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Professor Walt Helps Explain America’s Bankrupt Israeli Policy

Palestine vigil and demonstration
Effi Fuks
Flickr/creative commons

AIPAC Is the Only Explanation for America’s Morally Bankrupt Israeli Policy

As we speak, today, Israel is expanding it ground offensive in Palestine.

[US] politicians and policymakers continue to back a brutal military campaign whose primary purpose is not to defend Israel but rather to protect its longstanding effort to colonize the West Bank.

— Stephen M. Walt, International Affairs Professor
Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government

In a two-parter this week, Israel’s Messy Package (Part 1 and Part 2) I offered up my youthful experience of my own family of “regular jews” to trace the more than 100-year history of what is now known as the Israel Lobby and its agency, AIPAC (American Israeli Policy Affairs Committee). This history is why we support activists worldwide who are helping the Palestinians end the 50-year humanitarian crisis Israel and the U.S. have created, and all those working in support of a two-state solution, something the current Israeli government is committed to fight at all costs.

We pointed you to this wonderful paper from Professor Walt that was published this week on The Huffington Post, but we are highlighting it here especially so that more people will have a chance to read it, and be further armed with the truth about Israel and its relationship with America.

The official name for Israel’s latest assault on Gaza is “Operation Protective Edge.” A better name would be “Operation Déjà Vu.” As it has on several prior occasions, Israel is using weapons provided by U.S. taxpayers to bombard the captive and impoverished Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll now exceeds 500. As usual, the U.S. government is siding with Israel, even though most American leaders understand Israel instigated the latest round of violence, is not acting with restraint, and that its actions make Washington look callous and hypocritical in the eyes of most of the world.

This Orwellian situation is eloquent testimony to the continued political clout of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and the other hardline elements of the Israel lobby. There is no other plausible explanation for the supine behavior of the U.S. Congress–including some of its most “progressive” members–or the shallow hypocrisy of the Obama administration, especially those officials known for their purported commitment to human rights.

The immediate cause of this latest one-sided bloodletting was the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli hikers in the occupied West Bank, followed shortly thereafter by the kidnapping and fatal burning of a Palestinian teenager by several Israelis. According to J.J. Goldberg’s reporting in the Jewish newspaper Forward, the Netanyahu government blamed Hamas for the kidnappings without evidence and pretended the kidnapped Israelis were still alive for several weeks, even though there was evidence indicating the victims were already dead. It perpetrated this deception in order to whip up anti-Arab sentiment and make it easier to justify punitive operations in the West Bank and Gaza.

And why did Netanyahu decide to go on another rampage in Gaza? As Nathan Thrall of the International Crisis Group points out, the real motive is neither vengeance nor a desire to protect Israel from Hamas’ rocket fire, which has been virtually non-existent over the past two years and is largely ineffectual anyway. Netanyahu’s real purpose was to undermine the recent agreement between Hamas and Fatah for a unity government. Given Netanyahu’s personal commitment to keeping the West Bank and creating a “greater Israel,” the last thing he wants is a unified Palestinian leadership that might press him to get serious about a two-state solution. Ergo, he sought to isolate and severely damage Hamas and drive a new wedge between the two Palestinian factions.

Behind all these maneuvers looms Israel’s occupation of Palestine, now in its fifth decade. Not content with having ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and 1967 and not satisfied with owning eighty-two percent of Mandatory Palestine, every Israeli government since 1967 has built or expanded settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem while providing generous subsidies to the 600,000-plus Jews who have moved there in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Two weeks ago, Netanyahu confirmed what many have long suspected: he is dead set against a two-state solution and will never–repeat never–allow it to happen while he is in office. Given that Netanyahu is probably the most moderate member of his own Cabinet and that Israel’s political system is marching steadily rightward, the two-state solution is a gone goose.

. . . Continue . . .

Israel’s Messy Package (Part 2)

flickr/creative commons

Yesterday, in Part 1, I told my personal family’s jewish history in an attempt to put the existence of Israel into a broader context. Earlier enough, I had dispensed with the myth of my youth, that Israel was simply the world’s and Palestine’s gift to the jewish culture, a safe harbor for Jews following the atrocities of WWII. In fact, Israel was conceived by a militant zionist movement begun in the late 1800s, so it is motive that has to be understood for anything to change.

(We use the word, zionists, as we use the word, christianists, to denote fundamentalists who purport to believe in their respective religious traditions but display none of the characteristics, quite the opposite.)

