‘old-paradigm’ evolution that  needs to be subject to de-emphasis. Sure, pumping money and fear into a war on terror might protect us from terrorists this year, maybe next, maybe even the next year. But eventually we need to take a step back and critically analyze the real issues that are causing terrorism because this ’shield’ is artificial and will crack.

There are many authors, visionaries, poets, politicians etc. that communicate on a very deep level and are very worthy of all of our attention.

Sean Penn speaks at Coachella Valley Festival, urges youth action

INDI, Calif. – Sean Penn spoke at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Sunday, urging the young crowd to involve themselves politically.

The Oscar-winning actor, a late addition to the music festival, joking referred to his out-of-place billing among the 125-plus performers.

Wearing a T-shirt and jeans and smoking a cigarette while he sat on a stool, Penn said he unfortunately couldn’t perform his “a cappella Celine Dion cover act” since he had “compromised his upper register.”

Instead, Penn urged festival-goers to join him on his “Dirty Hands Caravan,” a biodiesel cross-country bus trip he plans to launch Monday, arriving in New Orleans on May 4. The purpose of the trip, which he hopes 300 will join, is to encourage young people to be more politically and environmentally involved.

“The government can’t do it,” Penn said. “They can’t save this thing.”

Penn said that while younger generations were smarter and more technologically savvy than any before it, they were separating themselves through technology.

He also criticized the war in Iraq.

“For the 3,000 people we lost on 9/11, we’ve lost 4,000 in this war, and that’s just American soldiers,” Penn said.

“And why did we let it happen?” he added. “It’s simple: We let it happen.”

The “most powerful third party is you and me,” Penn said.

Penn was one of the few participants to discuss politics at the Southern California festival, where dancing and music were far more prevalent.

U.S. Election Diary: Religious Right

By Rob Reynolds in Columbus, Ohio

McCain has warned of the threat from extremism in Islam, not the religion as a whole.

On the road to clinching the Republican party nomination for president, John McCain worked hard for the endorsement of influential Evangelical Christian ministers.

The ministers are helping shore up McCain’s support on the party’s right wing, which has always been sceptical about whether the Arizona senator is a true-blue conservative.

But one of those minister’s beliefs about Islam and Muslims raise disturbing questions.

Rod Parsley, the pastor of a large and profitable Ohio mega-church, calls Islam a false religion. He says Allah is a demon spirit and that Muslims are bent on world conquest.

Parsley endorsed McCain in February, praising him as a “strong, true, consistent conservative”.

Sharing a Cincinnati, Ohio, stage with Parsley, McCain said: “I am very honoured today to have one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide, Pastor Rod Parsley. Thank you for your leadership and your guidance. I am very grateful you are here.”

He certainly had reason for gratitude – a week later, Parsley’s support helped McCain win the important Ohio primary.

Evangelist

Reverend Parsley, who often holds services in which people are supposedly cured of disease by divine intervention, runs the sprawling World Harvest church near Columbus, Ohio.

World Harvest has a 12,000 member congregation, a bible college, and a television studio, which broadcasts his sermons.

A frequent theme of those homilies is the threat to Christian values posed by gays, liberals and Muslims.

In his book, Silent no More, Parsley says the United States was ordained by God to defeat Islam.

In one chapter, titled The Deception of Allah he writes: “I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfil its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”

noam chomsky: distorted morality

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4054523048548733881

we watched this chomsky lecture filmed at harvard last night. The man really does his research! Check it out

List of documentaries to watch and spread

A good friend of mine recommended that we compile a list of informative and accessible documentaries that coincide with the aims of the fungus in the hopes of raising as much awareness as possible. He compiled this list of documentaries that are available on the internet at various locations. Thanks so much C for the info.

Here are various websites where many of these documentaries are available:
- Ovguide
- movie alien
- joox
- Divxlive
- Weatherwars.info
- Alex jones websites
- Infowars
- Prison planet
- Vancouver9-11truth.org
- Commondreams.org
- skolnicksreport

Here are the recommended documentaries. I haven’t seen many of them yet, so I can’t comment too much on them. Remember that thinking critically is always the key when attempting to decipher the information from any media source.

- Hacking Democracy
- America: Freedom to Fascism
- Who killed John O’Neill
- The Weather Underground
- JFK: The Bush Connection
- Alex Jones: Endgame, Matrix of Evil, Terrorstorm, and many others…
- FEMA – Concentration Camps
- Banking with Nazis
- The Panama Deception
- Decoding the past – secrets of the dollar bill
- Illuminazi
- The Illuminati
- The History of Freemasonry
- WMD: Weapons of mass deception
- The Secret NASA transmissions
- The Future of Food

I will be making a conscious effort to write more on the blog…..
until the next episode,

D-Fungus

Civil Disobedience: Howard Zinn Video, Hannah Arendt’s words

www.howardzinn.org/

celeb endorsement of the day:

Bruce Springsteen raves about Howard Zinn

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, under the heading “Inspiration,” Bruce Springsteen says: “Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States had an enormous impact on me. It set me down in a place that I recognized and felt I had a claim to. It made me feel that I was a player in this moment in history, as we all are, and that this moment in history was mine, somehow, to do with whatever I could. It gave me a sense of myself in the context of this huge American experience and empowered me to feel that in my small way. I had something to say, I could do something. It made me feel a part of history, and gave me life as a participant.”

“Civil disobedience arises when a significant number of citizens have become convinced either that the normal channels of change no longer function, and grievances will not be heard or acted upon, or that, on the contrary, the government is about to change and has embarked upon and persists in modes of action whose legality and constitutionality are open to grave doubt”

“The extreme form of power is All against One, the extreme form of violence is One against All. And this latter is never possible without instruments.”

“Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of the individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together…Power needs no justification, being inherent in the very existence of political communities; what it does need is legitimacy. The common treatment of these words as synonyms is no less misleading and confusing than the current equation of obedience and support. Power springs up whenever people get together and act in concert, but it derives its legitimacy from the initial getting together rather than from any action that then may follow. Legitimacy, when challenged, bases itself on an appeal to the past, while justification relates to an end that lies in the future. Violence can be justifiable, but never will be legitimate. Its justification loses in plausibility the farther its intended end recedes into the future.

Strength unequivocally designates something in the singular, an individual entity; it is the property inherent in an object or person and belongs to its character, which may prove itself in relation to other things or persons, but is essentially independent of them…

Force, which we often use in daily speech as a synonym for violence, especially if violence serves as a means of coercion, should be reserved, in terminological language, for the ‘forces of nature’ or the ‘force of circumstances’, that is, to indicate the energy released by physical or social movements…

Violence, finally, as I have said, is distinguished by its instrumental character. Phenomenologically, it is close to strength, since the implements of violence, like all other tools, are designed and used for that purpose of multiplying natural strength until, in the last stage of their development, they can substitute for it.

It is not superfluous to add that these distinctions, though by no means arbitrary, hardly ever correspond to watertight compartments in the real world, from which nevertheless they are drawn.

-hannah arendt, Crises of the Republic, 1969