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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 01:31 PM
Original message
Evolution for the Hell of It
Last night, on the ride home from JV basketball practice, my 15-year old daughter and I had one of the frequent conversations we have, that I really enjoy. We were driving down a street where most of the houses had beautiful holiday displays of flashing lights, and she told me about the discussion in one of her classes in school, regarding comparative religion. She was telling me about how some of her classmates find other practices around the earth to be strange, and how as much as she enjoys the Christmas light shows, she suspected other people would find them curious.

My daughter has always impressed me as a good thinker. I've told D.U.ers before about one time, when she was eight years old – one of the few times I've been inside a church since I was the age she is now – and she raised her hand during the sermon. The pastor saw her, but didn't call on her for a bit. Finally the pastor asked her what she wanted? “Uh, well, if we really believe what Jesus said, then we shouldn't have poor people,” my daughter said. “And there shouldn't be money. We should just be sharing things.”

The pastor skipped but one beat, and continued on with the sermon. After the mass ended, and I was in the lead of my family in approaching my car, and elderly gentleman told me that my daughter “was really something.” He understood what I suspect few others there did – that if the message of Jesus was to be found anywhere in that church on that day, it came from the truth told by an eight year old. I was thinking of this last night as we approached our driveway, and my daughter told me, “Dad, if I do things in terms of how I understand God, it isn't going to be from inside of a church. It'll be as a scientist.”

When my daughter was in junior high school, at an end-of-the-year awards assemble, one of the faculty told the community, while presenting her with an award, that if anyone saves the world, it would be her. As a parent, of course, I liked that … a lot … even though I know that no one person will “save the world.” I understand that this teacher, who like so many public school teachers delights in inspiring young folks to think, was speaking about the qualities that young people (and others) like my daughter represent.

It's fair to say that a percentage of people in almost every community across this country do not believe in evolution. The very concept is beyond their limitations to grasp hold of. Instead, they are convinced that literal truth about life on earth is found in the sermons that pastors and priests deliver on Sundays. The concepts that Darwin and others have advanced are as foreign to them as the insight of an eight year old girl proposing that people should share. Some people get it, some kind of do, and others simply find the truth to be too strange to believe.

The evolution of human beings, however, is not limited to things physical. Evolutionary potentials in groups and in individuals can happen in classrooms and churches, as well as on a beach, in the woods, or even in a jail cell. It is the evolution of human consciousness, and involves moving beyond those balls and chains of ignorance, fear, hatred, greed, as well as the delusion that there is security in being a cog in the machine.

The talk about “revolution” on this forum only have potential value if by “revolution,” people understand the concept of evolution. In its traditional sense, “revolution” is not only very unlikely to take place, but more, it should not be considered desirable. As Malcolm X used to tell audiences when people spoke about revolution, if they really understood what the word meant, and what it involved, they would quit talking that way.

Revolutions throughout history have tended to replace one system in the same manner that one day replaces the one that proceeded it. This is mechanical, in essence, and the new system will in time come to resemble the one it replaced, the same as one evening resembles another. The USA broke off from the British Empire, and today it has become an empire on an even greater scale. When I was my daughter's age, I learned that business about “the sun never set” on the British Empire. Today, I understand that sunsets often look alike.

What we need today is evolution. The truth is that it is the most revolutionary option that we have available. Only the extinction of human values can result from the spread of the primitive slim of the America of Wall Street and Washington, DC, with its greed, violence, hatred, and fear. We should not rush towards the edge of their flat earth. We must bring about an evolution in human consciousness, so that we can combine Gandhi's non-cooperation with the destructive machine, King's passion for social justice, and Malcolm's search for truth.

Peace,
H2Old Man
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BeFree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 01:38 PM
Response to Original message
1. We're getting there, Old man
Slowly, but surely.

The more we know, the more we evolve.
Most people are kind to evolving, its just that they haven't read enough from old men like you.