The early zionists set on their quest to establish a religious state, with eyes on the grand prize: the occupation of the geographical, historical, and religious epicenter of the Middle East. Its big mistake, and the mistake of the US and other countries that helped bring about the 1948 establishment of the state Israel, was that two other major world religions, Christianity and Islam, also lay claim on the same pile of sand, sharing reverence to the same Abraham.

Zionists, however, proceeded and proceed today according to their belief that they are the superior race and religion which has suffered injustices for centuries (more and worse than any other) making them singularly deserving of a special berth in the world, a completely new class of world citizen with complete dominion over their tribal enemies. For starters, that’s just a galling affront to all people and all religions. Logically, adherents to any theoretical superior religion would perforce never resort to violence, and never deny the beliefs or non-beliefs of their neighbors.

Upon arrival in the region, the zionists saw no wisdom in becoming the local peaceniks or diplomatic leaders to bring about world peace (in which case they might today be considered one of the most respected countries in the region and the world). Instead they began an unending and bloody campaign to expand, encroach, invade, disenfranchise, and discriminate against all non-jews in the way, in any way they could. Rather than justifying war as their need to secure their borders, they would do better to ask themselves what they have done to draw the ire of their sequestered and suffering neighbors.

Israel was founded on the basis of religious extremism and discrimination, and has rendered itself indefensible. Just yesterday, Navi’ Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for an investigation into Israeli war crimes.

Israel’s failure to fully enfranchise the Palestinian people from the start, its commitment to stand in the way of any two-state solution, and their institutional religious discrimination set the course for failure. We are now living through the results of these failures, waiting for new, younger, progressive, and humane leaders to take the reins of the Israeli government, and waiting for America to wake up.

The zionists have steadily expanded their movement, now known as today’s Israel Lobby (greater than AIPAC), monolithic in scope, hiding in plain sight, and controlling practically every aspect throughout modern American life. It’s not just the $3 billion a year and technical/military assistance our tax dollars pay for. The Israel Lobby controls the election of congressmen and every presidential election, and, sadly, all media. Unquestioned loyalty to Israel has, unfortunately, always been viewed as being in America’s interests by guaranteeing a permanent base in the region to spread our own nationalistic, capitalistic religion. And, in case we forget, because the existence of Israel happens to coincide with christianist belief that it is necessary for Jesus Christ’s someday return.

The Israel Lobby reminds me of another group: the secretive christianist organization known as The Family (also as The Fellowship) with its 10,000 cells world wide that is also working for religious dominion over its perceived enemies.

So, today, I’m asking some starting questions. We’d like to hear what you think.

1. Why are activists, who are no longer hypnotized by the Israel Lobby rhetoric and working to solve the humanitarian crises underway, so roundly criticized, even from their left flank?

2. Why are so many vocal members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement still blinded by the Israel Lobby’s talking points, failing to recognize our innate solidarity with Israel’s victims?

3. When will America take down the veil and reveal to the world that today’s Israel has no intention of seeking a two-state solution under any circumstance and that’s why it is so ready to resort to untold violence that stifles more moderate Palestinan voices?

Israel has forgotten that diplomacy is a table from which you never get up and leave. No matter what you think about the inferiority of your neighbor, nothing, no thing, justifies violence. There is always a way. You simply need to keep talking until you get to the last word: peace.

I remember my daughter one day when she was 7 years of age exclaiming, “Mommy, mommy, I know what the opposite of war is! It’s creativity!”

It’s not too late to heed the prophetic wisdom of some of our greatest statesmen, such as Dean Acheson in 1947 warning that creating land already occupied by Palestinians would “imperil not just American but all Western interests in the Middle East.”

Also see: AIPAC Is the Only Explanation for America’s Morally Bankrupt Israel Policy

Israel’s Messy Package (Part 1) here.

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As you may have seen in VenusPlusX’s Manifesto and all over this site, we are dedicated to the end of nationalism (racist by nature) and the end of racism (the chief expression of sexual oppression) by fostering progress (universal human rights, global peace). We align with all others who see progress as the the elimination of useless, coercive, inhumane systems of governments, corporations, and religious hierarchy, salvaging parts of our human legacy worthy of respect, and adding new and human and largely voluntary associations.

in Campaigns / Events / Grassroots / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information by Alison Gardner 24 Jul 2014 0 comments

Israel’s Messy Package (Part 1)

“Creating land already occupied by Palestinians would ‘imperil not just American but all Western interests in the Middle East.'”

