(YellowTimes.org) – Normally, dangerous reptiles in zoos are kept inside secure areas. Visitors, non-threatening to the animals, are free to roam the grounds. In the year 2002, these roles have been reversed. The dangerous cold-blooded animals are on the loose and the hapless visitors are kept inside cages.

Who are these reptiles permitted to roam freely? Did the Loch Ness monster escape from Scotland? Did scientists clone a carnosaur from scraps of DNA, the beast escaping from the lab and free to threaten the countryside? Did space aliens drop a few stegosaurs from their UFO to menace the United States? No! From all outward appearances one cannot tell the difference between the dangerous reptiles gallivanting around America and the hapless victims they hold at bay. I will explain the metaphor after sharing some examples of the carnage leaving its bloody trail in the land of the free and the brave.

Homeland Security has now established an electronic center potentially able to monitor just about everyone in the United States. The FBI seems to have the capability of processing about 1 million electronic messages in a matter of seconds. In recent days, the United States Supreme Court ruled that undocumented immigrants lose the right to be reinstated, the right to back wages, and the right to be paid overtime if they participate in an effort to unionize. This is a group of workers who make up almost 4 percent of the entire U.S. work force and more than half of all farm workers. Is this not a version of Palestinians living in Israel?

The United States House of Representatives, now renamed the House of Corporate Stooges, passed a bill purportedly protecting workers' pension rights. However, employees are not entitled to sit on their Pension Fund Boards. They do not have the right of redress when given bad investment advice. High-level executives do not have to report any sales of their stock. POTUS appointed R.K. Pachauri to the Chair, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This dinosaur/gentleman voted against a judicial inquiry to investigate the disaster of the Dabhol Power Plant in India, an Enron enterprise. Several other anti-environmental activities appear on his Vita.

Dinosaurs are roaming the countryside and the luckless decent, hard-working people are held in captivity. How can we explain such a state of affairs? As Ross Perot would say, pointing to a pie chart, "It's easy." Well, it is easy to explain once one knows the rule of the game. The metaphor is clarified when one understands the behavioral priorities imprinted in the basal ganglia of the human brain.

Some basic facts about the evolutionary development of the triune brain must be understood in order to apprehend the senseless descent of our culture into the abyss of darkness. Unless there is a radical change in understanding human behavior, bin Laden may well have the last laugh. The destruction of the American dream is well under way. It is mostly the result of a few ounces of brain matter, the basal ganglia, situated above the hindbrain. What the dealers and the wheelers do not realize is that their repressive deeds have little to do with their idealistic expression of capitalism or the free market. Their toxic deeds are but expressions of a part of the forebrain extending back in time for about 240,000,000 years.

Paul D. MacLean, M.D., introduced to you in the last article, removed cells from the human basal ganglia. He stained them in the proper method for slide preparation, then repeated the process with reptilian brain cells. When placed under the microscope there is little observable difference between these slides. This simply means that our reptilian ancestry is alive and well in our brains. While dinosaurs no longer roam the earth, they bequeathed some of their performance patterns to every single baby born on the Blue Planet! MacLean applies the term "reptilian brain" or "R-complex" to the basal ganglia.

After MacLean established the similarity between the human and reptilian basal ganglia, he turned his attention to reptilian behavior. His research yielded some rather astonishing results. In addition to the physiological characteristics imprinted in the R-complex, it also generates fundamental behavioral or psychological functions. On page 100 of his book, MacLean lists "25 Special Forms of Basic Behavior" and on page 143 he lists an additional six "General Forms of 'Interoperative' Behavior." For our purposes, we can generalize and reduce these 31 forms of behavior into four major categories. They are A.) Territory, B.) Hierarchy, C.) Ritual and D.) Deceit

These functions of the reptilian brain are only concerned with survival of the self. The reptilian brain has been most effective in achieving that goal. While many species have been exterminated, neural reptilian circuitry survived. I am convinced that long after homo sapiens disappear from the earth, the basal ganglia will survive in whatever life-forms succeed us. Having survived for about 240,000,000 years, there is no reason to believe it will not survive into the long distant future.

Every aspect of the basal ganglia concentrates on the needs of individual survival - it has no concerns for other members of the same or any other species. The territorial imprint in the reptilian brain, unchecked by any other dynamics, is responsible for the existence of free-roaming dinosaurs destroying the possibility of a society of free citizens exercising their privileges with a profound sense of social responsibility. While many of our leading alphas talk a good game and make idealistically sounding speeches, their actions evidence their enslavement to the R-complex.

We need to understand three important points.

1.) No self-correcting mechanisms exist among the divisions of the triune brain. Self-limiting neural ganglia do not exist to put a stop to self-centered drives.

2.) Human territoriality extends beyond the merely physical. Ideas and beliefs are a substantive part of each individual's territory. Whether invasion comes from a burglar or someone holding a radically different viewpoint, the response of the R-complex is the same. It reacts to opposing points of view as instinctively as it does to an invasion of territory.

3.) It appears that reptiles limit their territorial aggressiveness to simply insure sufficient "Lebensraum." In humans, however, territoriality expansiveness for many members of our tribe operates on the premise that too much is never enough.

With reference to points 1 and 2 it can be said that it is almost impossible to have a rational, intelligent conversation about differing political, religious or economic points of view. In most instances, discussion within minutes becomes a defense of one's system of beliefs. When controlling alphas decide that the fiscal bottom line is the be-all and end-all of corporate responsibility, when politicians decide that in the name of capitalism even inhumane decisions are acceptable, then reason and logic cannot prevail. Money and power are simply modern adaptations of the territorial imprint in the R-complex.

We all remember that a car model having a defective fuel tank exploded in several instances causing a number of deaths. The company did a cost effectiveness study. It concluded that it would be cheaper to pay a few death claims than to recall and retrofit all cars on the road. The decision-making executive did not fit the F.B.I. profile of mass murderers. They just acted on the impulse of their reptilian brains.

When Enron cheated Californians of billions of dollars during their manufactured energy crises, neither Kenny Boy et al, including POTUS who refused to come to the rescue of the citizens, could be accused of looking like Al Capone. No, they just acted in accordance with their reptilian brains unchecked by any controlling elements.

Nothing, not even sex, is more important to any living organism than its own space, its territory. Thank you, Dr. Freud, but territory preempts sex as the most fundamental of all needs. Without space we can't make love. Without your own space, you cannot exist.

It is a peculiar twist in the human species that insists on extending its territory beyond survival needs. It is not enough to merely establish and defend one's territory. We evidence our aggressiveness by conquest and subjection of the conquered. I presume that human desire to lord over other members of our species is due to the neocortex. Recall that the newest part of the brain is only about three to five million years old. By some twist of nature, the reptilian brain made the youngest part of the forebrain its servant.

The non-linguistic and non-reasoning ancient brain uses the neocortex to develop both a rationale for the irrational and to voice supposed reasons for the unreasonable. Thus we justify wanton appropriation of another's labor by defending practices in the name of the Free Market. The reptilian brain asserts repressive labor practices in the name of Competitive Edge, wages at levels below the minimum standards of living in the name of Capitalism. And all the while, the dominating dinosaurs vote themselves compensations that would make a common pickpocket blush with shame.

Reptiles espouse lofty religious themes while trampling justice and righteousness in the mire of their self-created reasonless drive for ever-larger profits at all cost. The selfishness engendered by the reptilian brain knows no dishonor. Have not all the reptile/gentlemen a list of reasons for their behavior a mile long? Little do they realize that the list is the eventually self-destructive creature of their own irrational basal ganglia. Does not "the glory that WAS Greece and the splendor that WAS Rome" say anything to these usurpers of the common good?

The R-complex's territorial imperative causes leaders and rulers to trample dinosaur-like through the halls of Congress, the walnut-paneled Board Rooms, and the Oval Office. And the rest of us find ourselves imprisoned in the "cages" designed by them. Limitation of civil liberties, imposition of religious dogmatism, destruction of equal access to health care, economic enslavement through usurious interest on credit cards, and pillage of the environment are but a few examples of the cages imprisoning us.

There are no great democratic ideals to be found in sending our young men and women into combat to protect the monetary interests of the oil companies. The decision committing troops are hatched in the R-complex of the wheelers and the dealers. Nothing noble exists in pharmaceutical companies ripping off everyone with their pricing structure. These decisions are engendered in the R-complex of the wheelers and the dealers.

Dinosaurs are alive and well. The very structure of our society testifies to that fact. The next article will consider the hierarchical, ritualistic, and deceitful imprints in the human basal ganglia.

The Jurassic Zoo – part one, section two

(YellowTimes.org) – The territorial imperative, deeply embedded in the basal ganglia of the human triune brain, provides circuitry driving many modern humans to amass ever more territory in the form of power and money. Controlling alphas of any society, whether in Afghanistan or the United States, dominate others, including their fellow citizens, because of behavioral patterns imprinted in their reptilian brains. The unmanaged dominance of the priorities of the basal ganglia makes for strange bedfellows. There is little doubt in my mind that the motivating drives of the President of the United States at this time are far more closely aligned with the underlying motives of an Afghanistan warlord than with an American family barely making ends meet. Can there even be any question that former President Reagan had far more feelings for President Marcos than he did for American traffic controllers? And I am willing to bet my hard-earned dollar against your donut that President Reagan's empress had far more empathy for Mrs. Marcos than she did for her American maids.

The question now before us is why are the masses of people willing to accept the unfairness, even the injustice, of the controlling alphas? Not so surprisingly the reason for placid compliance is located in the same neural complex as the territorial imperative.

As you follow the thoughts in this column, you will see that this makes perfect sense for the survival of a species. A number of reptilian behavior patterns listed by MacLean can be summarized with the simple term "hierarchy." Let me explain how that behavior insures survival of a species. All imprints in the basal ganglia - for that matter in the entire brain of any species - primarily serve to insure survival. What has hierarchy to do with survival?