Carry on.
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myrna minx Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 01:49 PM
Response to Original message
2. Beautiful piece.
K&R
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Tailormyst Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 01:55 PM
Response to Original message
3. Thank you for such a good read.
What a talented writer you are, H2O Man. I see more promise with each generation, so don't give up hope, we may yet evolve.
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mdmc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 01:56 PM
Response to Original message
4. thanks for posting my friend
peace and low stress
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RT Atlanta Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 02:01 PM
Response to Original message
5. Good thoughts
And I enjoyed learning about your daughter's inquisitive mind. I have two young daughters and do my best to help them foster critical thinking - sounds like you're doing your work as a Dad quite well.
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rapturedbyrobots Donating Member (364 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 02:46 PM
Response to Original message
6. Power with a capital P
the revolutionists are concerned with Power. everyone from socialists, to anarchists, to communists, even social democrats are concerned with their own version of overtaking/smashing the apparatus of Power. thus, they are all defined by their position in reference to the State mechanisms of Power (and thus tied to the State itself). what we need is power with a little p. people power. the power of self-determination. that's the work of revolutionaries (not revolutionists). that's the work of evolving ourselves and our communities. i hope more people start focusing more energy on that, and less time worrying about the minutia of a machine that does not concern them and never will respect or represent them.
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BeFree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 03:02 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. That is my main problem
Seems everyone has their own little kingdom they are trying to protect.

Too often have seen activists lose the big picture and devote themselves to their particular cause, leading to a failure of finding real solutions.

And usually they lose their little fiefdoms in the process.
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readmoreoften Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 04:14 PM
Response to Reply #6
11. "Power" is not the problem. The organization of people into class distinction is the problem.
The refusal to wield "power" after they won ALONE got 30,000 people in the Paris Commune slaughtered. And the anarchists refusal to take "Power" resulted in Franco. That's what socialism is all about--people power becoming "capital P power" in order to fight the counter-revolutionary violence that is INEVITABLE any time the people have a victory.

Do you think that the capitalists are going to "stand down" after a revolution? Every revolution has failed long term because COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY POWER filled the vacuum: Thermidor, Versailles, Stalin, Franco, and--yes--even Hitler.

Sorry, but you clearly have not read enough history or theory or been involved in enough struggle to make pronouncements like this. This is intellectual mish-mash.



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rapturedbyrobots Donating Member (364 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 06:34 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. i've been very involved and read plenty, thank you.
if you want to look at history of successful struggle you needn't look back that far. in fact, it is going on right now in this very same continent. the ELZN is currently waging the only successfully sustained anti-capitalist movement that was born from the mess that is/was NAFTA. why do you think they are still going strong 10+ years later? its not because they tried to become capital P power. I agree, it is necessary to safe-guard against violent counter-revolutionary forces. but that does not translate directly into usurping State Power (but, yes...does often require defending against it). and the lessons learned from the current organization of global capital and anti-capitalist struggle are more useful than any of that crap from the last century. i don't give two shits about the paris commune or spanish anarchists. the neocons had a really great explanation for how they kept getting away with their crazy bullshit. it basically boiled down to 'while you are busy studying trying to make sense of the last world we destroyed...we're busy making the world anew.' sorry, but you need to move on and adapt. the question is no longer how do we fix the world...it is how do we make our own anew each day.

this piece by harry cleaver is pretty good....and all the more resonant 3 years later as the utter failure of national electoral politics has been revealed by obama.