—Dean Acheson, 1947, statesman and foreign policy expert
for several presidential administrations,
including as Harry Truman’s Secretary of State

In the early 1900s, both sides of my Jewish family fled the Kiev countryside because of the militant anti-Jewish pogroms, leaving dead my paternal great grandfather and my grandmother’s infant sister killed by armed men on horseback who burned their farm to ground. Both my grandfathers were born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. They didn’t know each other and didn’t know they would someday each meet and marry women, all four families strangers to each other but all springing from thriving family farms outside Kiev. My mother’s folks sought refuge in Glasgow, Scotland, before most of them came to the US after WWI. My paternal grandmother and her siblings, the oldest was 12-year-old Pincus, came alone in steerage and settled in Hartford, Connecticut. Growing up in this family, we all lived decidedly to the far left of Reform Judaism, anxious to not be so “jewish” as to be noticed, understandably so.

In 1967 I spent the summer in Durban, South Africa, getting to know some of my cousins, the half of the next generation of the Glasgow clan who chose to emigrate to South America instead of America. When I arrived in Durban, one cousin, a young woman close to my age of 19 at the time, was unexpectedly out of the country, much to her family’s consternation, joining the Israeli zionist army who that year expanded the chartered territory of Israel through violence and repression, into Gaza and parts of Syria and Egypt.

Photo by LeftMedia
Flickr/creative commons

That summer, I came to realize that my childhood ideas about Israel were overly simplistic: My US born family were just plain Jews, explicitly not zionists, allowing themselves to adopt the modern myth that the establishment of a modern Israel was a gift from the world (and Palestinians) following the horrors of WWII death camps (rather than an unlawful occupation of another’s country).

Before going to South Africa, my personal radicalization was underway as a deeply embedded anti-Vietnam War activist, so this summertime visit to the shores of the Indian Ocean solidified my life long commitment to pacifism. My quest for world peace is a force within me that always questions why anyone goes to war. Israel is the case study, forcing the question, How could a group, a culture and religion combined, victims of hatred for 100 years, partially eradicated in concentration camps 70 years ago, themselves become purveyors of violence and oppression?

I came to understand that this militant campaign for a Jewish state, dominating control in the Middle East, and especially over Jerusalem’s ancient, holy geographic touchstones, had being going on since the beginning of the 20th century, around the same time as my relatives’ horrors and forced migration from what is now Urkaine. This scheme was doomed from the start because of its underlying motives, not to bring peace but to go to battle if necessary for what they perceived they were owed simply because they believed they represented a race of people who are the most pure and the highest expression of religious superiority. For these reasons only, however delusional, these militant Jews should always hold a deferential berth in the world. Since WWII, this battle has resulted in the displacement and disenfranchisement of an entire population who, ironically, itself shares the same legacy despite not being “jewish.”

Any attempts at forming a theocracy are fate-filled mistakes that only end badly, whether you are talking about Israel or other countries, including in the US where we are suffering under a nascent political theocracy that would enslave its citizens just as surely as those calling for Sharia Law.

The scheme to reign supreme began long before Israel formally declared it independence in 1948, and long before my young cousin risked her life in 1967 to further an expansion throughout ancient Palestine, displacing and killing everyone in the way.

Israel is a state founded and run on the basis of religious extremism and discrimination, and should be fairly dealt with on that basis.

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Israel’s Messy Package (Part 2) which delves into the monolithic Israel Lobby that has long controlled our Congress and decides who can and cannot become President of the United States; and why those who escape Israel’s fancy hypnotism and stand up for the human rights of Israel’s victims — the Palestinians themselves joined by groups such as CodePink and activists worldwide, all the time forced to endure so much criticism, even from their left flank.

Inform yourself further with Alison Weir’s recent book, Against Our Better Judgment: The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel, and websites such as www.ifamercansknew.org and www.popularresistance.org, and, of course, here at www.venusplusx, Facebook/venusplusx, and Twitter/venusplusx.

in Campaigns / Events / Grassroots / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information by Alison Gardner 24 Jul 2014 0 comments

The Sexual Freedom Project: Influences

How do you describe it? What culture, family, or church constraints do you think interfere with full equality for all people?