In any group, herd, and tribe - whatever - of any species there are periodic times when rather violent behavior is manifested to establish the alpha animal. The rewards for that position are rather significant. Alphas have breeding rights and access to all females. Now that is something worth fighting for. Even the simplistic brain of a dinosaur understands that perk. But there remains one problem needing to be solved. Unless there is a general acceptance of the alpha by all members of the group, the fighting would go on forever. So nature came up with a neat trick. At some moment in time, everyone agrees that enough is enough. Fighting stops. With the mutually agreed upon truce, the alpha can go ahead undisturbed and impregnate the females. Thus the continuity of the species is ensured. Everyone can eat in relative peace and do his or her thing without having to worry about being attacked. Peace is maintained with each member knowing its position in the pecking order. Then the process is repeated again the following year. The hierarchic imprint insures survival of the tribe. Period.

Of course, the need for hierarchy is deeply imbedded in our species. I cannot imagine human societies functioning without a hierarchical structure. Someone in a corporation has to assume ultimate responsibility for the decision making process. As President Truman used to say, "The buck stops here." And not only must there be an alpha in charge of things, the rest of the organization has to accept the decisions that have been made. When firemen are fighting a big blaze, someone has to decide how best to get control of the situation. His or her command must be unquestionably accepted. Those situations are the plus side of hierarchical structures. Authority without hierarchy degenerates into chaos.

Leave it to humans with their big brains to screw up the deal. If a downside is to be found, leave it to our kind to find it. Those who really want to be the dominant alphas easily take advantage of the hierarchical imprint in our brains. They pervert our predisposition to accept leadership and lord it over their subordinates. Let but a charismatic orator appeal to our territorial needs and we hail him our Fuehrer, Prime Minister, or President and pledge allegiance to him or her. Blindly we follow even if it means that we become self-destructive.

Even in America, the land of the free, hierarchic behavior dominates. While under the flimsiest of excuses, civil liberties and human rights are abrogated by Deputy Fuehrer Ashcoft, the crowd chants, Hail to the Chief! An approval rating of 70 percent or even 80 percent has much more to do with the reptilian need for hierarchy than with popular approval of presidential policies.

Maslow in Motivation and Personality makes the point that in times of threat to the authority of the state it becomes easy for people to accept a dictatorship or military rule. Fear can cause a people to elevate their leader to a dictator. The need for hierarchy makes it easy for the leader to assume the function of Il Duce.

I do not believe that Bush or Ashcroft have any idea about the existence of the hierarchical imprint in the basal ganglia. Yet, its pervasive power is so great that no conscious script is needed to gain control over masses of people. Groups of any species desire a leader. It lends a sense of stability to the order of things. Dominating individuals are present in every group. They offer their power. The masses are willing to accept it because without structure they feel insecure. Were the alphas to use their power for the benefit of the people, the system would work fine.

Regretfully, in the history of our species those who wield power fairly and judiciously are few and far between. Leaders are out to protect and further their own turf. The need for structure is so dominant that most of the time, most people allow themselves to be led around by their noses. Individuals who challenge the structure, even for the best of reasons, are at best ostracized and at worst sent to concentration camps. Resentment of persons who blow the whistle for excellent reasons are not only resented by the alphas but often also shunned by their fellows. Intellectually they might agree that either illegal or immoral actions have taken place. However, resentment against the whistleblowers stems from drives buried deep in an ancient part of the brain. It is far easier to accept the wrongdoing than to upset reptilian survival techniques.

The profound depth of hierarchical behavior was demonstrated in an experiment conducted by Dr. Stanley Milgram, Psychology Department, Yale University, published in 1965.

Milgram designed a study revolving around a group of "volunteers" recruited through newspaper ads. The volunteers were the actual subjects of the experiments. However, they did not know that. They thought that the experiment revolved around the "students." The volunteers came from diverse backgrounds and were paid a modest fee for their participation. This was the experiment.

A group of actors had been employed to play the part of students. They were seated, in an adjacent room, on contraptions resembling electric chairs. Attached to the students' wrists were wires connected to a console. A keyboard, attached to the console, was in front of the volunteers. On it were thirty switches in increments of 15 volts. Inscriptions above the switches read: SLIGHT SHOCK; INTENSE SHOCK; DANGER: SEVERE SHOCK. Of course, in the experiment there was no electricity in the wires. No actual shocks could be administered. But the volunteers did not know that.

The professor was in charge of the experiment. He gave each student several pairs of words such as "blue – ox," "wild - duck," "nice - day." After a time interval, the volunteer gave the first word of a pair to the student. If the student gave the wrong answer, the volunteer was instructed to administer a slight shock. As the students continued giving wrong answers, the voltage was increased. The students were instructed to start groaning and to express pain. At a certain point the groans were to become screams. When the shocks reached 350 volts, the students were instructed to become silent. The volunteers were instructed that no answer called for increased voltage. After the administration of three 450-volt shocks, the professor called off the experiment.

Before the project began, Milgram asked thirty-nine psychiatrists to estimate the number of volunteers who would administer the full 450 volts. The consensus was that most would not go past 150 volts. About 4 percent would reach the 300 volts stage and only a pathological group of one in one thousand would administer the full dosage.

In fact, 60 percent of the volunteers administered the full shock. Some did so even after the students demanded to be released from the experiment due to the pain. In other countries where the experiment was conducted, the number of volunteers administering the 450 volts was even greater. In Munich the figure reached 85 percent.

Milgram deduced that the reason for the continued administration of the "corrective punishment" was not due to sadistic urges by the volunteers. Rather, the volunteers became integrated into a social structure and were unable to get out of it. They were caught up in the hierarchy. The professor was the controlling alpha animal. The ancient basal ganglia dominated the behavior of the volunteers in spite of the fact that they lived in a "civilized society."

Blind obedience to hierarchical drives has caused and is causing havoc among humankind. Charlatans know very well how to exploit the reptilian brains of their followers. The dominating alphas are quite unawares that ancient dinosaurs control their behavior. They believe it their genius or their leadership that makes the masses do their bidding. In reality both alphas and followers simply follow the dictates of neural circuitry laid down about 240,000,000 years ago.

The combination of territory and hierarchy can indeed have a most destructive effect in the affairs of the human animal. Add to these two behavioral patterns the powers of ritual and deceit and you have the kind of deadly brew that has enslaved most of humanity for most of its history.

Section three of The Jurassic Zoo will discuss these aspects of our behavior.

The Jurassic Zoo – part one, section three

(YellowTimes.org) – The first two sections discussing the evolutionary development of the human brain dealt with two of the four behavior patterns, the territorial imperative and hierarchy, imprinted in the basal ganglia or the reptilian brain. This column discusses the remaining two patterns: ritual and deceit.

What has survival to do with ritual? Ritual in its most basic sense refers to a past successful practice providing safety and/or success. It thus becomes a standard for future conduct. Let me illustrate.

Old Dino, a brontosaurus, plods along Farm to Market Road 178 on the way to its watering hole. Suddenly, Dino sees a menacing tyrannosaurus rex. Dino makes a hasty retreat. But Dino still needs to get to the watering hole. What is an old reptile to do?

Well, it gets off FM 178 and finds an old narrow lane leading to its destination. The next day the same scenario repeats itself. Dino is on his way to the spa. T.R. roars and spits. Dino beats a retreat. Dino uses the old lane. On day 3, Dino doesn't even bother to try FM 178. He plods safely and securely on his hidden path. A safe procedure is remembered. Bingo, a ritual has been established.

Reluctance to accept new ideas, to change customary ways, is based on behavior imprinted in our reptilian brains. Ritual makes use of past behavior that has proven safe. Even if the old way is not as effective as a new procedure, there is a tendency to reject the new. Resistance to change, once a safe routine is established, is embedded in human neural functions reaching back in time to our reptilian ancestors. It makes little difference whether we are considering new corporate policies or anything else calling for a change from established routines.

I want to iterate that the reptilian brain is essential to survival. We do need our own territory to survive. Hierarchy not only brings order but also allows us to organize work and play in an efficient manner. Ritual provides precedents permitting us to advance without having to reinvent the wheel every time we turn around.

It is the downside of our reptilian ancestry that can make life so very difficult. When rituals become ends in themselves, they tend to become counter-productive. At times we maintain precedents for no other reason than to obey the dictates of the R-complex. Precedents taking on authority for no other reason than their transmission from one generation to the next can enslave people to meaningless practices. Tradition for the sake of tradition puts blinders on creative thinking.

One excellent example of such a condition can be found in the American legal system. I am deeply appreciative of the rule of "stare decisis." This is the legal procedure requiring judges to follow established laws and decisions. Without stare decisis the law would be even more of a jungle than present practices have made of it. But precedent for the sake of precedent can have a most unjust and socially destructive effect.

Take the case of Billy Ray McDaniels vs. The State of Texas, 642 SW 2nd, 785. There is no disagreement about the facts of the case. Billy Ray McDaniels raped a twenty-one year old newly married female college student. The attack took place in a back room of a store where both worked. Justice Truman Roberts said, "The appellant [the rapist] threatened to kill [her] before the sexual act occurred. He kept the knife in his hand at all times, except during the act of sexual intercourse. Even then, the knife was within easy reach."

There was no question in the minds of any of the justices of the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals that the rape happened, that Billy Ray McDaniels was the rapist and that neither trial judge nor jury had committed any reversible errors. Yet a majority of the Honorable Court reversed the jury's decision in the Lower Court. What happened? Justices Tom Davis and W.C. Davis (no relations) said, "We hold that the indictment in the present case is fundamentally defective for failure to acknowledge that the threatened harm was to be imminently inflicted." (Italics mine.)

