CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Sep 29, 2009 7:58 AM PDT

This essay is dedicated to Norman Vincent Peale, who taught us the power of positive thinking. It and the following several essays were written during the Labor Day holiday. Subsequent essays were written while I was constantly traveling and experiencing a remarkable series of problems with my computers and with access to the internet even when I had access to a functioning computer. I found that even this apparent "bad" luck had the  positive effect of forcing me to practice seeing the opportunities inherent even from seeming adversity, such as directing my attention to this book that I had trouble finding time to write. The result was that my faith that there is a way to overcome the obstacles in the road to democracy was increased in so doing.

Many Americans have lost interest in politics because they feel powerless to fight the pernicious changes that they see taking place over the last thirty years and more significantly, the last 10 years. From signing on to GATT, to NAFTA and on to the recent global economic meltdown, events seem to be spinning out of our control. Matthew Taibbi persuasively argued that the worldwide economic crisis was the result of the latest manipulation of the global financial market by Goldman-Sachs, through the deliberate creation of artificial bubbles in what is laughingly referred to as the free market.

In collusion with their friends at the Bundesbank, the Bank of Scotland and other members of a small international cabal of privileged financial institutions, they used the housing bubble that they engineered to reap record profits from taxpayers and investors, while destroying key competitors such as Lehman brothers and using taxpayer money to finance the takeover of smaller institutions that they had deliberately set up to fail by enticing their CEOS with massive short term profits.

What these sociopaths fail to understand is that their propaganda does not fool the well informed among us. They face a gathering storm as we focus the righteous anger of the American people through the power of the alternative media that is being increasingly recognized as the only reliable source of important information. Progressives have learned from the failed leaders of the recently deceased “permanent” Republican majority the techniques of emotional persuasion they used to confuse the people and distract them from the crimes against democracy that were being committed in full view of anyone who knew where to direct their attention.

Pretending to represent conservatives, the counter-Revolutionaries used the corporate media to systematically marginalize and economically starve the free press, while investing massively in the propaganda market from which most Americans were getting their misinformation. From FAUX “News” to the once proud New York Times, the mainstream media had become parrots and stenographers of the White House during the Cheney presidency.

Our task as an army of Soldiers For Peace thus consists of focusing our efforts in a strategic way to challenge those who are Hell-bent on inducing mass delusionality in the American mind. This mission is best accomplished by helping Americans to understand that their votes are not meaningless if we do not let fascistic international forces steal them from us. The truth is out there, and statistician-journalist Greg Palast has succinctly laid out for us how the Presidency was stolen in 2000 and 2004. We must have enough faith in the American people to believe that when they are willing to listen, they recognize the truth in what they are told, and that truth explained compellingly is much more powerful than self-serving lies and distortions.

If average American voters can be taught to abandon the artificial Left-Right distinction by which they filters information entering their awareness, they will easily perceive the pattern by focusing beyond the half-truths and outright distortion in the rhetoric of many members of the Senate who have cravenly sold their souls to these corporate interests. Using this money to finance their re-elections through propaganda campaigns in the mass media, key Senators willingly sell out the very Americans on whose votes they depend. Even honest politicians feel trapped in this system because they have quite reasonably in their minds abandoned the notion that “you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

Is it really realistic to hope that we can overcome these odds and take on the counter-Revolutionaries who have long ago re-established the economic aristocracy in America and other ostensibly democratic countries? It is possible if we believe that it is. Change begins when we start with the assumption that we can change the world. Only armed with this belief can we imagine how it may be accomplished. This is the mission for each Soldier For Peace. Search deep within yourself for hope in the belief that we can save the world from self-destruction, then go out and make it happen, by instilling that hope and drive to act that inspires each of us.

In the words of Steve Tyler of Aerosmith:




Every time I look in the mirror…
all these lines on my face getting clearer.
The past is gone.
It went by, like dusk to dawn.
Isn't that the way,
everybody's got their dues in life to pay.


Yeah, I know nobody knows
where it comes and where it goes.
I know it's everybody's sin.
You got to lose to know how to win.


Half my life's
in books' written pages.
Lived and learned from fools and
from sages.
You know it's true…


All the things come back to you...
Sing with me, sing for the year,
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear.
Sing with me, if it's just for today.
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away.


Yeah, sing with me, sing for the year,
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear.
Sing with me, if it's just for today.
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away.


Dream on, dream on, dream on,
dream until your dream comes true.
Dream on, dream on, dream on,
dream until your dream comes through.