Let’s hear your voice. Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts on these topics. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

More videos.

in The Sexual Freedom Project / Videos by Alison Gardner 22 Jul 2014 0 comments

Counting on what is good

By everyone’s estimation, last week was bad, in fact we are having many bad weeks piling up for sometime now. But, these horrible events distract us from all the good that is emerging at the same time. It’s not Pollyanna-like to see that this cauldron of world-wide strife is now bubbling over for all to see and evaluate and soundly reject.

Universal human rights, environmental protection, and self-determination, and all that they convey, will prevail, not just because of their rightness but because they represent survival. Science-denying, theocratic fundamentalists, here and abroad, simply have no future.

Previously I have asked the question, What would happen if there was an alien invasion? Whether the aliens were friendly or not, we as a planet would join together to respond irrespective of the nationalistic tendencies some hold dear. This nationalism (and the racism that underlies it) is a disease and is at the root of all of the world’s ills whether we are talking about America’s failed immigration policies or arms aggression across the globe.

Our manifesto written in connection with VenusPlusX’s relaunch in April offers more about how progress inevitably overcomes regress. Progress itself has its own natural ecology, although at times like this it takes a little thought to see it.

We’ve already talked about the right-wing theocracy destroying American democracy; their paper trail speaks for itself, but voters will ultimately reject the policies and laws wrought by these old, white, sexually sick hacks, from the Supreme Court to Congress to local school boards to seditious public officials calling for armed defense of their smallest ideas. Except for a dozen other countries, it’s mostly much worse in other places.

All together we have a relative small oligarchy enslaving us, and the more they do the more they hasten the inevitable populist revolution. They are anti-women, anti-voter, anti-gay, and anti-the-rest-of-everything. If nothing else, they will die, and their perverse ideas will die with them. Even if the hysteria about Obama should somehow lead for a time to more old, white theocrats, that will only force their insanity further out on display and, therefore, more rapidly diminished and dismissed.

Oligarchs like Putin, will be done in by their own recklessness. Right-wingnuts often do our work for us, fully repudiating their own ideas because they lack the connective tissue to make any sense at all.

Old, white men are pursuing an agenda of perversity touching hundreds of countries, not to make America the beacon of hope it once was, and can again, but instead to be ruler of the entire planet. Here’s one of the worst examples — there is a secret organization known as The Family (also know as The Fellowship) which sponsors anti-homosexuality campaigns abroad to establish christianists’ unholy stranglehold of entire populations with the sole purpose of seizing control of these countries’ natural resources. With the aid, complicity, and full participations of past and current senators, congressmen, attorneys general, military commanders, and just plain businessmen in it for a buck or two, The Family operates 10,000 cells worldwide, corporate white-collar terrorists who just pledge their loyalty to Jesus’s plan (their interpretation of it to be sure), and then do whatever the hell they want.

People won’t be able to stay silent much longer.

So the diffuse and asymmetrical bad is coming at a fast pace now, faster than in anytime in the future but we are comforted by all the good that is emerging just as fast. The transformation of the world may not take as long as you might think. And the populist revolution we so desperately need will not necessarily be cataclysmic in nature because we are making incremental but substantive progress everyday. But, like I said, it’s natural to focus on the negative and ignore the good.

So, off the top of my head today, I’m going to start an inventory of all the good that is happening, and hope you will send your own citations. We can look at this growing list every time we feel discouraged when face to face with our enslavers.

Just today, as the result of many boots on the ground, and a 10-person lawsuit joined by the National Action Network, Detroit has stopped cutting off water to poor customers.
Also, today, President Obama newly protected lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from being discriminated against by federal contractors. This affects over 25% of the American workforce, and sets the table for a fully equality bill in congress.
Last week, thanks to the leadership of Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, an agreement has been reached to apply drug-sentencing retroactively, giving more than 45,000 prisoners the right to petition for reduced sentences or release, saving taxpayers millions and giving these people and their families renewed hope.
Many institutions, including faith groups, are unloading investments of fossil fuels, and many other campaigns of divestment are taking place, all for the greater good of the world.
Transgender Actress and Activist, Laverne Cox hit the cover of Time magazine, and becomes first transgender actress to be nominated for an Emmy award. The conversation about sexual and gender freedom has never been more active.
Colleges are leading the way in designating gender-neutral dorms and gender-neutral bathrooms on its campuses.
Even the Supreme Court occasionally does something good, like protecting the search of your smart phone.