The Texas Penal Code, T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 2103 (a) (2,) states that in order for an attacker to be found guilty of rape by threat of death, the act has to be imminently inflicted. The D.A. failed to put that one word into the indictment. I presume the legislators who wrote this law and the Justices who interpret it assume that a rapist might say, "I am holding this knife to your throat. I am going to rape you. Damn you, if you resist I am going to kill you. But don't worry Sweetie; I ain't going to do it imminently. I am going to rape you, but I won't do it imminently. I am going to slap you around if you holler, but it won't be done imminently."

If such evidence were to be introduced at a trial, the accused could not be found guilty of rape. Threat and deed have to take place imminently. One does wonder at the mental faculties of those writing this law. If the rape does not occur imminently, it would not occur. Whenever it happens, it has to be, ipso facto, imminently.

Of course, there was no evidence in the McDaniels case that threat and deed did not take place imminently. However, a previous decision had overturned a conviction because another D.A. had left out "imminently" in the indictment in another rape case. So the Justices now felt that stare decisis must be honored. Because another Court could not see its way clear to deal with the issue in a rational manner, the Court in the MacDaniel case repeated the same idiocy. Surely, our system of laws can be upheld with the power of reason and a sense of justice. But that is not the case. What is involved here?

The overarching power of the R-complex makes us blind to innovations. We follow precedents even if it serves no real purpose in particular cases. In order to defend primordial drives we clothe our reptilian behavior with seemingly good reasons. But upon closer examination we find that our reptilian brains have duped us. What seem to be rational clarifications are nothing but sugar coatings of base instincts.

The following is a most important thought: the reptilian brain is incapable of speech. In order to justify its every action, it "orders" the neocortex to furnish plausible reasons for the unreasonable. The basal ganglia sets the agenda and the neocortex verbalizes our most heinous deeds. The neocortex does not subject the demands of the R-complex to a scrutiny based on reason. The 240,000,000 year-old reptile sets the agenda. The 3,000,000 year old neocortex, the "new kid on the block," obeys the orders of its granddad.

So church fathers in the name of truth defended their demands forcing Galileo to recant. Powerful church leaders of the present defend the teaching of creationism as science. In God's name they seek to prevent the teaching of birth control and protection against sexually transmitted diseases. Quoting the Bible, they become homophobic.

Orthodox leaders in Islamic countries want their women to be neither seen nor heard! Orthodox Christians want their wives to be subservient to their husbands. Blind obedience to ritualistic practices demands the neocortex to find "rational" precedents to defend the indefensible. And blindly we stumble along the road of ignorance. Reason, justice, and mercy are lost as the reptilian brain sets the agenda for senseless behavior.

Politicians instinctively know human dependence on ritual. The American flag flies at rallies when the substance of the meeting is to promote provincial agendas at the expense of justice and equity. Nationally known religious leaders are paraded before the crowds when we install a new president. They are there, for the most part, not to advance equitable causes but as window dressing to dupe the assembled crowd into making a subconscious connection between the "old-time religion" and the new President of the United States. The reptilian brain feels quite comfortable with such actions even though they are a charade and a farce.

Not knowing that our brains are three brains, we accord behavior generated in the R-complex the same authority as rational and empathetic conduct. And we repeat the same old mistakes, the same old hatreds. It is not only in the Balkans that ethnic groups are continuously at war; our own brains have Balkanized our behavior.

The final imprint in the reptilian brain is the deceit factor. What has deceit to do with survival? A stalking lioness does not roar as she approaches her prey in the Serengeti Plain. If she were to announce her intent, the fleet-footed gazelles would be long gone. There would be no supper for her or her pride that night. No, a lioness must, in order to eat and survive, cover up her intent. Deception is necessary for survival; without deceit, many species would starve to death.

The deceit factor is deeply imprinted in the basal ganglia of the human brain. That explains the mendacity permeating our culture. In "The Day America Told the Truth," we are brought face to face with the extent of lying in our culture. The authors, James Patterson and Peter Kim, claim that 86 percent of us regularly lie to our parents. Seventy-five percent of us lie to our friends, and 69 percent lie to our lovers.

Twenty-five percent of us would abandon our families for $10,000,000 and 23 percent for that amount of money would become prostitutes for a week or more. These statistics, cited on pages 38 and 66, do not reflect the mores a people who claim to be cultured, civilized, and God-fearing. Explanation of the pervasiveness of our mendacity will be found, I believe, in the wiring of our reptilian brains. Our first instinctive commitment to ourselves is to survive. When conditions present themselves that may threaten our "territory," an automatic system defuses that risk. We will lie to defend our space. Deceit is deeply etched in our reptilian brains.

If Arthur Bremer had not stalked Governor George Wallace, the latter would probably not have been shot. The attainment of self-serving goals could probably not take place in many cases if the predator did not keep his intent secret. The reptilian brain knows no ethics. Regretfully, what nature intended as a survival mechanism, has taken on a self-defeating characteristic in humans. Deceit for our kind, unchecked by the prefrontal cortex, is most dangerous to humankind.

It is rather amazing the degree to which we accept lying in our culture. President Clinton certainly was not truthful about the Lewinsky affair. The C.E.O.'s of the tobacco companies surely lied before Congress when they said that tobacco was not addictive. Lt. Col. North admitted to lying before Congress. Yet, not a single one suffered a serious penalty for speaking untruths. Something deep in their reptilian brains instructed them to deny, deny, deny. "If you don't deny," says the R-complex, "your goose is cooked." It then instructs the neocortex to come up with all sorts of excuses, hoping that survival will be insured. And sure enough, in these three cases, no fatal price was exacted by our system.

Of course, one can't blame a reptile for protecting its own skin. But when the rest of us accept the lies and fail to hold liars accountable, then our claim to be the leading free nation in the world has a hollow ring. What nature intended as a physiological survival mechanism can have dire consequences in the human enterprise.

Who knew what before September 11? Someone in a high position must have known that bin Laden was up to something. Else we are sure wasting a lot of money on an ineffective intelligence apparatus. However, for whatever reason, the deceit factor made it easy for the information from being publicized.

Kenny Boy and his cohorts, including Arthur Anderson, knew a lot more than they were willing to admit. Mendacity is deeply etched in the human brain. It permeates our society. The reptilian brain is alive and well. Until we recognize and admit its power over human behavior we shall just muddle along and become victims to our own lies.

• There is a therapsid in your family tree – part two, section one

• he limbic system: family, play and games

(YellowTimes.org) – Genealogies are fascinating business but sometimes we find the unexpected in our family tree. There may be a horse thief or a hoodlum in our past, but then again, there might be a princess or a poetess gracing our line of descent.

Oh, I can hear some of the YellowTimes.org readers exclaiming, "For God's sake John, we want hot stuff about the President of the United States (POTUS) and Israel; about Cheney's et al involvement with Al Qaeda. We don't want to hear about genealogies!" And right you are in your desire to learn the latest about the seamy side of life inside the Greenbelt, Anderson's home office, and the secret meetings of our vice president (VIPOTUS) with the oil and gas folks.

But my point is that we will never comprehend human behavior if we do not understand some basic functions of the human brain. We will never change the shameful events we call history unless we have some knowledge of the neural circuits responsible for our actions.

Tracing humankind's origins we find animals called therapsids branching off from the dinosaurs. They eventually developed into mammal-like creatures and millions of years later split into the marsupials and placentals. What is so important to our self-understanding is that the brains of these creatures, containing entirely new neural strata totally unknown to reptiles, are also part of the human brain. There is agreement among brain physiology experts that this brain, the limbic system, contains the circuitry for moods and emotions. MacLean's research further suggests that the capacity for infant nurture and play is also contained in the limbic system.

Therapsid origins began about 180,000,000 years. While much younger than its older neighbor, the basal ganglia, the limbic system is no newcomer to the world. One of the monumental behavioral differences between reptiles and mammals is the ability of the latter to not only bear young but to also nurture them.

Some year ago, it was my privilege to work on an Earthwatch research project with leatherback turtles. They were magnificent creatures weighing between 800 to 1,000 pounds. We watched them make their way laboriously from sea to land. There they dug nests, deposited between 60 to over 100 eggs, and then lumbered back to the Caribbean. None of these "mothers" would ever see a single one of her offspring. If they ever did, they would not recognize it and it certainly would not recognize them. One substantive difference between reptiles and the ancient mammals is the capacity of the latter to nurse and nurture their offspring. With the advent of therapsids, the family became a reality.

1. The Family

Compare the behavior of a leatherback with that of a field mouse. About three inches long, the latter weighs no more than a few ounces. Although the reptile is 26,000 times heavier, the mouse's brain is far more complex than that of the turtle. The tiny mouse cleans its babies after birth and tends them. She returns to the nest periodically, lies on her side and presents her nipples to the squealing brood. She stays with her babies until they are self-sufficient.

The complexity of the neural capacity of a small field mouse exceeds the leatherback by an exponent of inexpressible magnitude. A hundred billion galaxies pale into insignificance when compared to the richness of life generated by the limbic system. To me, one of the wonders of life can be observed in a seal rookery. Thousands of cows and calves generate an unbearable cacophony of noise. Yet, each cow recognizes her own cub by a squeal unique to her offspring. This voice recognition is a significant factor for the basis of the foundation of the family. Among humans, the family is but a few hundred thousand years old. However, its institutional origin lies in neural fibers dating back about 180,000,000 years.

It is not my purpose to discuss the many problems associated with the family in our age. In mammalian species, existing without the complexity of the triune brain, infant nurture takes place instinctively. Only in higher primates do problems develop. We have no record of parental abuse or juvenile delinquency among mice. The question I raise is to what extent does our society take seriously the nurturing of the young? While mothers instinctively are aware of the need to nourish and foster their young, systemic problems centering on social, political, and religious dogmas, condemn millions of children to a less advantageous start in life. The complexity of our brains, while embracing neural capabilities for family nurture, also presents unique problems for our species.

