CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. THE END OF THE ZERO SUM GAME

Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Aug 18, 2009 6:24 PM PDT

In memory of the beautiful mind of Jonathon Nash, the developer of game theory.

Chess is an interesting game and useful in that it helps develop the skills of logical deduction and thinking ahead with regard to consequences. Like football, it sharpens the skills essential to prevailing in situations of conflict. It does no harm but can stunt social development if the player forgets that it is just a game and spends so much time at it that it becomes an end in itself.

When played only to one-up others for the purpose of self-gratification, chess can become a bad habit. Once mastered, it can waste time better spent on productive activity, if indulged in to the exclusion of more meaningful pursuits. It is a moral imperative to make the effort to turn thoughts into actions that assure that the world becomes a place more fit for human habitation.

Unlike football, playing chess at least does not have the potential to cause harm to the players. Both games simulate the thinking skills necessary to successfully wage war, which can be helpful if attacked but is worse than useless if when war is avoidable. Most fights result when efforts at communication fail to make clear that such a conflict is mutually harmful and will not result in benefit to either party. This explains Thom Hartmann’s observation that no two truly democratic nations have ever chosen to war with one another. In a functioning democracy, open dialogue between citizens inevitably leads to this conclusion.

America has repeatedly been led to war against other nations precisely because it is not a functioning democracy. The corporate interests that control the Senate also control the mainstream media and therefore the message that is received by those who remain trapped in their Matrix of lies. It is in the best interests of these soulless entities and their psychopathic CEOs to maintain the fiction that America can only progress at the expense of other nations. On a smaller scale, they glorify radical individualism as they cultivate a belief that greed is in fact a virtue. When they claim to represent those with spiritual values, they turn the Christian vision of social justice on its head.

Secular humanists and progressives of various religions see things differently. It is critical that secular humanists do not dismiss Christians and others of faith as self-deluded reactionaries. Not only does this reflect ignorance on the part of those holding this view, but it risks losing the opportunity to join forces with this group of socially aware and active members of the community in fighting for social justice.

Progressive religious leaders will be key allies in reaching across the great divide between conservatives and progressives. This is how we communicate to those unaccustomed to listening to progressive voices the message that we are all in this together and must join forces to achieve social justice. This alliance is crucial if we are to win this key battle against the corporatists who hold America’s fate in their hands.

All progressives, whether religious or secular, understand the principle of interdependence and the power of selflessness in defeating the morally and intellectually bankrupt forces that are struggling to maintain their death grip on society. Like soldiers, we must put the mission before any thoughts of personal reward or cost.

We will win this battle only if we respect each other for our differences as well as our similarities and show by our example how we can heal itself from the fragmentation which threatens the fabric of American society. As in war, we must trust that our allies have our backs, regardless of our personal prejudices about those who choose to fight beside us.

The zero sum game is one that can only have one winner. Together, we can prove to the worshipers of Ayn Rand that this is a false model upon which to base society. The reality is that if we all accept our interdependence and work for a just economy and society, our wealth will increase and we will all have more than we could ever need.

We really do not have a choice. If we accept the conservative assumption that others are to be feared and that the purpose of existence is mere survival, then we are choosing to follow the path of mutual self-destruction. We must choose to base our thoughts and actions on the assumption that all men are basically good, regardless of how far in error they may find themselves.

This is an essential assumption to believe that the People can rule themselves. Only  when we accept the belief that all of us are equally deserving of love will we understand that our purpose is to help the radical individualists learn the nature of their error and persuade them to join the human race to create a sane society while it is still possible.

In the immortal words of Justin Hayward:


           

  Moody Blues - Nights in White Satin (extended version)
- Watch more Music Videos at Vodpod.

Rick Staggenborg, MD


Coos Bay, OR

CHAPTER FIFTY SIX. THE BRAVE NEW WORLD

 Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Nov 29, 2009 7:30 AM PST






This chapter is dedicated to Aldous Huxley, who credited the experiencing of nearly total blindness in his youth with opening the doors of his perception. He perfected the art of seeing and gave us the terrifying vision of our possible futures in 1984 and Brave New World.