http://illvox.org/2009/11/neozapatismo-and-autonomy/
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a la izquierda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 01:35 PM
Response to Reply #13
28. i hate to burst your bubble...
but EZLN isn't going strong. they're run by a megalomaniac with little aim who was a college professor before dropping out of society. they exist at the mercy of the Mexican military, who, without warning, can obliterate them. they choose to ignore them because the ezln is not a threat. but they sure as hell didn't win.
chiapas is a poverty ridden disaster area; if the people have little-p power, why is chiapas *the* poorest region in mexico? power doesn't have to equate wealth, but for god's sake, basic needs have to be met, and they aren't in chiapas. oaxaca isn't much better. their goals are muddled and problematic; while some good has come out of the '94 uprising, it didn't go far enough because their goals weren't clear.
so, tell me again about the ezln.
perhaps evo morales's MAS party, before he took office, was a better example of what you're trying to say (though i agree with another poster and i'm not sure exactly what you're trying to say).
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rapturedbyrobots Donating Member (364 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 03:42 PM
Response to Reply #28
32. no bubble to burst
the sixth declaration of the lacondon jungle in '05, la otra campaña of '06, the sixth commission and intergalactic in '08...i'd say they've come a long way since '94. friends attended that last meeting only 1 year ago and saw first hand what is and is not going on in chiapas (the group could only afford to send a couple). so spare me your lecture on the state of the ezln. the lack of clearly defined end-goals at the outset is only a weakness under your model of politics and progress. allow others the dignity to find their own way of doing things. it might just work. one of my favorite quotes from subcomandante marcos from an interview he did with a member of the group who traveled with la otra (translated from spanish):

'If you remember when we went through Jalisco, we went through a place where there was a mural, and it was a compañero of the Other who painted the mural. So when he was showing us the mural, I think it was in Ciudad Guzman, I asked him, “So, when you made this mural, did you imagine how it was going to look?”

“Yeah, I imagined it already finished,” he said.

“But even so, you started to make it and some things changed and the result is different but similar to what you imagined.”

“Yes.”

“Could you make a mural,” I asked him, “start a great drawing with many colors, without knowing the result?"

“No,” he said, “That would take a lot of imagination.”

That is the Other Campaign. We are starting to make the outline of something, though we don’t know how it will end up. Our honesty and our humility is to recognize that we don’t know. The only guarantee that we have that it’s going to be better is that we are choosing an ethics. And the ethics we are choosing is the ethics of the people, the people from below; we are choosing to give them their place. It’s not about seeing if in the future there are going to be better salaries, or better prices, or whatever. We don’t even know if there are going to be salaries. This is a recogni- tion of the limits that we have, that our horizon is this world that we have. And what lies beyond, that is for others to determine.
This is what the Other Campaign is proposing. Those who try to explain us as a movement, an organization, or a political party, take as their referent what is already at hand. We say no. They say a federation of organizations, or a united front of organizations will have to form, some kind of single unit, or a national dialogue, or a popular as- sembly like in Oaxaca, or a National Democratic Convention like that of Lopez Obrador. No! The surest thing is that it will be none of these things, because each of these has the horizon of a specific problem—and the problem here isn’t defined still, other than that it is a system.'
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a la izquierda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 04:59 PM
Response to Reply #32
36. Edited, I'm tired and I've been dealing with students all day
Edited on Wed Dec-09-09 05:38 PM by a la izquierda
i think we're talking from the same side of the coin, just a different perspective. supporting an ethics from below is fine, no argument from me there. If you think I'm going to argue with the tenets of the 6th Declaration, you're high as a kite. I study indigenous people and rights for a living-their histories, as a matter of fact. I know damn well the limitations indigenous groups have to work around; and I realize the problems of working with governments that don't care too much about the existence or rights of native populations. and, i know the legacies of charlatans who promise them the stars and leaving them scrounging for the scraps; historians, you know, look at the big picture.