When indiscriminate consumer spending fuels a society's economy, the family takes a beating. When personal worth is based on amassing "things," the family experiences tensions. When divorce between parents of small children is to be had for the asking, the family suffers. When politicians talk about "family values" but vote against "Time Off" for significant family needs and vote against childcare, it is the family that takes a beating. When religious fiats decry birth controls, unwanted, undernourished and neglected children become part our culture's human tragedy. When educational opportunities are based on the part of town where one's parents happen to live, families suffer. Instead of nurturing all of our young, we nurture opportunistic competitive rivalries.

The fact is that our species attempts to override Nature's imprint for proper infant and child nurture. All other mammals need only the instincts of the limbic system to nurture their offspring. Neither elands nor elephants need conscious guidelines to nurture their young. Maybe in more primitive days, long, long ago, humans could rear their children by merely following the dictates of their intuition. However, the complexity of our society demands more than mere instinctive ordering of nurture. Children killing children, children addicted to drugs, children disrespectful of teachers and parents, children committing suicide are ample evidence that something is amiss in our society when it comes to rearing our young. Passing school voucher legislation and permitting children to pray in school are hardly answers to the perplexing problems we face.

2. Play and games

Whence the human desire to play? Reptiles do not play; they lead solitary lives. Mammals live in social interaction. Puppies chase each other while young snakes do not. Kittens play while crocodiles do not. What we call play is but nature's way of teaching the young the art of getting along within their own family. Playful activities serve the purpose of socializing mammals. There is no question that humans need to and like to play. The toy industry earns billions of dollars annually selling toys and games. America is awash in Little Leagues for all sorts of sports. Certainly such activities are needed and properly conducted contribute to the nurture and well being of the individual child. But leave it to our species to mess up a good thing. Consider the following two scenarios:

Scenario 1. On a Saturday morning, children and parents gather for a softball game on the local playground. The kids are dressed up in uniforms imitating Major League athletes. There are even little girls acting as cheerleaders. Coaches instruct the kids. Adults act as umpires. Grown-ups make all decisions. When the game ends, sundry adults congratulate the winners. The losers have disappointment written across their faces.

Scenario 2. On another Saturday more than 65 years ago, my friends and I scratched out bases and lines on a dirt lot. We had a couple of old beat-up softballs and three or four old bats. One of us acted as umpire and called balls and strikes. Things did not always go smoothly. Strong arguments ensued whether a certain pitch was called correctly. We argued about a close play at home plate. Our voices were raised and emotions became heated. Yet the disagreement was settled. Play continued. We learned the necessity of giving and taking! We were not Einsteins. However, we were smart enough to learn that lesson. There were no adults around to take charge of anything. When the game ended a good time was had by all.

In the Atlantic Monthly, March 1987, Bruno Bettelheim, M.D. former Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Education, Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Chicago draws a sharp distinction between these two scenarios. He called the activity controlled by adults a "game" and the other one a "play." Play is the child's way of working out problems through an inner-directed process. In play a child learns that innate self-centeredness must be reconciled with larger societal needs. It teaches the child how to cope, how to create, how to settle disputes, how to take success and failure. Play teaches children to adapt to the world in which they find themselves. The learning comes, so to speak, from the "inside out."

Scenario 2 fulfills this purpose. In the sandlot baseball game, the purpose is not only to win but also to have a good time. That end can only be achieved as the players themselves resolve problem situations. If there is no solution, the game stops and no one wins. Bettelheim maintains that play teaches children to control their aggressiveness in order to attain their own goals. Bettelheim believes that qualities of perseverance, creativity, and the development of a rich inner life result from children's playful activities.

Scenario 1 on the other hand presents us with a case of "Games." Games are activities where outside authorities impose all the rules. There is no opportunity for children to learn the necessary skills for socialization. The emphasis is on conformity to externally imposed behavior. Controlling adults tell the child what to do and what not to do. Certainly, every human being must learn to live by the rules of the game; however, opportunity must be given through inner-directed play to develop the self-discipline needed for mature living. In the case of organized sports, the children are totally controlled by adults. They do not develop the ability to solve their own problems. The main purpose in the adult controlled situation is not to have a good time, but to win.

Bettelheim also stresses the fact that a democracy cannot survive if its citizens do not learn how to play properly. The professor, I believe, put his finger on the right spot when he claims that democracy needs mature individuals who respond to life in terms of disciplined, socialized insights. It is my conviction that our culture is presently failing in the task of developing a sufficient number of such individuals.

One obvious result of our failure to let children develop maturity through games can be seen in the political process. We find ourselves in the midst of serious problems and yet the administration plays games. By executive order, documents belonging in the public domain are whisked away from the scrutiny of independent scholars. Matters affecting the entire world are handled with disdain for other sovereign nations. The national debt is again taking on threatening proportions and anyone disagreeing with the administration is branded as unpatriotic. The mentality to exploit and to be exploited, to some significant degree, must surely be the result of participating in too many games and never learning the self-discipline that comes from playing.

POTUS, VIPOTUS, and sundry Kenny Boys strut around with the swagger of college fraternity presidents whose daddies just made large contributions to the Chapter. They have been involved in games all their lives. Never having had to integrate their activities into a larger social context, now that they are controlling alphas, they exert their positions in an autocratic, domineering manner. When someone else calls all the shots, the child cannot develop the ability to live as a responsible social being. Individuals from "excellent" backgrounds with degrees from "prestigious" institutions think nothing of insider trading, defrauding stockholders, abrogating Constitutional rights, and seeing the masses of the people as mere political/economic/religious increments. I suggest that these people have never learned to play and thus are asocial beings. Little foxes have a better chance of survival within their pack than do millions of people within the "Family of Humankind."

Is it possible that Kenny Boy and POTUS in their drive for more and more power disregard the social consequences of their actions because in childhood they never played and failed to learn socializing skills? Surely, more is involved in the development of such self-aggrandizing personalities than the absence of play. And yet, I can't help wondering if many of our society's alphas were denied the benefit of play as children?

Nature has provided a technique teaching the young social behavior. It seems to be a method whereby some of the instincts of the R-complex are channeled into more co-operative behavior. The schizophysiology of our brains has developed behavior that is hell-bent on bypassing the needed inner-development achieved in play. When a generation comes along that has been deprived of play, you have a people whose leaders act in a totalitarian manner and whose masses are quite willing to be the proverbial sheep. It is a condition just begging for a dictator/savior to keep on calling all the shots in the game of life.

There is a therapsid in your family tree - part two, section two
The limbic system: emotions

– There is an interesting story of lust and sex in the Bible. It is really spicy stuff. Surprisingly, those who seek to censor our morality have not sought to strike that incident from the Good Book and have the author blacklisted. There cannot be much doubt that the sinfulness of this narrative far exceeds the immorality of the exposed breast of the Statute of Justice that Ashcroft commanded to be clothed. Amnon, one of King David's sons, had an overpowering desire to seduce his half-sister Tamar. She, in turn, met his blazing passion with stony silence. With the help of a friend, Amnon found a pretext inducing Tamar to come to his private chambers. Then Amnon raped her. (2 Samuel 13)

After Amnon satisfied his lust he "was seized with a very great loathing for her; indeed, his loathing was ever greater than the lust he had felt for her." Why hasn't Hollywood picked up that story? Can't you just see some sex kitten, maybe the "Playmate of the Year," playing Tamar? I can also think of several esteemed politicians on both sides of the aisle who might portray Amnon.

Amnon's love turned to hate with the change of circumstances. Feelings depend upon the shifting happenings in our lives. As weather is reflected in barometric changes, so our moods and emotions are images of our internal responses to life's ups and downs. Our emotions run deep but they are changeable. Love can turn to hate. Warm feelings for friends can turn to icy rejection. Joy in the morning can turn to sadness by nightfall.

A. The origin of emotions

The hypothalamus, an integral part of the limbic system, is the impresario of our emotional behavior. The genesis of our emotions can be traced back about 180,000,000 years to the therapsids. You may recall that what we may properly call the beginning of intellect had its origin no more about 3 to 5 million years ago. Is it any wonder that our emotions are far more powerful than our intellects? You know what happens when you try to discuss a problem rationally with someone who has deep feelings about the matter. It is mostly a waste of time, is it not?

Emotions do not originate in our highest brain centers. They are primordial responses to external events. Neither gods nor devils cause our elation nor do they conspire to force us to act the brute. Our ancient brains provide the capability to either wear halos or to sprout horns. One of the critical factors to the survival as a free people depends upon our understanding the origin of our feelings.

Most of us have a tendency to accord whatever behavior happens to occur at any given moment the same degree of authenticity. We do not realize that much of our behavior stems from the evolutionary heritage of animals less sophisticated than we are. Reason, logic, and linear thinking play no roles when emotions are aroused. In all probability neither religious dogmatists nor political charlatans know much about the genesis of human emotionality. However, they sure know how to use emotions to their advantage. When reptilian instincts of territory, hierarchy, ritual and deceit merge with raw emotions, the result is a witch's brew. Shakespeare's "Eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog," is but a mild tonic compared to the bitter bane forced down our throats by dogma and canon.

B. Emotions and religion

The Judeo/Christian tradition makes people feel guilty for the mere presence of emotions. In Matthew 5:27, we are told that if a man lusts after a woman, it were better for him to pluck out his eyes. The opinion is advanced that it is better to go to heaven blind than rot in hell with 20/20 vision. That is pretty stout medicine. I wonder how many men and women can pass that exam and enter the Pearly Gates?