As I drifted toward consciousness this morning, I visualized myself at a crossroads. This image seemed to represent a choice I had to make that would determine the path my life would take from that point. It came to me that this did not have to represent some critical decision, but any of the choices that I make every day that together determine my personal future. With every decision that I make, my individual destiny changes.

The same can be said of our collective future. Every day we make the decisions that shape the future of Mankind and each day we awaken to a new world. The nightmare of an inexorable march to self-destruction is not possible if we awaken to the fact that our interdependence requires of us that we consciously choose to love life itself enough to show in every choice our love for ourselves and each other. We need only choose this path to free ourselves and choose the high road toward cooperation and ultimate peace.


There are an infinite number of futures that we might inhabit. Our choices are but one force among many that determine our individual and shared fates. The decisions of others play largely in our destiny, as do apparently random events that may have unpredictable consequences.

At times, small and seemingly insignificant occurrences may change the future in ways impossible for us to recognize. This is termed the butterfly effect, which may be the basis of karma, if such a thing exists. The theory of karma postulates that our fortunes depend on our actions not only in this life but in past lives. In Buddhist and earlier Hindu traditions, it is accepted as a given that all of our actions are punished or rewarded in the fullness of time.


There is a vast gulf between various schools of religious thought as to whether there is a God who can intervene in our individual and thus collective fates. At one extreme, it is believed that there is no God and that our individual choices determine our ultimate fate. Obviously, this is only true if reincarnation is a fact of existence, since there would be no other way to explain why some are so disadvantaged a birth or by later life circumstances, regardless of their conduct in this life.

It strikes me as extremely illogical to begin shaping my personal reality by making the a priori assumption that life itself has no inherent purpose. If the answer to the question of God's existence is unanswerable with certainty, then I choose to believe that God exists and is perfect love.


At the other extreme of religious belief are those religions that argue that God determines all things, thus presupposing that free will is an illusion. It is clear that many of those subscribing to this notion of blind faith in the unseen have abrogated their responsibility to act upon the world with care and the sense that there are consequences to their actions that are under their control. They blithely choose to follow the path of least resistance toward perceived rewards that they convince themselves they have earned or have been granted by their special relationship to a God who exists only in their imaginations.

Thus in America we find religious fundamentalists hastening what they see as the inevitable destruction of the world, and throughout the world jihadists kill in the name of a perverted version of Allah that they believe wills their craven acts of destruction and will reward them in the next world.


Physicists engaged in constructing models of physical reality concluded long ago that God does indeed “play dice with the Universe,” to use Einstein’s evocative phrase. At a subatomic level, the physical location of a particle such as a photon cannot be predicted if it interacts with another particle or object. This is the basis of both the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the wave model of light and other “particles.” It is easily demonstrated by passing photons or electrons through a diffraction grating. The result is a diffraction pattern showing the characteristics of a wave.


The easiest way to explain this is to postulate that the position and direction of a given particle passing through a diffraction grating is determined by the probability that the particle exists at a certain location in space with a particular velocity at any given moment. This uncertainty is expressed mathematically as quantum fluctuations in these variables.

Thus, if there is a God acting on the world, it may well be through altering these probabilities. If there are miracles occurring that help us to shape the destiny of ourselves and mankind, then it may be that we can only detect them by recognizing the extraordinarily improbable nature of some of our experiences. In other words, if Schrödinger’s cat suddenly appeared to be outside the box in which he had placed it, he would have to conclude that a miracle has occurred.


We cannot know whether God is acting in the world, but if we accept our responsibility to act with love and compassion toward our fellow man then we may have faith that we are doing the right thing, whether or not we believe that we are acting in accordance with the will of God. We can then sleep easily at night, knowing that whatever dreams may come, we will awaken to a new world of our own making that will be better than the one we last saw.