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rapturedbyrobots Donating Member (364 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 05:41 PM
Response to Reply #36
39. all i was saying
is that its unfair to say they have gone nowhere since the uprising of '94. they have done a lot. others have also. we each evolve our own way. that's what this thread was originally about, right? evolving. so, lets try to evolve out of the 2-party, single-issue, politics that has dominated the last couple decades. lets try to make our world anew, in every respect. the ezln did it their way, it might not be perfect but it has done a lot for them (maybe not the entire region...but that wasn't the point to begin with right?). we do it our way by forming various interconnected circles that try to regain control over certain aspects of our lives. when i say our i use the term loosely as i don't belong to any particular organization, but have worked with many groups of self-organized independent but cooperative people who work together on everything and nothing in particular if you know what i mean. one of those groups (who is organized but of which i am not a member, but have worked with on certain things) sent a person to travel with la otra, and some people to the 6th intergalactic. i didn't go personally. that's not what i do. but i appreciate that others do. i teach, i study, i grow, i build, i help, i'm not a new ager (hate them) or indigenous, definitely don't want to be either. i am mexican but pure indigenous blood in my family ended two generations back. i don't want to be that. i want to be something new that is appropriate to the current socio-economic conditions of my time. i'm not sure what that is yet...but i know what it is not and that's enough for me right now. good luck on your studies. what school/program are you in and where do you do your work?
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a la izquierda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 09:02 PM
Response to Reply #39
41. I'll pm you with my personal info...
i don't like to get into specifics on the 'tubes.
let's just say that the new agers have caused the folks that i study loads of problems, making their lives pure hell.
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Brickbat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 10:11 AM
Response to Reply #11
19. I totally agree and it's one reason I hate the concept of "speaking truth to power." I don't want to
speak truth to power, I want to GET that power and USE it!
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Commie Pinko Dirtbag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 10:05 AM
Response to Reply #6
18. "a machine that does not concern them"????
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rapturedbyrobots Donating Member (364 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 12:46 PM
Response to Reply #18
24. yes
Edited on Wed Dec-09-09 12:47 PM by rapturedbyrobots
concern, as in having a claim to or share in. if you really believe you have a legitimate stake or claim in this current corporatocracy, then run with that and see where it gets you. i'll be busy finding a new way of doing politics that truly concerns (and is concerned with) my community. its been working pretty well so far...we've been able to organize medium scale local (as in our backyards) farming to feed multiple households, child-care coops, early education, free physical activities and after-school programs for kids (capoeira classes), free dental clinics HIV testing and education on basic medical diagnosis and treatment (so no one has to pay $1000 for a few stitches again), literacy and foreign language study, homework help for high school students, and some limited housing assistance...all not for profit without having to move to a commune or relying on government grants and our non-representative elected representatives. but what's that all worth anyway? i'm sure voting for obama and sending letters to your reps did wonders for you.
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mopinko Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 03:13 PM
Response to Original message
8. i highly recommend "the moral animal" by robert wright.
imho, once we really accept the fact of evolution, we can begin to really understand the human animal. anyone who doubts that our behavior is built upon our history has never watched a child grow from a tiny, wordless naked ape into an adult. phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny they say.

evolutionary psychology is a fascinating subject, and it will be, excuse me, a revolution when it supplants skinnerian, freudian, and judeo-christian theories of human behavior.
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bulldogge Donating Member (152 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-10-09 11:51 AM
Response to Reply #8
45. I really
want to check that book out, thank you for mentioning it. For one reason or another when I read your response I thought of the book "Shadows of forgotten ancestors" by the late Carl Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan...funny how one thought promotes another.
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hootinholler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 03:27 PM
Response to Original message
9. An interesting analogy WaterDude
Can there be evolution without selection? Have we subverted true evolution for too long that we will face extinction first?

Damn, you always make me think.

Thank you, and I hope to buy you a beverage someday.

-Hoot
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OneGrassRoot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 03:58 PM
Response to Original message
10. One of your best pieces....

And that's saying something. ;)

Thank you for being here. I hope you are taking good care of yourself!

:hug:

K&R

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struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 05:10 PM
Response to Original message
12. It sounds like H2O Man's girlchild understood the gospel rather well at age 8
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Joe Chi Minh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 05:29 PM
Response to Reply #12
38. As G K Chesterton put it, 'Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found hard
Edited on Wed Dec-09-09 06:29 PM by Joe Chi Minh
and left untried.'