Let's be honest with ourselves. If we all plucked out our eyes because we felt like crawling into bed with someone who is not our own spouse, there would be an acute shortage of seeing-eye dogs. We are also told in Matthew 5:22 that anger against our brother results in judgment. It does not say we shall be condemned when we ram the guy's car that almost took off our front fender. It says that the mere feeling of anger will result in our getting whipped by the Almighty.

Of course, most people will respond to sexual situations with emotions. Of course, most people will sense anger when in a threatened situation. The church has convinced us that those feelings are sinful in God's sight. If we ever expect to get to heaven, then we must be purged from these awful feelings. And who will do the cleansing for us? Well, of course, the church. So the hierarchy has us where it wants us. We will feel the emotions of lust. We will experience the emotion of anger. We are made to believe that they are very, very sinful. Therefore we become enslaved to the church because it assures us that it has the way that leads to our forgiveness and to eternal life.

We are in a no win situation. Emotions arise in a very ancient part of the brain. We have little control over their arousal. Of course, we can learn to manage our emotions, but the church has convinced us that the mere presence of the emotions constitutes sin. So we are enslaved to church doctrine if we ever hope to find forgiveness. We cannot escape our emotionality - nor can we escape the church's enslavement if we hope to find God's mercy. It is also, of course, one heck of a way to raise money. If you are assured that an offended God will forgive your nasty feelings if you put some money in the offering tray, you may be quite willing to contribute so God will not punish you for your grubby, filthy, disgusting feelings.

Knowing that emotions arise in ancient parts of the brain, we can conclude that the arousal of lust and anger are neither good nor bad. Emotions arise in a part of the brain over which we have no control. Emotions are a fundamental quality of our lives. I draw a very sharp distinction between the presence of the emotion and our management or their mismanagement. To condemn someone for the presence of emotions differs not much from finding them guilty for their heartbeat. Pulse and emotions originate in ancient neural circuits. To be judged for their existence is to condemn life itself.

Only the active manifestation of emotions, not their mere presence, raises moral issues. If I feel like beating the hell out of you because I am angry but do not act on my impulse, the "bad" never happened. If I feel like bedding down some cute chick, but do not follow through on my feeling, the "bad" never happened.

The teachings of the church have us in a "no win" situation. Lust and anger are parts of the landscape of our lives. It is not their presence that is evil. Their presence is natural. The evil only comes when we fail to manage them. But our tradition condemns us for their mere presence. This gives the ecclesiastical establishment tremendous power over our lives. One of the most liberating moves the church could make is to clarify this issue. Maybe then Mr. Ashcroft won’' feel so threatened by the mere sight of an aluminum breast. For heaven's sake, what would that man do in the Louvre? Go nuts?

C. Emotions and politics

Naturally politicians know what the church knows. If a people's emotions can be aroused then intellect and logic will take a back seat. America is in the midst of an emotional binge at the present time. September 11th aroused our deepest fears. A foe attacked us on our own turf. Anger, fear, revenge, and dread flooded our senses in a way that we have not experienced before. In response to these deep feelings, we fly the Stars and Stripes at our homes, on our cars, on office buildings, and wherever we can attach a flag. We put patriotic pins on our lapels. Being true opportunistic materialists, designers made T-Shirts, sweatshirts, bandanas, and hats with the design of the flag. We swore we would get the bastards who dared to invade us.

Under the flurry of emotionalism parading for patriotism, our President was quick to see enemies in everyone who disagreed with his agenda. The Attorney General saw the presence of terrorists in every neighborhood. Inflamed by passion we little realize that we are moving towards a police state.

Civil liberties are being limited under the pretense of making us secure. Rewards to supporters who raised millions for POTUS come in the form of throwing more and more money at defense industry giants. So caught up were we our emotions that we were willing to do anything to protect ourselves. And whenever there might have been a bit of relaxing of our fears, our newly appointed Home Security Chief would issue another warning. It has even been suggested that anyone disagreeing with the President's program is not a patriotic American. Well, he or she might not be a docile sheep following an agenda leading into the vortex of an American dictatorship, but isn't it carrying things a bit too far to accuse dissenters of not being patriotic Americans?

Years ago, long before there was even a thought of 9/11, the industrial psychologist Maslow wrote, "The safety needs can become very urgent on the social scene whenever there are real threats to law, to order, to the authority of society … A common, almost expectable reaction is the easier acceptance of dictatorship or of military rule." Politicians take advantage of our raw emotions to perpetuate their power and the agendas of the lobbyists who funnel money into their campaigns. And the Constitution and the Bill of Rights be damned.

But the usurpation of our emotionality by politicians predates 9/11 by a long shot. In the 1950's and even later there was a concern about making America a more just and equitable country. The Middle Class, the backbone of any democracy, was doing well. A sense of assurance was felt as Social Security and Medicare provided people with some guarantee that their retirement years would know a measure of stability. But then strange things began to happen. I am not saying that there was a cabal to destroy our freedoms. But there was an ever-growing development of materialistic opportunism. Labor Unions were disparaged. Now don't misunderstand me, I know that some unions were fronts for Mafia-type rings, but there was a general belittling of labor unions. Businesses became ever larger and larger. As they made more money, they influenced more and more legislation favorable to their particular interests. The common good was shelved.

Either by intuition or by design, the Kenneth Lay and Anderson prototypes had to fill an emotional need in the lives of America. All too many churches became unwitting participants in the destruction of righteousness and justice in America. Profound hot button issues became the order of the day. It was proclaimed from many pulpits that America has lost its way because prayers were not said in public schools, because abortions became the legal right of women, because homosexuals were given protection under the law. And all these moralistic issues, it was preached, caused God to forsake our land.

This suspended attention away from the real "front burner issues" such as health care, the elimination of the Middle Class, corporate rape of the masses, and spoliation of the environment. When Enron created an artificial energy crisis in California, costing the people billions of dollars, our President said he could not do anything about it! And all the time he and Kenny Boy were big buddies. Furthermore, POTUS claimed that Jesus was his philosopher.

So it is only natural, these purveyors of religious charlatanism would claim, that God cares more about prayer in public schools than children without medical services. We were told that God is quite angry because some women are getting abortions but we didn't care that minimum wages did not keep up with inflation. Channeling our emotions on homosexuals, we failed to see that as tax cuts favored the wealthy, less and less money was available for public schools, for roads, and for other necessary infrastructures.

Well, I have news for America. We can say prayer in school three times a day and not another single child will get medical insurance. We can eliminate all abortions and minimum wage will not go up one red cent. We can again become homophobic and there will not be another dollar for our schools or our roads.

Politicians have turned America's emotions away from the real issues. We should be angry that the middle class is disappearing instead of worrying about prayers in school. We should be angry that the rich get ever more and more tax benefits instead of worrying about abortions. We should be angry that rivers and the land are being polluted instead of thinking we are doing God a favor by becoming homophobic.

The emotional components of the limbic system play a significant part in our lives. Church and politicians understand that and both have done a number on America.

It's not enough to have smarts

– Popular wisdom perceives that our President has not been blessed with an over-endowment of intellectual acuity. However, there can be little doubt that some of the men around him have plenty of gray matter. Folks like John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and others probably score pretty high on a Binet, and yet their combined smarts have our society teetering on its edge. A widening gulf between the Superrich and the rest of us will create social problems of unimaginable dimensions. Lack of an intelligent long-range energy program may bring about economic chaos. Shortsighted monetary and tax policies already seriously harm our country's infrastructure. And let's not even mention damage done to the environment. Yet, all these smart folks in D.C. don't seem to have a clue about the long-term effects of their wheeling and dealing.

What does it take, besides smarts, to pull up the human species from its brutal, consistent practice of genocide to something resembling a humane being? I believe the answer can be found in the most recently developed part of the human brain, the prefrontal cortex. The concluding part in this series discusses this neural constellation of the triune brain.

In this column I am making some comments about the neocortex. I want to state in the very beginning that the neocortex does not provide the solution to our problems. If anything, it just complicates our existence.

The neocortex

About 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 years ago, with a sudden burst of unparalleled activity measured in cosmic time, the neomammalian brain entered the world's stage. From these early beginnings in our forebears the neocortex evolved into the complex organ it is today. Human accomplishments resulting from this advance defy description. Where shall we start a list of our species' triumphs? Is it the power to write? To develop mathematics? To split the atom? To compose? We must marvel no less at the grandeur of Egypt's Pyramids than we do listening to a Beethoven symphony. Surely Shakespeare's Othello is as majestic as the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA. All of our accomplishments stem from the neural capabilities of the neocortex. It is a veritable treasure chest of past achievements and of future possibilities.

However, our species has not won the war over its own bestial nature. The major factor enslaving us to old brutal ways is our bondage to the unresolved reality of the brain's three competing drivers. Of course, the old reptile wins most of the battles. As long as we thought our brains were one integrated whole there might be some justification to assign our benign or violent behavior to some divine/satanic cause.

Instincts to expand tribal boundaries were engulfed in the flames of passions. These profound feelings found a voice in rationalizations developed in the neocortex. The saber clashing took on the voice of God. Arrows tearing apart flesh were but expressing the will of the creator. Some God? Eh? But now we know better! We know there is a reptile in our brains that can dominate our behavior to the exclusion of any humane concerns.

The drive for territory and power is not the voice God. It is but the expression of our most primal instincts. No God or gods will stop the carnage. No amount of fervent prayer will make "the wolf live with the lamb, the leopard to lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together." (Isaiah 11: 6) The title of the book of our lives must be changed from "A Destiny under God" to "Human Destiny."

The neocortex enables some members of our species to compose the Titan Symphony, to paint Nude Descending a Staircase, and to understand the nature and function of DNA. At the same time, we need to accept the fact that such greatness is but one side of the neocortex.

