CHAPTER NINETY TWO. SOUND THE TRUMPET! THE BATTLE PLAN TO TAKE BACK THE AMERICAS.

Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Jun 2, 2010 8:57 AM PDT

This chapter is dedicated to Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of the five nations who has inspired generations of Latin Americans to dream of freedom and democracy throughout the Americas. Like Buddha he was born a Brahmin among his people. It was the love and devotion of his Black slave nanny that saved him from falling victim to the dark Angel of his selfish nature and become a true Soldier For peace. Rejecting the privilege to which he was born, he never gave up the ideals he learned from his teachers. He spent his life fighting for all the People of Latin America.

It is a sad commentary on the tendency of men to think only in terms of tribes that exist to divide the wealth of the People among themselves that Bolivar felt compelled to declare himself dictator in order to save the people from the devastation that inevitable befalls a people who submit to rule by an oligarchy of the privileged. Although President Monroe was probably sincere when he declared that the United States would defend its brothers and sisters from European designs of conquest, the US itself soon gave in to the temptations of conquest.

Today we find ourselves faced with the prospect that the CIA, acting on behalf of a cabal of international corporate terrorists, will continue to sow havoc in a Latin America that remains divided by the selfishness of its own leaders. The dictators and strongmen who have ruled many of the nations of this region of the globe seem content to feast upon the bones of the People that they have sold into slavery for a few pieces of silver.

When I dream of a future in which all men and women live in harmony with nature in the fabled return of the Garden, I try to imagine a means by which we might unite the people in order to achieve Mankind’s dream of ending war. I have this vision that suddenly, there is a sonic boom and I look up to see Superman flying above, ready to save us from ourselves. Look! It’s a bird! No, it’s a plane! No, it’s Hugo Chavez! He has come to save us!

Bolivar was trained in the art of war by the very Spanish overlords who he successfully drove from the continent of South America. What a delicious irony it would be if the fascist generals who were trained in the School of the Americas to be the boot-licking lackeys of the CIA and the corporate terrorists for whom they toil would suddenly develop sentience. Perhaps they would realize that their actions are ultimately self-defeating. If they have any love at all for their children, they would turn their weapons on the agents of the CIA and the US military and run them out of Latin America.

If the US were a true representative democracy, we would elect leaders who spoke and acted in the interests of all the people of the United States rather than for the corporate criminals who have paid for their lavish propaganda campaigns that enable them to serve the Puppetmasters of the Senate. The People of the US are inherently good, as are People everywhere. If we were allowed a vote on every decision that an honest group of Senators would carry out, we would surely consider the interests of our neighbors in Latin America when acting on issues of mutual concern.

If only someone of courage and vision would arise in the United States who would stand against the corruption of the government by the selfish men to whom we have handed the tiller of the ship of state. All it would take is one voice rising above the clamor of the angry victims of their own selfishness to be heard proclaiming that the Empire has no clothes. We must provide that collective voice and elect individuals who will make it echo in the chambers of Congress.

The naked ambition of the Empire builders is to lead an international corporate cabal in enslaving the planet for a self-selected elite. If those of us can explain this to those who are hypnotized by the corporate media, it would be apparent to all citizens of this once-proud democracy. Every God-fearing citizen would recoil in horror at what our leaders have done to our brothers and sisters in the name of “peace and freedom” if they could only see behind the curtain and view the reality of what the United States has truly come to represent.

The simple act of introducing a Constitutional amendment on the floor of the Senate that would propose to abolish corporate personhood would have Earth-shattering consequences. If this senator would then challenge each of the other 99 Senators to openly choose between the People and these corporate criminal conspirators, there would still be time to save the planet from the threats of endless war, famine, pandemic and environmental destruction that are the Four Horseman whose hoof beats can be heard beating ever closer from off in the near future.

Good is truly stronger than evil, but the meek will not inherit the Earth until the assertive claim it in their name.  If enough of us believe that it is possible to save ourselves by listening to the Angels of our better nature, we will provide our own salvation. If there comes a day when the final battle between Good and Evil is played out upon the Earthly plane, together we can assure  that it will be a joyous one rather than the terror that the weak of faith fear. 