I don't understand this obsession with Evolution on the part of the 'fundamentalists' or by their counterparts, academically-educated secularists. I'm not imputing this obsession to H2O, by the way. If, as appears to be the case, Evolution is true - the Big Bang alone at least suggests it is - it tells man precisely nothing about God, other than that, for the believer, He's pretty nifty at designing, creating, developing and sustaining his Creation, not just in three dimensions, but in the time dimension, as well. Why wouldn't He, if He's omnipotent? Science can never even legitimately ask, never mind answer, the big philosophical questions about the universe and human life. Religion may or may not be able to answer the biggest question, but it certainly cannot according to the canons of those who mistake Science for a religion, a code, if not to live by, by which to understand everything without exception. 'Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted,' as Einstein put it. Man is more than an aggregation of atoms.

The answers to the big questions can only plausibly approved or rejected by the heart, not the head. Christianity would be a poor sort of religion, if the God we worshipped loved us according to the superiorty of our worldly intelligence in relation to others. In fact, the reverse tends to be the case. In Christian scripture, no-one is ever excoriated or condemned by Christ for their lack of worldly intelligence, but for steadfastly rejecting the truth; their will, the disposition of their heart. And it tended to be the respectable, learned religious Establishment, the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees and so on, who were the miscreants.

H20's daughter's comment reminded me of that incredibly biting and equally moving comment of Tom Sawyer (or was it Huckleberry Finn?) - perhaps the most moving in the whole of world literature: along the lines that he'd been brought up to be a Christian by his good Christian folks, but somehow, no matter how hard he tried, when asked if he'd seen a certain escaped slave (his friend, Jim), he just couldn't bring himself to tell them the truth.

An insightful quote in Wikipedia:

'Of Jim, Russell Baker wrote:

"The people whom Huck and Jim encounter on the Mississippi are drunkards, murderers, bullies, swindlers, lynchers, thieves, liars, mows, frauds, child abusers, numbskulls, hypocrites, windbags and traders in human flesh. All are white. The one man of honor in this phantasmagoria is 'slave Jim,' as Twain called him to emphasize the irony of a society in which the only true gentleman was held beneath contempt."'<8>

Like Twain and Dickens, who seemed to do so habitually, Chesterton sometimes saw the adult world through the eyes of a child. 'What gives?' Why say one thing and do another?' As we get older, we tend to wise up to our own deficiencies, realising we are part of the problem - but not straight away.

In adolescence, we can feel totally outraged at the wickedness of society. But adult life demands that we make compromises with an evil World. Unless we're OK about ending up homelss and destitute. In the Gospel story of the woman caught in adultery, we see it played out, as starting with the oldest, and finishing with the youngest, her accusers walked away; aware of their own sins.
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Me. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-08-09 10:46 PM
Response to Original message
14. The French Revolution Provides
A good example of what was being replaced by more of the same, eventually. Though terror took the place of what was for a time.

I have been wondering if, just before a big evolutionary jump, things look grim and like they are going backwards. I'd like to think the hate we're seeing so much of lately is the darkness before the dawn.
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Mithreal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 02:39 AM
Response to Original message
15. Another enthusiastic K&R
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tavalon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 09:16 AM
Response to Original message
16. I am so glad you survived and that you have procreated
Edited on Wed Dec-09-09 09:17 AM by tavalon
You have amazing children who obviously haven't fallen too far from the tree.

I want to give you the opposite of a Darwin Award. One that means you have contributed positively to the gene pool.

Edited to add: Thank you for the comment about revolution. I am fearful, not hopeful, that we are headed that direction. I hope we can find another, more creative way to handle what has been done to us, to stop the continuation of the wrongness without putting something worse out there.
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Mira Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 09:36 AM
Response to Reply #16
17. Well rounded commentary on this thoughtful post N/T
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Commie Pinko Dirtbag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 10:41 AM
Response to Reply #16
21. Mmmm... Dawkins Award, maybe? -nt
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EnviroBat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 10:20 AM
Response to Original message
20. Nicely done...
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liberal_at_heart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 10:54 AM
Response to Original message
22. That was beautiful and powerful. Thank you.
Edited on Wed Dec-09-09 10:56 AM by liberal_at_heart
You are so right. As a non-violence advocate I can't help but look at history's violent revolutions with curiosity. Yes, they brought freedom for a short time but in time it just went back to the way it was. So was creating an enviornment of violence worth it? People say freedom is worth dying for, but is it worth killing for? especially if you understand that eventually things will only return to the way they were before. If we look at the entire history of our species we find that any kind of violence whether for greed or for freedom is only part of the problem not the solution. I think this is the reason the Dalai Lama is such a non-violent advocate. He sees that from a historiacal perspective that violence never really solves anything. You are right. We need an evolutionary leap in consciousness. I can only hope we have one before our species destroys itself.
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democrank Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 11:43 AM
Response to Original message
23. Bless you and your family
I really enjoyed your piece. Thank you.