Rick Staggenborg, MD






Coos Bay, OR

CHAPTER NINETY. REMEMBERING THE FALLEN

Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on May 31, 2010 9:15 AM PDT

This chapter is dedicated to Abraham Lincoln, who gave his life so that "one nation under God" would remain indivisible in its quest for liberty, justice for all. We the American people ordained a Constitution that was established to form a more perfect union, establish justice, provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare. It did not do so, but it provided the means to establish a government that might. Americans fought a bloody civil war to move themselves a little closer to that ideal. When Lincoln was martyred, the country fell into the hands of war profiteers who took us from the path toward equality and democracy, in part by infecting the American consciousness with the idea that corporations have the rights of humans under the 14th Amendment.

We may not long remember the words that were spoken by our true heroes, but we must not forget the sacrifices of the men and women who died for the freedom of others in wars that would not have been fought had all of us understood and acted upon the simple commandment all religions promote: We are to love our neighbors as we would want to love ourselves. If a just and loving God exists , it must look over all of us and judge us by our souls, not our actions. Such a God would surely look into our hearts and judge us only by whether our actions are determined by concern for liberty and justice for all, or whether selfish considerations allow us to blind ourselves to the consequences of our actions.

It is common for self-professed Christians to piously pray for soldiers who gave their lives "for God and country." This hypocrisy traces its roots to the fact that Third Century Christians, perhaps weary of persecution, accepted the authority of Constantine upon his claim that he had become one of them. He was in fact a politician and warrior, one who oversaw the selection from among religious texts those that supported his divine right to rule them, thus wedding Church and State throughout the unholy Roman Empire. He assembled a book that was incomplete and distorted, deliberate obscuring lessons about personal and collective power that Christ taught and for which he was murdered.

Had they rejected the mixing of government and religion, Christians would have discovered long ago the distortions they have been taught that led them to support religious wars between the Catholic church and the Muslim world  in the form of the Crusades. The clash between self-proclaimed Christians and the Muslim world continues because they have still to understand the meaning of the message of the one they claim saved them, not understanding that what he taught was how to save themselves.

The use of religion for political ends led to fundamentalists being blinded to the fact that they were bound by a common belief in a single God, the eternal One that is Allah, Atman and all of us, bound through what Christians call the Holy Spirit. If we allowed this spirit to flow from the source of all that is good within us and through us, touching and healing those with whom we come into contact, the world could see the end of war. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is love. If God exists, I imagine that is the source of love and that the "Holy Spirit" is its manifestation in the world we know. If so, then love would be the source of all matter and energy in this Universe. Perhaps it is true that all we need is the power of love to overcome those who oppress us with war.

The way to end war is to remember that we are all in this together. War will become unthinkable when we cease to believe that it is inevitable. In this War to End All Wars, the survival of human civilization depends on it being the selfish, self -appointed Masters of the Universe who will fall. We must put an end to their game of Monopoly so that the game of Life might begin.

On Memorial Day I try to remember those who have gone before us by actively working to achieve justice. This is the only path to the end of war. As Lincoln implored us to seek counsel from the Angels of our better natures, I remind myself that I fight not because I hate but because I love. Each year I seek to rededicate myself to the work which those who have died in the belief that they were defending freedom have so nobly given their lives.

Now that we are in a state of seemingly endless war, we must all redouble our efforts to help others understand why this may be our last but best chance to end war itself. Our success will determine whether we have a new birth of freedom and whether government of the People, by the People and for the People may come forth upon the Earth at last.

Through our efforts we have slowed the tide of worldwide fascism. 1984 may not have occurred until 2000, but there is much more to do. An essential first step back to the path to democracy is to pass a Constitutional amendment to end the purchasing of politicians by paying for their elections. This is the first and most important action necessary to strip the corporate Puppetmasters of  the United States government of the tools they need to manipulate the machinery of our government. The power of a corporate elite to determine who we can choose from to represent us in Congress and the White House threatens the gains of the American Revolution and  the prospect of democracy itself. Without real democracy, the world will never know peace.