These are all examples of what we discuss in our Manifesto for a New Age of Sexual Freedom, wherein we posit that Sexual Freedom is the bedrock of all freedoms because it conveys the full end of racism, nationalism, and oppression by the few. Our treatise revives a long-held concept of what is needed: the gradual, hopefully not cataclysmic, end of old, inhuman, coercive systems run by governments, corporations, and religious hierarchies, while preserving from this history that which is old but also good, and building new, human, and entirely voluntary associations. A good example of something that is old and also good is reprinted below. Another is the gradual shift to local farming and food supply to replace hard-hearted, pesticide-infused agribusiness.

Send us samples of good popping up in your community and country that we can share with each other.

Flickr/creative commons

why it says in the manifesto.

We shall overcome. We shall overcome.

in Key Issues / Op-Ed / Public Information by Alison Gardner 21 Jul 2014 0 comments

Our Horrible Days

How Do We Respond to This Really Horrible Day?

“It’s too late to reverse the death and destruction, but it’s never too early to advocate for peace and life.” — Paul Brandeis Raushenbush

by Alfonso
Flickr/creative commons

Just 3 days ago, believing things are getting worse at a faster pace than ever before, we revisited Where Does of All This F*cking Evil Sh%t Come From? to offer up some explanation of why the world seems to be plummeting downward.

Yesterday, everything got much worse.

While the media was fixed on the passenger jet that was shot out of the sky by Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists, ground troops started rolling into Gaza with seeming impunity. Today, I am publishing in full Raushenbush’s thoughtful, 400-word call for action — we are fast losing our humanity but each of us must recognize that we are not impotent.

What a horrible day. Israel has begun a ground offensive in Gaza, the White House is on lockdown, and a plane has been shot down in Ukraine. Today’s news piles on an already shaking landscape of ISIS in Iraq, immigrant children suffering on the U.S. border, and still missing Nigerian girls. My Twitter feed has been raging with information and disinformation today, but underneath the diatribes I have been struck by a sense of despair and disbelief that the world can unravel this fast, and anger at our sense of impotence.

But we are not impotent, and this is not “happening to us.” We, the human race, are doing this to ourselves. These aren’t natural disasters, or “acts of God.” It’s just us, humans, having completely lost our humanity. We are warring, and hurting, and intentionally or unintentionally killing one another through direct assault or indifference and neglect.

We have forgotten that we belong to one another, that we are connected, that we are all sisters and brothers, that we need one another.

Today, right now, I want us to take back our power, and begin to mend together what has been ripped apart.

It is too late to bring back the innocent lives that have been lost so far in the Middle East, but it is not too late to stop the killing that is happening now.

It is too late to bring back the innocent plane passengers who died in Ukraine, but as a human race we can insist that this is unacceptable and not let the incident be a springboard for even more violence and hatred.

It’s too late to reverse the death and destruction, but it’s never too early to advocate for peace and life.

It is hard to know what to do, but, even within this dark day, we need to continue to insist on the possibility of peace — and to have that start with ourselves. If all I can do today is pray for peace and the well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians and refuse to accept that war is inevitable or hate is natural, that will be a start. If I can pray for the people in that plane and try not to be swept into a rage calling for revenge, if I can make myself open to being an instrument of peace, then that will be a start. That is one, very small, way that I can respond to this horrible day.

Each person who loses their life for no reason represents a tragedy. What would each person have done to contribute to a better world? There were 100 experts heading to an AIDS conference in Malaysia, for example. When will it end? What can you do to make the world better today by advocating for peace and life?

in Events / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information by Alison Gardner 18 Jul 2014 0 comments

Transreligion for Athiests and Non-Athiests Alike

Religious myth has only degraded and inhibited human progress. Essentially all contemporary religions are myth based. Christianity fails the test of worth when it relies on Hebrew racial myth (the old testament) and Greek philosophical myth (the concept of the Christos and related ideas) as absolute truths. We know that nothing that draws on such ancient Sci-Fi can be either true, good, or beautiful, except by accident, and thus stands forever opposed to the power of love in the world.

There are, fortunately, many people (now and in the past 2000 years) who love others, serve others, do good to others, and make our world more beautiful by their efforts. Some of these people call themselves Christians or Jews or Muslims or Atheists or something else, which is their choice, but their lives have taken inspiration from the universal powers of love and truth in the human mind, not from religious myth or dogma.