The following is a rather simple story compared to the profound lesson illustrated by your precious daughter, but I thought you`d appreciate it.

Last year, during a visit with two of my grandchildren, we decided to make a family contribution to the local food pantry. My grandson, then six, had just been told of the plight of people living in poverty. My nine-year-old grandaughter took the lead, grabbed a baggie and passed it around the kitchen, asking each of us to do what we could. We raised $12 and change.

I had tears in my eyes watching my grandchildren go up and down the aisles looking for bargains. In the middle of our search, my grandson stopped in his tracks and said something like this...."Gram, Do you mean that there are parents who want to buy food for their children and can`t?" I assured him this was the truth. He said, "That must make them feel terrible. WE MUST HELP!" He took off on a dead run, then came back to me. "Gram, what about the animals? Can we help feed them too?" I told him we`d do our best to stretch what money we had to include something for a dog or cat since he thought that was so important. He said, "Gram, all the helping people will buy for dogs and cats but I`m afraid nobody will remember the gerbils. I`m getting a box of gerbil food with my $3.00." He did just that, bless his little heart. We have so much to learn from our children and grandchildren.

As for Gandhi, I`ve had this in a prominent place for years and read it most every day.

GANDHI`S SEVEN SINS~
Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Commererce without morality
Science without humanity
Worship without sacrifice
Politics without principle


~PEACE~
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BobTheSubgenius Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 09:19 PM
Response to Reply #23
42. I much prefer to give food to the food bank.
Or money directly to people in obvious need. I've found that giving someone even as little as $5 greatly exceeds their expectation, and hopefully brightens their day enough that the glow lasts a little while. Small victories. I've also gone into stores and bought hot RTE food from the deli counter so they don't have to wrestle with what they put the money to.

I won't give money to the local food bank, because it goes into general church revenue, and it's a very street-level, fundy sort of church. If they truly want to feed people, let them do it with food.

At one time, we used to take some wayfarers and storm-tossed home with us so they could have a respite from the street. Wash their clothes, sleep indoors, eat hot meals. Sadly, though, the world isn't as friendly a place as I thought it was in the 60's and 70's. I have let people stay in a vacant suite for a month or so, though. In one case, almost a year. That was kind of punishing financially, however.

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zoff Donating Member (302 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 01:02 PM
Response to Original message
25. My dear departed cousin did ask a question ...
... of my grandmother during a church sermon in Iowa decades ago. She asked, "Why is he screaming?" She wasn't of school age so did not know enough to raise her hand. Those who heard her giggled in amusement.
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Jackpine Radical Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 01:11 PM
Response to Original message
26. Evolution is not a gradual and steady process of change.
Edited on Wed Dec-09-09 01:15 PM by Jackpine Radical
Stephen Jay Gould pointed out how it seems to proceed in a series of rapid changes separated by long periods of apparent equilibrium. Sort of a "tipping point" phenomenon. Similar processes were described by Rene Thom in his catastrophe theory, in which a process of incremental change suddenly results in a phase change. Thomas Kuhn's notion of "paradigm shifts" in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a third similar conceptualization. In my mind, a true revolution would have nothing to do with street barricades, guillotines, or small bands of guerillas in the hills. It would have to do with a major mind-shift, a resetting of values, in which money is recognized as only a medium of exchange, a tool useful for smoothing out interactions among people, and true value resides in the human spirit, and the value of anything is advanced in strict accordance with its role in advancing the purposes of that spirit.
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spanone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 01:22 PM
Response to Original message
27. k&r
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omega minimo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 02:29 PM
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29. .
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Javaman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 03:05 PM
Response to Original message
30. Brilliant words and it certainly sounds as if your daughter is following your example.
Cheers!
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bertman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 03:14 PM
Response to Original message
31. Excellent post, H2O Man. I'm just hoping we can keep from destroying the planet long
enough for this evolutionary change to kick in.