Tears are wasted on the fallen, who are beyond earthly pain. If we must weep, we should do so for their wives, husbands, parents and most of all for their children. It is our duty to assure that all children will grow and thrive in a world free from the threat of war, poverty, disease and injustice. Soldiers throughout history have willingly laid down their lives in causes that they believed to be larger than their selves. In some cases, their cause is just. In most, they are unwitting victims of a power-mad elite that now seeks to enslave the planet. That is why the citizens of Earth must join hands to oppose them.

Endless war is the ultimate result of Mankind's failure to free itself from the slavery of the belief that some were meant to rule over others, which is the ultimate result of allowing wealth and power to accumulate in the hands of the few. It is so obvious that this would lead to a final effort of the few to enslave the rest of the world that it was predicted over 2,000 years ago.

The Apocalypse is not a promise or a threat. It is a warning of the fate that will befall us if we do not lay aside our petty differences and work together to eliminate the scourges threatening human civilization. Global climate change alone threatens to lead to mass starvation, pandemic, and ever more destructive natural disasters. Add to this the threats of pestilence and famine posed by Monsanto and the lack of health care in the wealthiest nation on the planet, which increases the risk of pandemic, and the case can be made that all four horsemen are already upon us.

We have a choice. We can close our eyes, or we can act. If we do act, we can do so in the knowledge that the survival of human civilization is in our hands or we can hold tight to the illusion that somehow, our individual fates are in our own hands. Survivalists are those who have already given up on society, in the belief that Man is essentially evil. They prepare to defend their food and their families from the fate they assume will befall them because they feel powerless to stop it. It is their conviction that life is inherently a battle between weak and strong individuals that we must reject, because the strength of average individuals comes from acting collectively.

Democracy can only survive if we believe and act according to the principle that all of us have the capacity to act for the common good.  If a People are not good enough to rule themselves, they will inevitably become the slaves of others. The measure of goodness must be the degree of willingness to act in the interests of all rather than their own narrowly defined self-interest. Even those to whom this concept is most foreign have the capacity to change. If they will  not do so willingly, it is up to us to stop them, for they clearly know not what they do. That will require us to put aside our own prejudice, fear, hatred and desire for revenge against those who have wronged us.

They do not serve who only sit and wait for the Kingdom to come to them. Christians, who constitute a substantial majority in the US, have to understand that Jesus already died for our sins. To expect him to come back and save us from our own sloth, despair and intellectual laziness is surely the most perverse way we could possibly recognize his sacrifice. He will not return on a white horse with a flaming sword to slay the non-believer. He won't have to, because we will destroy ourselves if we simply wait to be saved.

The central message of all great religions is that we are all one People, bound by our relationship to each other as much or more than our relationship to a God we cannot see or hear. Those who forget this and create walls between themselves and others are missing the point that every great prophet repeated in various times and places. Mohammed first resorted to violence only when the rich and greedy powers-that-were in Mecca sought to slay him and destroy the nascent Islamic movement meant to unify Peoples around the world. This was the same goal of Christ’s teachings. Muslims believe that Allah sent a messenger to isolated tribes of the Mideast so that they would join together in a spirit of love and peace instead of poisoning each other’s wells. That Christians, Muslims and Jews alike have perverted the message that we are one and must behave accordingly to justify war for wealth and power is the ultimate betrayal of those who devoted their lives to helping us learn how to save ourselves.

Anyone who works to advance the cause of justice is a Soldier For Peace. Those who in doing so believe in the essential goodness of Man and try to treat others in a spirit of love and forbearance will be the ones who lead us to victory.

In the words of Julia Ward Howe:






Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.


Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.


I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.


Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.


I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my condemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on."


Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.


He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.


Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.


In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
while God is marching on.


Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.


He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, he is succor to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.






Rick Staggenborg, MD


Coos Bay, Oregon