Dream on, dream on, dream on,
dream on, dream on, dream on,
dream on, dream on, AHHHHHHH…………


Sing with me, sing for the year,
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear.
Sing with me, if it's just for today,
maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away.


Sing with me, sing for the year,
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear.
Sing with me, if it's just for today,
maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away......










Please join and contribute generously to Media Matters, faithful watchdog of truth in reporting, and to Josh Silver's Save the Internet.




Rick Staggenborg, MD


Coos Bay, OR

CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE. THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH

Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Jan 30, 2010 8:08 AM PST

This essay is dedicated to Norman Vincent Peale, who convinced millions of the power of positive thinking. Dedicating oneself to the service of others is the only way to win true friends and influence people to be all that we can be.

Anyone who has read this book of essays from beginning to end can plainly see that I am an incurable optimist. That makes me an outlier in a nation too ready to give up on democracy because too many others have given up power to the playthings of the corporate Puppetmasters. I am quite comfortable in this role, having always viewed myself as something of an outsider. I have never bought into the false divisions between myself and others and so have never fit neatly into any such division. The only “clique” to which I belong is males, and I am happy to call myself that now that I have finally realized that most men really do care about more than football and beer. All divisions other than that of gender are illusory. We all share a common ancestry and are composed of the same elements that were born in the stars. We are bound by our DNA, our common history and if we will allow it, our love for one another.

Until I realized that it is simply cultural that Americans have repeatedly schismed into opposing groups, I lived in a state of constantly warring emotions of deep depression and deeply troubling anger. At times, my anger consumed me to the point that I became irrational. It has only been through the power of my community of faith that I have come to a point that I can confidently state that I will no longer fall prey to the twin traps of anger and depression. I am now calm and confident that I understand the purpose of my life. I have studied Buddhism and the great religions enough to understand that we cannot act in the Universe with deliberation until we have found our center. My rock is my unyielding faith in the essential goodness of Mankind. My community of faith is Mankind.

The Buddha taught us that we are all one, connected by what Christians call the Holy Spirit to the one God spoken of in all great religions and variously referred to as Vishnu, Yaweh, and Allah. If this is the case, then we are all avatars of this one God, acting in the material world. We are born without conscious awareness of where we originated but with the capacity to learn, if we open our hearts and minds to the possibility of God’s existence, whatever its nature might be. I believe that we can all become Gods, in a sense. In my personal “religion,” the only difference between you and a prophet is that you may not have accepted the possibility that we can become one human consciousness by agreeing on the simple precepts that all men and women are created equal, endowed by their creator with inalienable rights and that it is the moral duty of each of us to love one another as we would like to love ourselves.

Most people that I talk to do not believe that it is possible to create a world where we all share these beliefs. To them, I say that they lack the imagination to see that we create our own world not only individually but collectively. We are born with free will and it takes an act of will to act according to our beliefs or to lose our integrity by failing to do so.

Therefore, the question becomes whether or not you choose to believe that it is possible to ensure that "God’s will" be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. If you do so and act accordingly, it is inevitable that its Kingdom will come to Earth as it is in Heaven. We are engaged even now in the battle of Armageddon. I have looked for but not found Jesus astride a white horse bearing a flaming sword. I believe that is because he already taught us and Mohammed reminded us of what Abraham tried to tell us: We are all one people and must act accordingly.

In the immortal words of Sting:

There is no political solution

to our troubled evolution.

Have no faith in Constitution,

there is no bloody revolution.

We are spirits in the material world,

We are spirits in the material world.

Our so-called leaders speak,

With words they try to jail ya.

They subjugate the meek,

But it’s the rhetoric of failure.

We are spirits in the material world,

We are spirits in the material world.

Where does the answer lie?

Living from day to day.

If it’s something we can’t buy,

There must be another way.

We are spirits in the material world,

We are spirits in the material world.

Rick Staggenborg, MD


Portland, Oregon

CHAPTER SEVENTY FOUR: FLAMING YOUTH

Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Feb 21, 2010 9:24 PM PST

This chapter is dedicated to Lynn Sharpe, the young woman I met last night at an event Soldiers For Peace International put on for the benefit of the good people of my current place of residence in Coos Bay, Oregon. She was blessed to stumble upon our joyous celebration of the struggle that gives our lives its purpose.

At the tender age of 17, Lynn has already learned the most important lessons it took me 51 years to fully understand. She courageously faces the dangers of the open road in order to fully embrace and experience all of the gifts that God has granted us. With faith in the eternal love and protection of that which watches and judges the actions of each of us, she proceeds into the world without fear in the quest to understand her role in the dance of Shiva.