Eddi van W
Flickr/creative commons

Transhumanists continue to debate the appropriateness of any kind of religious faith or behavior as a component of Transhuman life. My own post-transition perspective illuminates many ethical and moral concerns of the Transhumanists. Foremost, if we are to foster the emergence of a genuine Transhuman philosophy of life, we need to create an inspirational framework that justifies and motivates rational behavior. We should evaluate candidate inspirational frameworks according to their individual ability to satisfy essential requirements that must be met by any proposed framework.

In my view, a satisfactory transhuman rationally religious world view ought to address five basic requirements that bridge the gaps of sex and gender and merge the physical, psychic, and inspirational elements of joy into a total personal and socially transforming experience of reality. At the same time, we recognize that a genuinely operational inspirational framework, a true transreligion, can only emerge from the collective unification of individual joyful experience. This list is just a starting point for further thought and discussion.

1) Assure complete freedom from reliance on any myth or backstory. Our beliefs are based on plain observational knowledge and insights of personal wisdom.

2) Demonstrate open and informed attitudes, viewpoints, and experiential training for all of the many dimensions of sex and gender.

3) Practice group communion for collective psychic inspiration and empowerment, through the exploration and experience of sex and gender as acts of communion.

4) Fellowship every transhuman living on this planet. Empower them to know the joy of living, showing how love finds expression in true service to others by doing good and making beauty.

5) Be open to alliance with any cosmic government that may make its presence or influence felt in human affairs, with a willingness to facilitate transhuman emergence. In the meantime dedicate your life to the highest principles of love, truth, goodness, and beauty.

To summarize, we help one another by starting with baldfaced mythless truth and showing each other the joy that is really important and gives meaning to life. A universal acknowledgment of the possibility that some external force will intervene keeps us mutually focused on progression towards our ideals of truth and love, regardless of what the future brings. And our intent to combine free and open acceptance of all forms of sex and gender expression with equally free and open communion, joy, and fellowship guarantees our ability to lead the destined evolution of human affairs.

Transhumans may find something like this just fine as the basis for a way of life and be finally able to leave the god talk to the past. But a religion, the social expression of a community of individuals who share common ideals, is not designed, so much as grown through the social customs of the community. Setting aside old, incorrect beliefs, the inherent truth of principles like these will emerge and cause focused will actions. Through trial and error, the community will gradually discover convenient and innovative ways of serving these principles to more and more people. And that will be the emergence of true Transreligion.

Now is the time for a new inspirational framework to replace the outdated and overly interpreted ideas of our pastfathers. I do not know what will emerge, but I trust that it will necessarily be true to ideals and principles such as those stated here.

Editor’s note: This was published a few years ago to offer a framework for a new non-religion incorporating the ideas of sex and gender freedom. It is re-issued today to help spur the coming together of many diverse points-0f-view who are striving for a humane world unified with shared ideals.

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

in Cosmic Citizenship / Public Information / Transhuman Erotic Freedom / Transunity & Transleadership by Alison Gardner 17 Jul 2014 0 comments

Where Did All This F*cking Evil Sh%t Come From? (revisited)

Evil is not itself a reality. Rather, it is the absence of meaningful reality.

By Danny O’Connor
Flickr/creative commons

Believers, Atheists, and Humanists alike are asking questions, trying to rationalize evil in the world. It seems like civilization is in retrograde when it appears to us that right-wingnuts are making more progress than they should. So what’s the answer? We tried to address this a couple of years ago, and feel it is worthy of reprinting here. Let us know what you think.

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También en español It is undeniable that there is often a lot of pain and suffering in a human lifetime. While individual experiences vary widely, over the course of a lifetime most people will experience instances when they are confronted with the reality of an apparently genuine evil. And this inevitably starts the discussion, “Why me? What did I do to deserve this? If God loves me, why is he doing this to me? How can we love a God that would let something like this happen to anybody (not just me)? I refuse to accept the religious proposition that there is a God because I see only evidence of universal randomness, filled with constant strife between good and evil partisans! And even if there were one single personal God of the universe, he’d be way too busy to pay attention to the crap going on down here.”