But, if you think about it, we homo sapiens destroying ourselves by destroying our environment may be the ultimate evolution. Of course, that's a hard proposition for our egos to contemplate.



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HCE SuiGeneris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 03:52 PM
Response to Original message
33. H2Old Man
You, and your family, inspire my world! Hope you are mending quickly... :hippie:
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Uncle Joe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 03:59 PM
Response to Original message
34. Well done and thanks for sharing H2O Man.
My own gut feeling is, The Internet will greatly aid in the endeavor of human consciousness evolution.

People looking for answers are more likely to find them, individuals retreating to islands may still have connection to the community, periphery wisdom will become mainstreamed.

I believe the overall synergy from the growing group mind has the capacity to raise the intellectual and emotional level of humanity; as a result we will become better progenitors and this will have a magnifying affect with each successive generation.

It's good to see you kicking around, peace.
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tiredtoo Donating Member (81 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 04:56 PM
Response to Original message
35. Very good piece h2oldman
As I have been reading the notes on this board for the past few weeks I have seen many berating the condition of the United States with our President Barack Obama. This from what i would expect were staunch supporters of Obama last year. I have been trying to post a note explaining how this is in fact an evolutionary thing not a revolutionary thing.
In 2006 when the Democrats gained strength in congress and the senate I was hopeful. When we took the white house back I was overjoyed. Since then my joy has lessened to a degree. However, this country has been swinging to the right for the last 30/40 years. When LBJ put the civil rights legislation through in the mid 60s the south began it's shift to the republican side. This along with the rising power of the evangelicals led to more and more power to the right wing. IMHO this power peaked with the "selection" of George W. Bush.
We have a government controlled by corporate powers. The last couple elections display finally, a move away from that control. The wealthy corporations still have tons of money and power as witnessed by the current struggles to achieve any meaningful change.
We are the beginning of an evolution and must continue in our support of the President and those who support our ideals. I predict the next 40 years will get better and better for us. Hang tough folks better days are coming.
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a la izquierda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 05:25 PM
Response to Original message
37. I had meant to respond to this earlier...
when I discuss indigenous societies, I often tell my students that many indigenous cultures survived the onslaught of colonialism because they evolved. Evolution in a cultural sense doesn't always have to imply negative change: in the case of indigenous groups, their evolution didn't mean that they became Spanish in any way, and in fact, many so-called traditional groups did not adopt western ways. But they evolved as an adaptational method, to deal with alien ways and learn how to live in a changing world. From that, they survived. This doesn't mean that the ways they lived before were wrong, or that afterward they were somehow culturally different (though most usually were); it simply means that with momentous events that change the course of human history, evolution is required for survival.
Good on your daughter, and on you--you surely raised a smarty!
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kimmerspixelated Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 05:43 PM
Response to Original message
40. Human evolution is coming sooner than you might think.
Consciousness with a capital C! We will be peeling away our shells to be the light we were intended to be.
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BobTheSubgenius Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 10:15 PM
Response to Original message
43. H2O Man
If this is the same daughter that posted to us about your health issues, I continue to be more impressed by her. If it is a different child, I am even more impressed by you and your skills as a parent than I was before, not to mention your obvious thinking and writing skills.

Impressed by the whole darned family.
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DemReadingDU Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-09-09 10:53 PM
Response to Original message
44. You have raised some find children

You must be very proud, and thanks for this essay.
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