Letter to Hugh

I thought that this letter to a friend, my former NLP instructor, was worth saving. He humorously referred to this State as "Fornicalia."

Hi Hugh,

Fornicalia is, in my experience, a wonder to live in. Even with the financial stress these days it is difficult to complain. But as you know, happiness is a matter of choice, focus, and action. But between even my shortcomings and that of my environment, the overwhelming nod goes to happiness.

I recently met a wonderful woman and we are getting along very well. We have very similar interests and spend a lot of time just talking with each other. She makes me smile just being around.

I continue to be grateful for the education I had under your tutelage. I use it on myself and sometimes others if asked. I am increasingly inclined to do more, and am quite sinecure in my saying that I would attended your sessions there. Here the economy is such, though, that I do not bring in monetarily but a ridiculously small portion of what I made very easily there. That, really, is my only regret about being here, other than missing my good friends. Don't get me started. But though it is easy to blame, I am responsible for how I set my rudder, so I keep trying.

Yes, Fornicalia would be an apt title for the shenanigans going on here on many levels, but there are so many books, essays, and shows on the topic, I feel it is well covered and that I can devote my energy to more viable pursuits than chronicling evil and complaint. I am often active in City and County level meetings and activities and do some volunteer work. That is what I have to offer in that arena, and it is enough to tell me much about how government works.

Mostly it is not in the interest of stakeholders, but of those who have money enough to hire others to harangue policy makers. That tells me that most lawmakers have little of their own minds, little education in social, civic, and financial dynamics, and are mostly self interested. Usually I vote to get people out, as choices for those who are sane are radically limited. But as you might see, this Country has devolved into a second rate nation already, and people being what they are seek refuge in denial and inaction until there is an actual incontrovertible disaster. "Stataras Flondarans": Pity the poor Earthians.

But the mass psychology only effects what I have to deal with, not how I feel about myself. I wish there was a global "Reset Your Brain," but short of a Day the Earth Stood Still scenario (the old version,) it ain't gonna happen. Maybe the race will have another choke point and the survivors retain some good sense this time. Too bad; this planet could be a Paradise beyond imagining save for fear and greed. The root of morality goes widely undiscovered despite being readily available apart and distinct from denominations and -isms. But money and power are fabulous insulators. And so it goes, and so history unwinds.

But that, Hugh, is why we owe gratitude to you and others who maintain and promote sanity. Those who do that are to a degree anti-entropic. We have to be happy about that as we benefit greatly from such work. And we do know that the emergence of higher forms of anything always comes with fragility, and fewer numbers, and a commensurate vulnerability to the vagaries of anything, especially ignorance.

But I think that that is what makes it such a thrilling adventure. Life is Good, Hugh, and it will try anything, even its own destruction, to express every possible mode of experience. Who can fault that? It is the Great Unfolding, the Great Experiment of "What if???" Pretty darned exciting, eh?

Best,

Anton

Answer to a soldier upset about economics and Pledge of Allegiance

I didn't serve because of a 4-F rating. But many of my friends died in the Nam conflict. And I do believe in and serve as best I can the purported ideals of this Country by taking part in the political scene and volunteer work in the community.

I am also aware of history. Whatever first brought folks here, this Country that we love was founded by rich white men primarily on the ideals of commercial enterprise and the oppression of commerce in the colonies exemplified by, say, G. Washington having to send cotton to England to have it made into clothes as that was not allowed to be done here by King George. Slavery and indenture were common, as we know, and even Jefferson, whom we look to for our best Democratic ideas was a slave owner. In fact, it is arguable in some respect that this Country is still a corporation founded and owned by Great Britain.

I am, as an independent business man and entrepreneur who has made his own living for the past seven years, quiet aware as well of what is required of one to make a living by wits and talent in this economy. And being 63 years old and starting my life in a DP camp and then living in a ghetto and successively twice after in primarily black neighborhoods, I also know a bit about poverty. And having co-managed two multi-million dollar estates I know a bit about wealth. And my Dad being active in politics at every level for all of his life, I know a bit about that scene as well.
From this perspective I can readily say that though there are a few people who are lazy and feel entitled in the lower classes that we publicly rail about, this feature of human immaturity is, I greatly assure you, endemic in every class. The difference is that not only can those who have money, lots of it, protect themselves by legal entitlements under other names, eg subsidies to oil, corn, and tobacco corporations, they can also use their wealth to ever extract more from those who have less and vote themselves more. If you can read history books and interpret the news, you know this.
We have, in fact, in this country and adversarial plutocratic republic, and no one wishes to openly talk about the elephant in the room because guess where campaign funding comes from?

And even on the local scene, as I know from attending City Council and County Board of Supervisors meetings when I can, the people who have an actual and living concern with outcomes are busy working while lobbyists who are paid to push special interests swarm over such meetings and even have influence behind close doors, which we have plentiful evidence of.

So while I'm one who believes that people such as you, and others who have served by putting their lives on the line, perhaps have a claim to citizenship and the vote above the common person, I have my serious doubts, even supported by the views courageously expressed by Dwight Eisenhower, that our astonishingly expensive and invasive military tactics go a bit beyond the ideals of the Democracy they are purported to serve. Indeed, 1/40th of that budget could easily erase the health and social security concerns we now face. And remember, the next largest military budget in the world is 1/4 ours and belongs to an ally. The budgets of our "enemies" are crumbs compared to ours.


And as for blaming Obama? Where were the blamers during Bush's administration, and going back to Reagan when the safety net now proved to be an essential part of our society was first attacked? Indeed, look at the records Republican Congresses, which were a great majority from that era to this, and see who spent how much. In fact, the things now in the public eye as fear factors regarding where our money is going were generated by financial favors to the very rich at the disproportionate expense of the middle, which is why that exceptionally stabilizing element in a healthy society is dissolving in ours. And the very very rich. And beyond that rich. If you are not familiar with a thing called the "L" curve, I encourage you to take a look at it.

Am I against people having money? NO, I am not. I am against people who have the power to vote themselves favors doing so at my and your expense and blaming their own kind who have less as the culprits in problems while they often get rewarded beyond our financial imagination for doing us the favor of stealing from us. This is exactly what Jefferson predicted 200 years ago would be the end of Democracy. I might suggest that the battle for that Ideal may not be for the most part on foreign soil, but in our own systems.