A restored democracy in the US need only join with the democratic forces being assembled to the South by our latter-day Bolivar and link with Canada, a free Europe and Australia to demand justice for the people of the Mideast, Asia, Russia, Africa and the subcontinent. The day of reckoning appears to be nearer than the faithless can imagine. Let us pray to whatever God  we can imagine that it will give us strength and guidance in the days to come. The battle of Evermore will not be won by faith alone.

In the immortal words of Robert Plant:




The Queen of Light took her bow and then she turned to go.
The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom and walked the night alone.


Oh, dance in the dark night, sing to the morning light.
The Dark Lord rides in force tonight, and time will tell us all.
Oh, throw down your plow and hoe, race now to my bow.
Side by side we wait the might, of the darkest of them all.


I hear the horses thunder down in the valley below.
I'm waiting for the angels of Avalon, waiting for the eastern glow.
The apples of the valley hold the seeds of happiness.
The ground is rich from tender care, which they do not forget, no, no.
Dance in the dark night, sing to the morning light.


The apples turn to brown and black, the tyrant's face is red.
Oh, war is the common cry, pick up your swords and fly.
The sky is filled with good and bad, mortals never know.


Oh well, the night is long, the beads of time pass slow.
Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow.
The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath.
The drums will shake the castle wall, the Ringwraiths ride in black (ride on).


Sing as you raise your bow, (ride on) shoot straighter than before.
No comfort has the fire at night that lights the face so cold.
Oh, dance in the dark night, sing to the morning light.
The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back, bring it back.


At last the sun is shining, the clouds of blue roll by.
With flames from the dragon of darkness, the sunlight blinds his eyes.
Oh, bring it back, bring it back...






Rick Staggenborg, MD


Roseburg, Oregon

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIX. CONNECTING THE DOTS

Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Sep 15, 2010 7:38 AM PDT.

This essay is dedicated to my wife Karen, who has more or less patiently endured my absence during most of the time that I have been writing this book, working around the country to promote a single payer health care system and now to run for the office of US senator. I am so sorry that she was hurt because I felt a moral imperative to respond to the clear threat to human civilization that we are facing. I have had to put aside personal concerns to throw my every effort into the cause of providing our children with a world worth inheriting.

I promise her that things will be different come November, when we will take a well-earned vacation together in Hawai’i and reconnect with each other before I travel to meet friends in Turkey who are supporters of the work of Soldiers For Peace International. I hope that by then I will have news that I will be going to Washington in January, but that is a bridge we will cross together if it appears.

If I have at times seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of intellectual giants I have met along the way, both famous and unknown. To them I owe everything that has helped me along the way to create the vision of a world worth passing along to our children who will be responsible to see that it is preserved for future generations.

What follows is a summary of the themes of this book, which are elaborated on at more length in the commentaries that I have made in this text. I invite interested readers to add their comments online and to become listeners and callers of the web-based talk show SPFI Radio, the voice of Soldiers For Peace International on the worldwide web.

I began writing Stop the Madness on the suggestion of Dr. Ken Rossi, a veteran and an open minded conservative who implored me to put my ideas down for posterity. It took me awhile to get started, but once I did I found it a welcome relief from my job stress as a VA psychiatrist and the rigors of my political work. Because my political work was initially focused on single payer health care advocacy, I began by explaining how recognizing the systematic manipulation of the political process of this “reform” effort was a good way to understand the relentless assault on democracy that has taken place over the last several decades. It was my goal to awaken others to what I had belatedly discovered: the United States has been under fascist rule for decades, since its people turned over the reins of government to corporations.

This counter-Revolution has been led by the Puppetmasters of Congress and the White House, the international corporate terrorists who believe themselves to be Masters of the Universe. These elitists have no respect for the average individual and therefore no respect for democracy. Democracy being necessary for a nation to act responsibly, I have always known that the end of civilization would be near if we did not heed the messages of all the prophets who have warned us when we are one human family whose survival depend on the recognition of our interdependence.