Believing that each of us is immortal and not knowing the number of the days that God has allotted her, she is determined to explore the world and ponder its mysteries until she understands what she can do to help ensure that those who come after her enjoy all of the fruits of the liberty that God, through the saints of Armies past and present have fought to preserve for us.

Lynn is a beautiful angel who is destined to inspire many to enlist in the war against selfishness, greed and ignorance sparked when Cain slew Abel. Not even knowing it, she has touched the lives of everyone who has taken the time to notice her brilliant presence in their lives without coveting the ultimate gift God granted her alone to share with those of her choosing.

May God and man be with her to guide her and to assist her on her journey to understand the role she plays in the reclaiming of our kingdom. I am reassured not only by her strength of character and willingness to defend herself ably with the blade she carries but in my knowledge that she will encounter on her way the Army of the Soldiers For Peace who have dedicated their lives to ensuring that she and her progeny will inherit a world fit for human habitation.

We owe it to ourselves, our children and their children to leave the world closer to perfection than we found it. When we abandon fear, selfishness, greed and prejudice, we will create a Heaven on Earth worthy of passing on to our children. Only by atoning for our sins and those of our fathers can we ever hope to save our individual and collective souls from the fate that appears to be coming to those who lack faith in the ability of men and women of good will to salvage the civilization we have collectively built.

Mohammed taught that in order to do Allah’s will we must begin by winning the first jihad: the conquering of our own natural urges to put our personal interests above those of Mankind. Buddha called this the death of the ego and Christ taught that attaining it requires unconditional love for others. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his own son to show God that he was willing to obey it in all things.

That is all God asks any of us. If we err in attempting to serve the spirit of love, we are already forgiven. Christ did not die to erase our sins but to show to those who loved him that he was willing to forgo corporeal existence whenever God called upon him to act. This is unconditional love.

Every Soldier For Peace of any nation or religious background is called upon to do the same to the best of his or her ability and with awareness of our inability to comprehend God’s entire plan for us. God gave us free will to ensure the continual evolution of consciousness so that we might every day make the world a new and better place.

All of the prophets were listening to God as it made evident to them through simple but undeniable evidence in their own lives their roles in the great scheme of things. Each was a listener and a seeker of truth. Their mission was to teach others to keep hope alive when fear and panic overwhelmed reason at various key point in space-time.

While none of us can individually know the entirety of God’s desires for us, together we can not only understand the true nature of reality, but mold it to our collective will. Each of us through our choices determine the nature of consensus reality and ultimately, the fate of the Earth. Common sense tells us that neither God nor Man wants us to destroy ourselves and our planet yet again.

Abraham had faith in the eternal nature of our souls and in God’s intention to always serve the highest good for all. I for one refuse to continue others to allow the sacrifice of our children on the altar of greed and lust for domination. I am a Soldier For Peace, as Lynn will be on every step of her journey toward enlightenment. I have utter faith that God is with her at every step, for unlike most of us she is convinced that we are all angels on the Earth sent to recreate Heaven so that God may dwell in each of us in the only world we know from personal experience.

The ultimate mission of the Army of Soldiers For Peace International is to ensure that the sacrifices of our progenitors willingly made were not in vain. We honor our Father and Mother only when we keep this mind in all things we decide are true. Every decision is a moral one and we must tread lightly and choose our path carefully if we are to guarantee that the pain women have born through the generations was for a great cause.

May God bless Lynn and all of our children with its grace and help them to enjoy all that it has gifted us. This is my duty as I see it and I expect others of good will to ensure that it happens, whatever the number of the days allotted to my body. It is not my own, but God’s to do with as it sees fit to show me is consistent with my sense of integrity and duty to Mankind.

In the immortal words of Elton John:

It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside.

I'm not one of those who can easily hide.

I don't have much money but boy if I did,

I'd buy a big house where we both could live.

If I was a sculptor, but then again, no,

Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show…

I know it's not much but it's the best I can do.

My gift is my song and this one's for you.

And you can tell everybody this is your song.

It may be quite simple but now that it's done,

I hope you don't mind,

I hope you don't mind that I put down in words:

How wonderful life is while you're in the world.

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss

Well a few of the verses well, they've got me quite cross.

But the sun's been quite kind while I wrote this song.

It's for people like you that keep it turned on.

So excuse me forgetting but these things I do.

You see I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue.

Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean:

Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen.

And you can tell everybody this is your song.

It may be quite simple but now that it’s done,

I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words:

How wonderful life is, while you’re in the world.

Rick Staggenborg, MD


Coos Bay, Oregon