The other side built Concentration Camps and Gulags, indulges in the grossest manifestation of conspicuous consumption while refusing to fund equal educational opportunities for all. It indulges in the vilest of inequities under the shameful cover of "Private Enterprise." Of course, without tax support and special legislation, our "Private Enterprise" would not be the voracious, gluttonous beast it has become. It is the power of the neocortex that writes all this legislation favoring the rapacious alphas of our society.

We have yet to avail ourselves of the power of the neocortex to translate into reality the ideal that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Tell some of the folks living in parts of East Austin, Texas that that is the expression of the American dream and they will laugh in your face!

We do not want to accept as fact that some essential qualities between earthworms and humans are much the same. Individual earthworms do not manifest many differences; they do not have personalities. One is pretty much like another.

The same can be said for the physiology of human beings. Gray's Anatomy applies to all of us. The sameness of our species transcends religious, political, ethnic, and all other surface differences. We all breathe the same air and die within minutes when deprived of oxygen. None of us can long exist without water. None escapes the reality of our biological common heritage. Just below the surface of our differences, we are all pretty much alike. All Indians and all Pakistanis, all members of Al Qaeda and all CIA agents, all Republicans and all Communists, all people of all colors, religions, features and languages will "bleed when pricked and laugh when tickled, die when poisoned, and revenge when wronged." (Thanks to the Bard.)

It is the rather insignificant differences such as skin color, religious beliefs, and ethnic background that play havoc with our species. Psychologically we tell a story that belies our essential sameness. We hate. We kill. The problem with our neocortex lies in the fact that the reptilian brain, at times, dominates it. Seeking to justify its behavior it "commands" the neocortex to produce mountains of rationalizations defending reptilian prejudices. Atrocities of kings were defended as being their "divine" right. Kenny Boy claims that what amounts to his theft of pension funds is just one aspect of "free enterprise."

Our very intelligence is our worst enemy in the efforts to achieve a world of peace and justice. Primitive territorial instincts have been elevated to an almost sacrosanct duty to destroy our perceived enemies. The neocortex furnishes a high level of self-justification and plausible reasons for our devious behavior. In our minds we crave righteous explanations to fly our militant banners bearing the inscriptions, "Race against Race," "Religion against Religion," "Nation against Nation." The reptilian brain dominates our behavior. Our country is divided into hostile factions and each passing year brings new hostilities.

What can we do, no, what must we do, to stop the insanity? As long as we thought we had one integrated brain, our behavior could be rationalized. But that "old dog won't hunt any longer." We know that three drivers are competing for control of our behavior. Our task in the 21st Century is to understand just how much of our primal egocentric behavior is justified by intellectually rationalizing our selfishness.

How can we direct the neocortex to deliver us from our parochial self-interests and our self-defeating submission to essentially meaningless doctrines? To set ourselves to that task, it seems to me, is far more important than to build computer chips around molecules so we can have an almost infinite amount of storage.

Will today's dominant alphas fight to perpetuate the ignorance of the past? The battle cry of fundamentalists has ever and a day been the same. "God," they cried 400 years ago, "ordained that the earth is at the center of the universe. Anyone teaching otherwise is a heretic and must be silenced." Well, somewhere there could be an ignorant fringe group still believing our planet to be at the center of the universe. But most of us know that it is not so. Today's self-styled conservatives believe that teaching the nature of Nature will bring about the wrath of God. Little do they realize that their dogmatism is a fundamental cause of much of the world's ills. "God," they still cry today.

Present scientific understanding negates the dogma that human beings resulted from a special divine act of creation. Of course, the church fathers shake in their boots when they are confronted with such insights. They are in deadly fear what the implementation of that reality will do their institutions. Certainly, their resistance has nothing to do with God, with truth, or with rightness. It is just another verse of the ancient claim that kings and Popes rule by divine right. Those assumptions have proven to be wrong.

The future will prove dogmatism to be the sham that it is. Denials of profound insights into the reality of Nature based on nothing more than ancient provincial beliefs are just so much hot air. I am certainly not claiming that anyone has the final word on the subject of the nature of Nature. However, present knowledge, at the very least, presents us with significant kernels of new insights into the way Nature works. Today's fundamentalists simply repeat the second and third stanza of the ancient folly.

The modern era was committed to the idea that knowledge will drive away ancient superstitions and myths. Certainly, investigative science has opened the door to wondrous progress. Enthusiasm created by science, resulting from the potentials residing in the neocortex caused J. Bronowski to say, "Knowledge is our destiny." Carl Sagan concludes his insightful book, The Dragons of Eden, with that quotation. The wheels of science and discovery are churning forward and no stopping place appears in sight.

However, I take exception to the idea that mere knowledge is our destiny. The knowledge of Greek's Golden Age was erased with human blood. The storehouse of insights developed in the Arab world between the 9th and 13th centuries did not stop human brutality. The teachings of Buddha have not eliminated the confrontations between India and Pakistan. Gandhi has turned into a footnote.

The modern Scientific Revolution coexisted with the most brutal Gulags and Concentration Camps. Both beauty and brutality have their genesis in the neocortex. Much more is needed than mere knowledge. Needed is the conscious will to transcend beastly powers residing in our brains with the insights of the prefrontal cortex. That will be the discussion of the final column in this series.

It's not enough to have smarts

– This is the final column of the series outlining the evolutionary development of the human brain. There will be few references to current political/economic/religious matters because the behavioral traits embedded in the prefrontal cortex are abysmally absent from our society.

The addition of the prefrontal cortex to the human brain allows our species to take the big step from merely being human to becoming humane. MacLean writes about this latest 100 cc addition to our brains, happening a mere 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, in A Mind of Three Minds, (pp.339-340)

…In the progress from Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon man, one sees the human forehead develop from a low brow to a high brow. Underneath that heightened brow is the prefrontal cortex. There are clinical indications that the prefrontal cortex provides foresight in planning for ourselves and others, and also helps us gain insight into the feelings of others. The prefrontal cortex is the only neocortex that looks inward to the inside world. … In designing for the first time a creature that shows concern for suffering of other living things, nature seems to have attempted an 180-degree turnabout from what had been a reptile-eat-reptile and a dog-eat-dog world.

I am indebted to Robert Wright's book The Moral Animal for my change of assumptions about the prefrontal cortex. On page 54, he supports the idea that more recently developed brain functions simply enable lower brain centers to operate more efficiently.

The prefrontal cortex gave our sires a "leg up" to compete more successfully. For instance, this new cortex provided the ability for long-range planning. This is something far superior to a squirrel's mere instinct to store up acorns for the winter months. The ability to plan permitted our forebears to make complicated plans for a hunt. In its process, evolution gave Cro-Magnons a better chance at survival.

Along with the capability for long-range planning, the prefrontal cortex endowed our species with the ability to empathize. Let me give you a possibly humorous scenario for the development of the ability to sense the feeling of others.

Cartoons depict an early Cro-Magnon dragging the object of his affections into his cave. The image shows a brute male, club in hand, dragging his lady fair by her hair. Once they were in the cave, one does not need much imagination to develop the next step of this scenario. Dragging a female into a cave seems to be a hard and laborious task. There must be a better way. There was. Empathy was the key.

One day our protagonist saw his lady fair stopping to smell a flower. His developing prefrontal cortex gave him the ability to realize that she enjoyed smelling the carnations. He identified with her. In the constant battle to mate with the most desirable female, a new little gene sneaked into the male's DNA. It had the capacity to sense the feelings of another person. It gave him an advantage in the quest to have children by her. After all, what better genes could there be to ensure perpetuation of the species than those of the precursors of Troy Aikman, physical strength and intelligence, and those of Martha Stewart, the consummate homemaker?

"Ah," he thought, "there is an easier way to get her into my cave than to club her and drag her by her hair." He picked a bunch of Lilies of the Valley and presented them to her. The rest is history.

She was so impressed with this seeming act of kindness, that she gladly followed him wherever he would lead. However, she was mistaken. His reason for presenting the flowers had more to do with his desire to impregnate her than with an act of kindness. The ability to sense another's feelings was used for the evolutionary requirement to bring together two strong gene pools.

It so happened that another member of the tribe saw this little scene. "Shucks," he said to himself. "I can do better than that." He got a bottle of Dom Perignon and the damsels flocked to his pad. Empathy, far from finding its genesis in some idealistic divine intervention, simply was another tool to achieve propagation of the species.

The chosen one really thought that he loved her when he invited her into his cave for a candle-lit supper. Why would he go to such troubles to play her favorite music, prepare the most delicious meal and present her with a bottle of such fine champagne? Why indeed? Little did she know!

I hope I am not giving away any male trade secrets when I say that little has changed in the intervening 40,000 or so years. Empathy enables us to sense what others like in order to gain influence over them. Of course, the female of the species has also learned this lesson well. Could it be that sweet, sweet women have also learned to use their ability to empathize in the pursuit of self-centered purposes? Of course not!

Richard Dawkins further explains the matter in "the selfish gene." His book provides the evidence that altruism is a trait given to our species in order to assist the improvement and continuation of the gene pool. On page 62 he says, "But the obvious first priority of a survival machine, (i.e. the human body) and of the brain that takes the decisions for it, are individual survival and reproductions." This does not mean that altruism must be limited to basically self-centered motives.

Recall that manual dexterity, joining thumb and forefinger, resulted in building the Temple at Luxor and the Cathedral at Chartres. A gene designed to hold tools eventually built Gothic spires and the Manhattan skyline.

I question whether this genetic capability foresaw the building of the Pyramids or the painting of the Mona Lisa. A simple genetic change, eons ago, eventually produced great works. There was no predetermined will that the joining of thumb and forefinger would produce Rodin's Kiss. But a genetic change to give members of our species a leg up in the struggle for survival has resulted not only in the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World but in 70,000 Wonders of the World.