The time has come to abandon self-imposed distinctions and petty differences to restore the natural order of things that we used to take for granted. Together, we can control our individual and collective destinies by working together for peace, justice and freedom for all the Peoples of the world. The success of the mission of Soldiers For Peace International will depend on establishing democracy in America, which will begin when we get corporate money out of elections. This is the only way a People can take down the corporatocracy that aims to  enslave the planet by undermining the gains of the American Revolution.

Democracy depends on equality, yet children of privilege have successfully inculcated the idea in the collective American consciousness that it is natural that some will rule over others as if by divine providence. They believe that Ayn Rand was right when she wrote that humans are by nature competitive and that those who prevail in the vicious struggle for supremacy are worthy of exaltation. This process of unnatural selection has perverted the law of the land into the Law of the Jungle. In their blind faith in the power of the Invisible Hand, they accepted the foolish notion that practicing selfishness would magically produce Paradise on Earth instead of the worldwide fascist threat that we now face.

We can no longer accept the idea that greed and selfishness are noble and good. It is perplexing how religious fundamentalists in the United States have been led like lambs to the slaughter by the promise that they will be rewarded for blind obedience to an ideology at direct odds with the teachings of the man they assume will save them from the consequences of their willful ignorance.

Theirs is the faith that no effort on their part, Jesus will save them from the certain destruction they assume the rest of us alone will face. They feel no responsibility to do as he  said and unite as one to ensure that Armageddon does not occur. I do not believe that they can remain blinded by the hope of the Rapture to save them. As they too fall victim to their own willful ignorance, they will come to understand the hubris of believing that they alone understand God’s will. Like many who have faith but reject religion, I believe in the universal presence of God in dwells in each of us and in the world at large. I have  faith that this will impel us to recognize that each of us is an aspect of God and therefore responsible to love and care for one another.

We cannot be saved by faith alone. Only by our works can we hope to restore the Garden and bring Heaven to Earth as men and women have prayed for since before the Lord’s Prayer was first written. Prophets have come in different times and places to reveal to us the nature of God and reality in terms that the People of those times and places could understand. It is our duty as Deists, atheists or doubters to come together to decide collectively what that message is, for it alone can unlock the secrets that science cannot reveal. The universe operates under probabilistic principles and only by considering this can we divine the truth of life’s mysteries unseen. Those things unseen may be revealed in the patterns of the Universe to those who attend to them.

It is the product of the individual probabilities of events occurring throughout space-time that convinces the rational scientist that God exists. History is a series of improbable events, each leading us toward the destiny that is now before us. Those who do not know how to estimate probabilities are going to be blind to the patterns of world history that have enabled futurists to predict events millennia before they occur. The irrational common man tends to skew his estimates of the probabilities of rare events, ascribing seeming miracles to coincidence. If they were to continue to  have such utter faith in either nihilism or salvation by faith alone they would not contribute to the salvation of Mankind by joining others in the effort. To divorce themselves from the rest of humanity when human civilization itself is threatened with self-destruction would be a betrayal not easily forgiven.

It baffles me still that some atheists continue to fight a lonely battle against injustice when they not only deny the existence of a loving God but have no faith in the essential  goodness of Man.  They have the same belief in the essentially evil nature of man as the fundamentalists they so bitterly oppose. Some, having blinded themselves to the possibility that God is all of us, have abandoned the fight altogether. We cannot stop the imposition of worldwide fascism until we have a working relationship with each other that will bring us ever closer to each other and to the God that is within, beyond and between all of us.

In the immortal words of George Harrison:

We were talking-about the space between us all.
And the people-who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth-then it's far too late-when they pass away.

We were talking-about the love we all could share-
When we find it
To try our best to hold it there-with our love
With our love-we could save the world-if they only knew.

Try to realize it's all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows ON within you and without you.

We were talking-about the love that's gone so cold
And the people who gain the world and lose their soul-
They don't know-they can't see-are you one of them?
When you've seen beyond yourself-then you may find,
peace of mind is waiting there.

And the time will come when you see
we're all one, and life flows on within you and without you.

 

 

Rick Staggenborg, MD

Sawyer Rapids, Oregon.