But there are fundamental assumptions in this line of questioning that often go unappreciated. First and foremost are the implied assumptions about the nature of God. If one assumes that the God referenced is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent throughout time and space, then why isn’t the universe perfect? Surely a universe under the total control of a God of Love would never tolerate the amount of human misery and grief that surrounds us on all sides. Therefore, since the observed world does not match my prediction of what the world would be like if there were an omni-cube God, either such a God does not exist or my predictive method about what the world should be like is wrong. Sounds bad for my predictive methods—what man dare attempt to compass the purpose of God? Well, men have minds that, if you are God-oriented, are surely gifts of God. And my mind tells me that simplistic faith contrary to reason is most definitely NOT what any God I could personally respect would ever require of me. Therefore, if I believe the workings in my mind are True, I must perforce reject the concept of the omni-cube God. There simply is no such deity active anywhere I’ve been in the universe because his existence is refuted by the reality of my own experience.

And from this line of reasoning flows the faith of many devout atheists. It’s not so much that they reject the general idea of some sort of Supreme Being, but they can’t figure out what it would be good for because it doesn’t seem to even try to put things right in the world around us. If it’s out there, we obviously mean nothing more to it than an ant does to the automobile that ran over it in the road. Let’s try looking at this situation from a very different and more hopeful viewpoint.

Suppose that the universe is destined to be a perfect place of light and life—a universe of continuous unbridled joy in loving service, living truth, doing good, and making beauty. By our actions, our relationships, we are building small parts of this great universe of constructed perfection. But the perfect universe is not here today. Only portions are in evidence—the areas where love predominates over the primal emptiness of original space-time—where evil is merely the region into which love has yet to penetrate. Evil is not itself a reality. Rather, it is the absence of meaningful reality.

So evil is not something inflicted on us by an angry God, who abandons us to the vacuum of space-time devoid of Love. Rather, evil is the state of being where there is a weakened or nonexistent presence of Love. Since we are the creatures in the universe who are equipped with the ability to sense the presence or absence of Love, and with the tools of Truth guided reason that enable our will to effectively direct our loving actions, it is necessarily our responsibility to fill the gaps in finite reality where Love does not adequately penetrate.

The response of the finite universe to the force of destiny, the necessity of evolution towards a perfect state of light and life, requires the participation of many beings working together and dedicated to the ideals of Love, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

If you see evil in the world and have sufficient resources of Love, you can make the repair yourself. Our planet seems to have been shortchanged on loving service in the past, so we have a lot of gaps in our Love coverage. Many of these will require the cooperation of many people of goodwill, even entire communities and nations, to bridge vast gaps of lost communication and long misunderstanding.

So let’s get with it. Is there evil in the world? Then let’s work together in Unity to Love it out of existence. It’s our job to do this and this is how destiny is realized. Fear not to act. With Love and Truth you can only do Good and make Beauty.

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

in Uncategorized by Alison Gardner 15 Jul 2014 0 comments

The Sexual Freedom Project: What stands in the way?

(También en Español)

What stands in the way of your sexual freedom? We want to know!

Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

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in The Sexual Freedom Project / Videos by Alison Gardner 15 Jul 2014 0 comments

The Sexual Freedom Project: Discussing Polyamory

Polyamory, loving more than one partner, is finally getting the exposure it needs in the media and elsewhere. These are natural relationships based on shared values and deserve just as much respect as any other relationship. This may not be your cup of tea but that doesn’t mean you are incapable of recognizing and respecting relationships that are different from your own.

Consider this: monogamy, and the rigid jealousy with which it is partnered, has long been the cause of so many broken families, needlessly, because of a general misunderstanding of what fidelity is all about. It’s not about “cheating” because whom are you cheating on, yourself or your objecting partner? Most people don’t stray because they are afraid, their desire for safety and stability trumping their true desires.

Fidelity is about reciprocal loyalty, and as long as that is in place, everyone, whether married or not, should be free to experience their sexuality as they wish, without canceling out their fidelity to their committed partner or to their new committed partners. This expression of fidelity, giving your partner the freedom to express their desires however they choose, actually strengthens all relationships to the extent they are open and honest. Fidelity by definition accepts the notion that fidelity can exist within a multitude of relationships, sexual or not.

Cutting off your sexuality just because you are in a committed relationship doesn’t add up for those who wish to expand their sexual horizons. This is not to say that polyamory doesn’t come with many challenges, but they always lead to self-understanding, mutual understanding, and, ultimately, self-mastery.

What do you think? Let us know by making your own video, writing a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you one of our prized prized VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

More videos.

in The Sexual Freedom Project / Videos by Tiye 14 Jul 2014 0 comments

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