So too, what began as a self-serving trait to sense the feelings of another for personal benefit can be nurtured into acts of altruism. The ability to sense the inner feelings of others provides the potential for genuine humane caring. Such concern, of course, can only result from the conscious and deliberate use of our prefrontal cortex. Just as intellect was used for purposes other than mere survival, (i.e. composing symphonies, painting, writing books) empathy can also be used for purposes other than enticing members of the fairer sex into our "caves."

Through conscious effort we can care! Certainly, it is better to live in a world where people have some concerns for each other than to live in a "dog-eat-dog" world. The balance between the need for biological self-preservation and social concerns can only be achieved through a rational understanding of the dynamics of human existence. An overarching query presenting itself is whether our species deserves to survive should it fail to develop genuine empathy?

We take our cue from the imprints in our various brains. The essential characteristics of all brain functions enhance the chance for survival. Any other results arise are a matter of happenstance.

We might like to think that a Guiding Hand from above determines our destiny, but all the evidence points to a contrary conclusion. Earthquakes happen in Turkey killing thousands. Tidal waves inundate Bangladesh killing hundreds upon hundreds and leaving tens of thousands homeless. Meteors or comets in the past have struck and in the future will strike our planet. Nature's way leads to unexpected results. Some we deem "good" and others we deem "bad." Although from nature's point of view, moral judgments are non-existent. The energy driving our universe knows nothing of good and evil. Only human interpretation assigns such values to our experiences.

In an effort to explain the "bad" our sires invented the fable of Adam and Eve eating one lousy apple. To blame all the evil in the world on that act just won't wash any more. It is intellectually far more honest to face the reality of the world. To introduce the God factor has not helped our species a great deal. Life is complicated and the unforeseen governs the cosmos.

On the most fundamental level, empathy is a survival function. Over the millennia, empathy became more refined. For us it is possible to respond to human needs with care and thoughtfulness. And I believe that by this slender threat hang all of our hopes to raise our species to a level of respectability and worthiness. When all of institutionalized religiosity will have had its day, its only enduring message echoing through the corridors of time will be its emphasis for humans to become humane.

The self-transcending traditions of the great religions are in accord on this point. It is, in my opinion, the only worthwhile gift presented to humankind by the religions of the world. At the heart of non-self-serving religions stands the admonition, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Jesus had the consummate guts to looks into the faces of the controlling alphas of his day and say, "I give you a new commandment that you love one another." (John 13:34) He then had the courage to tell these self-appointed usurpers of authority that their neighbors included their enemies.

What brought about the crucifixion of Jesus were not his miracles, his parables, and his sermons; what nailed him to the cross was his audacity to tell the controlling power structure that the most despised and disenfranchised had a right to a decent place under the sun.

Few are the individuals who have been able to transcend themselves in the history of the world. But there have always been some! Hundreds of years before the Common Era, we find these sayings, "When you come upon your enemy's ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back … When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free … You shall not pervert the justice done to your poor in their lawsuits." (Exodus 23:4,5,6)

Even long ago of earliest Old Testament times, the presence of the prefrontal cortex asserted itself. In the midst of a world much harsher than our own, the strains of humanity's ultimate destiny became part of the ancient code. Like a silver cord, the challenge to be caring and mindful of others weaves itself throughout human history as the expression of its ultimate destiny.

Other religions add their voices exhorting their followers to behave in a caring manner. Hinduism's Code of Manu reads, "Wound not others, do no one injury by thought or deed, utter no word to pain thy fellow creature."

Lao Tzu in The Treasures taught, "I have Three Treasures. Guard them and keep the safe. The first is Love. The second is, never too much. The third is, never be first in the world."

Buddah in The Sutta Nipata says, "As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects her son, her only son, so let him cultivate love without measure toward all beings. Let him cultivate towards the whole world - above, below, around - a heart of love unstinted, unmixed with a sense of differing or opposing interests."

Not only from ancient sages comes the injunction to love. Contemporary psychiatrists add their voices to the wisdom of olden days. "Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love," is the definition given by Erich Fromm.

Henry Stack Sullivan says, "When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as one's own security or sense of satisfaction, then the state of love exists. So far I know, under no other circumstances is a state of love present, regardless of the popular usage of the word."

Victor Frankl, the Viennese psychiatrist who survived several years of Nazi Concentration Camps, gives us these words, "A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: the salvation of man is through love and in love."

Then why do we love so little? Why do we care so ineffectually? Is it not because we fail to tame the reptile within? But how can we tame the reptile if we are unaware of its presence? How can we become conquerors over self when we ascribe to devils the results of our misdeeds? How can we be victorious if we believe that in God lies our hope and salvation?

For thousands of years, the plaintive cries of innocent victims have pierced the skies. The only reply was a deafening silence. The slaughters continue to this day. The blood of the innocents deepens the Red River with every passing moment. And the heavens are silent. There is no balm in Gilead. The answers come from within us.

[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations."]

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– PROPOSITION: Hardly anyone professing to be religious has any idea of the meaning of the word "religion."

OBSERVATION: The word "religion" is derived from the Latin prefix "re" meaning "back" and the verb "ligare" meaning "to bind." The essential meaning of religion is to bind together the totality of life. Religion, in its purest sense, is an all-embracing view of life. It is as much concerned about quantum mechanics as it is about the Bible. Religion understands that the entire cosmos is an intertwined whole of an implicate order. It understands, for instance, the concept of Chaos Theory that a butterfly's flickering wings in Burma might cause a tornado in Kansas.

On the other hand, religion is only concerned with its own dogmas, its own scriptures, its own holy men and women. Rather than seeking to find an integrative principle, religion seeks to force all events and all circumstances into its own preconceived doctrines. In this article the word Religion is spelled with a capital "R" when referring to its integrative meaning. When speaking of traditional, church oriented religion the lower letter "r" is used.

Integrative Religion embraces the dynamic reality of the world. Sectarian religion excludes all but its own self-understanding.

PROPOSITION: Most people use religion to confirm their own ideas and to solidify their own preconception.

OBSERVATION: During the last presidential election we learned that Jesus was Mr. Bush's philosopher of choice. Among Christians great diversities exist about the person and the teachings of Jesus. However, it would be difficult to find even one among a thousand or so churches, denominations, sects, assemblies, communions, or fellowships that would deny that Jesus was a friend of the underdog. He defended the poor, the disenfranchised, and the economically disadvantaged. Yet during the recent power crises in California, President Bush would not even lift the little finger of either hand to come to the aid of the beleaguered Californians. While, figuratively speaking, the energy brokers held a gun to the heads of our fellow citizens, the Enron crowd enriched themselves by about a billion dollars.

It would seem that among the myriads of laws, orders, ordinances, and regulations, our Jesus-oriented President and his fellow Christian disciple John Ashcroft could have found one little paragraph that would have enabled them to prevent this financial rape. But it seems that in spite of his continuous avowal of religion, the President listened to the philosophy of Kenneth Lay rather than the words of Jesus. "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to the through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19: 23,24) Maybe no one ever told Mr. Bush about the 23rd Chapter of Matthew.

Among many statements condemning the leading figures of his day for their hypocrisy, Jesus said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mine, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith." What is more just, to allow Kenneth Lay to steal millions or to prevent him from robbing the little folks? Maybe for his next birthday gift, someone might send the President a copper bracelet with the letters WWJD? (What would Jesus do?) Not that it would matter a great deal. The President, like most other religious folks, always finds ways to bend religion to justify whatever he wants to justify.

PROPOSITION: On the surface of things, people are religious for two reasons.

OBSERVATION: Human beings are social creatures. We enjoy and even need to have relationships with other persons. Loneliness is a terrible state. Certainly, the church provides an environment where like-minded people congregate. Sunday School classes in particular satisfy human needs to interact and relate with others. It might interesting to find out whether the study of Religion is more important to members of a Sunday School class or whether the celebration of birthdays, social gathering, the annual Christmas party, the S.S. bowling league or other social events take precedence? I am willing to bet my proverbial dollar to your donut that the social aspects will weigh much more heavily than the quest for understanding the Religious nature of the world.

The second reason for being religious touches a more sensitive nerve. Most people fear death. After all, since we were knee-high to a grasshopper, we learned that "good" people go to heaven and "bad" people go to hell. While Dante's Inferno no longer puts the fear of God into people as it did centuries ago, nevertheless when push comes to shove, we want to have some insurance that will keep us out of the devil's domain.

So, where can we receive a visa in the passport of life that says, "Approved for Eternity, St. Pete?" To my knowledge the passport office of the State Department has no such stamp. The only place, we are told, where we can get that particular "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" is at the church around the corner.

There is enough neuroticism about death to make most people sign off on religion and make its institutions a viable enterprise. Because to most people death is such a fearful event, they are willing to accept irrational doctrines and fallacious beliefs to offset the dread of death. Let me share a personal experience that to my mind illustrates just how infantile many of us are about our own death.

Years ago, the undertaker in our small town remodeled his chapel. One day he called me and asked me if I were free to come to see him. I drove to the chapel and upon entering it he asked me, "John, do you see it?" "Well," I replied, "you certainly did a fine remodeling job." "No, no, do you see it?" "Well, to be honest I do not know what you mean?" He pointed to a light fixture above the place where the open casket with the body of the deceased would be positioned. All I saw was a fixture with two lamps. As I remember, one was pale blue and the other sort of purplish. He said, "John, when I fix these lights just right, the deceased will look life-like."

Whoa, Nellie! Even when death is reality, we seek to deny it. That is somewhat neurotic. And the church takes advantage of our fears. So we attend and support and buy into all sorts of dogmas and rituals seeking to still our minds and hearts in the face of the inevitable.

But there are far deeper reasons why religion continues to thrive.

PROPOSITION: The most deeply ingrained behavioral patterns in our brains find a sense of gratification through the practices of the church.

OBSERVATION: In my essays in YellowTimes.org, under the title "The Human Theater of the Absurd," I discuss the behavioral patterns imprinted in the basal ganglia, the reptilian brain. These brain cells have an evolutionary past dating back about 240,000,000 years. They dominate much of our behavior. There are four major areas of needs located in this very ancient part of the brain. Let me list them and discuss how the church satisfies these primordial needs.

1. The Territorial Imperative. Circuitry in the reptilian brain demands that we establish as well as defend our territory. Paul D. MacLean, M.D., claims that one's beliefs, value systems, philosophy, and political persuasion are territorial needs just as real as one's home, one's car, and other physical properties defining our personal space.

What can be more territorial than to believe that in the hereafter we have a place in eternity reserved for us? It is a territory beyond imagination because believers will be seated at God's Great Banquet. "God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." (Revelation 21: 3,4) We all know the sorrows of life. We all have experienced rejection, disappointment, pain, and woe. What is more appealing than one's own personal territory where song and joy, laughter and bliss are the gifts bestowed upon us in perpetuity?

I suggest that the need for a piece of heaven to call our own, a celestial territory deeded to us forever and forever, is one of the strongest reasons, although not consciously understood, for the practice of religion. With the impending doom, heaven may be the only consolation for a vast number of people. The practice of religion will have a field day as personal security becomes less and less sure.

2. Hierarchy. As explained in my other essays, hierarchy is essential to the survival. Once the alpha of a herd, tribe, whatever, has been established, there must be a cessation of strife. Otherwise the group would be involved in a continuous struggle for the alpha position and propagation of the species could not occur. Acceptance of the dominant alpha establishes the hierarchy essential for the productive functioning of any organization. Someone must be in charge or chaos ensues.

Churches meet the hierarchical need in a profound manner. There is always a top official. It makes little difference whether he is called Pope or Bishop, Evangelist or Elder. The name does not matter, the office does. To hold our rightful place in an organization brings a sense of security. This is not to say that striving for the alpha position ever ceases. However, it takes place within a system where the Table of Organization is established and provides safety. Our reptilian brains demand it. The structure of the church satisfies it to a significant degree.

There is even a wonderful method to make the least members of the congregation feel that the lowest rank in the structure is significant. Are we not taught that the meek shall inherit the earth? So, while the bottom level in the organization may not have achieved greatness and may even have been exploited, its members can look forward to rich rewards. Safely established in the heavenly territory, those who lived in a humble state (read: those who have been exploited) will be exalted. It is a profound reason to be religious.

3. Ritual. This also is a very basic survival mechanism. In its simplest form it establishes the fact that a past practice that has proven to be safe. Ritual means stability, assurance, and gives a sense of protection. Our reptilian brain craves it and religion provides it. In the midst of a turbulent world where the unexpected is the order of the day, ritual provides a firm anchor.

It makes little difference if it is the ritual of a Roman Catholic High Mass or the simple proceedings at a Quaker Meeting. In both situations, there is order, there is precedent, and there is the assurance that the expected will take place. Again, we see that the practice of religion nurtures that most deeply seated need of the human brain.

4. Deceit. This survival mechanism permits an animal to approach its prey in a hidden manner. Were a Komodo dragon to huff and puff and loudly make its way through the brush, its likely prey would find a quick way to safety. The dragon screens its intent to kill its prey. If the dragon were not deceitful, it might starve to death.

Deceit is also deeply ingrained in human behavior. For a variety of reasons churches do not always tell the truth to their congregants. The most recent example, of course, is the effort to cover up the behavior of pedophile priests. The attempt to silence Galileo is probably the best-known example of a church's mendacity. One does wonder about the financial affairs of many TV evangelists. How much do they collect? How do they spend their money? Again I am offering the odds of my dollar against your donut. I bet that most TV preachers would not want their books to be audited and their finances disclosed.

Creationists go to great lengths to validate a biblical account of creation. They are quite deceitful in covering evidence suggesting a non-biblical account of story of the universe. They are not even honest enough to tell their believers that the book of Genesis contains two quite different creation stories. One is in Genesis 1:1 – 2:3; the other in Genesis 2:4 – 24. In the first story, man is the final act of creation whereas the second story begins with the creation of Adam. Not that this makes a gnat's worth of difference but it is rather amazing to what deceitful practices fundamentalists will go in the attempt to reconcile these two self-contradictory accounts.

Deceit and mendacity are accepted by most of us because it is part of everyone's neural circuitry. Recognizing that our own behavior has room for deceit, we are quite willing to accept it in others.

The reality of the physiology of our own brains attracts us to religion because it feeds into very ancient and substantive survival factors. Unless we understand this attraction for religion, it will be almost impossible for us to ever seek Religion. The practice of religion is basically an egocentric enterprise that does not give a hoot about Religion.

[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations."]

John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org

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(YellowTimes.org) – Finally, after months of bad publicity, a group of Roman Catholic bishops promulgated guidelines for the church's handling of sexually abusive priests. What took so long? And what made the prelates propose a document that is still permissive of some degree of sexual misconduct? One would assume that God's representatives on earth would have no tolerance for any sort of sexual misconduct. Did not Jesus say, "It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble?" (Luke 17:2) Surely sexual abuse causes any victim to stumble, especially a child.

There must be a substantive reason why the Holy Father in Rome has not come down on abusive priests with rolls of thunder of righteous indignation. There must be some weighty cause why the Curia has not issued a decree withdrawing ordination credentials of these priests. After all, only a relatively small number of clergymen have been found guilty of abusing children. While there is a shortage of priests, the dismissal of these few would not seriously further aggravate the church's personnel problem.

Of course, there must be a core issue in this matter that has not been discussed by anyone! Neither ordained clergy nor secular media have said a single word about the underlying cause of the church's long silence. The church has danced all around the problem. It came as a revelation that for years a number of bishops made substantial monetary settlements to those who claimed they were abused.

It is estimated that various American dioceses have paid out about one billion dollars to injured parties in this matter. The Dallas diocese has paid about 31 million dollars to the victims of the former pedophilic priest Rudolph Kos. It is reported that the Santa Fe Archdiocese paid more than 50 million dollars settling some 40 cases in the 1990's. And so it goes. A few million here and a few million there and pretty soon you are talking about real money.

Something intense and profound must be behind the clandestine manner of the church's dealing with this matter for years. Certainly, the princes of the church are not lawbreakers. Certainly, the prelates of the Holy See are not criminals. One must assume that sexual misconduct by the clergy was not, is not, and will not be condoned. And yet for decades, worldwide, abuse of children by parish priests and even a bishop or two, has been swept under the rug. Violated children were given no help and every effort was made to conceal these heinous acts. The cover-up has been going on for decades. Obviously, the genesis for this denial must have deeper roots than the hierarchy or the media would have had the courage to bring into the open.

The current malfeasance has undercurrents similar to those of the Galileo affair. The Inquisition found the aged astronomer guilty in 1633. He was placed under house arrest, and ordered not to write another page of his defense of the Copernican theory. Rather remarkably, in 1625 Galileo began writing his "Dialogue on the Great World Systems." The book was completed in 1630.

In spite of some opposition, the volume was published in Florence in 1632. Some men of the cloth endorsed the book or else Galileo would not have been able to find anyone to license the publication of "Dialogue." If an author did not receive permission from ecclesiastical authorities, his work would not see the light of day. Some prelates were sympathetic to Galileo, but when the book came to the attention of Pope Urban VIII, he instituted inquisitorial proceedings against the aged astronomer.

Reasons for this action had a deeper provenance than scientific disagreements about the actual configuration of heavenly bodies. The reasons were theological! Prevailing thought held that the creation of earth was the crowning act of God. The blue planet held a very special place in the center of the universe. It and its inhabitants, all those who were Roman Catholic though not unbelievers, occupied front center stage in the divine drama. Not to position Planet Earth in the center of the entire scheme of things shook the foundations of belief. Galileo's claim called into question the truth of biblical revelation. If the Bible and/or the Patristic Fathers were not correct on this issue, what other matters could be questioned?

The Pope could not permit such heretical thoughts to be entertained. In the church's theology, inspiration is a direct act of God. Results of observation contradicting inspired dogma were to be suppressed at all costs. The bastion of the church's entire theological framework relied upon the inspired declarations of the Bible, Councils, and Papal Edicts. Established dogma could not be challenged.

Galileo's work presented an invasion into the truth absolutely and eternally declared by the church. Therefore, right or wrong, Galileo had to be silenced. The church's position had nothing at all to do with the truth or falseness of the astronomer's discovery. It had everything to do with a theological position espoused by the Church.

The only substantive question revolved around Galileo's contradiction of a doctrine expressing the absolute revelation of a perfect God. Destroy that Article of Faith and where does that leave the absolutism of the Church's teaching? By the way, it took the church almost 500 years to make a sort-of statement declaring that Galileo might have had a point.

Now fast forward to the current crisis.

Roman Catholic theology views ordination as a sacrament. This means that God Himself is present in some mysterious, but nevertheless very real way, in the rite of ordination.

How can an omniscient God be involved in the ordination of pedophiles? God, according to doctrine, knows everything. He not only knows the past and the present but also the future. According to Scripture, God even knows the number of hairs on your head. (Matthew 10:29-30) Wouldn't such an all-knowing God have information about something as important as a person's sexuality? An omniscient God would know the name of every heterosexual, homosexual, pedophile, cross-dresser, and hermaphrodite since Adam and Eve.

It is simply absurd to maintain that an all-knowing, righteous, perfect God would be present in the rite of the ordination of a pedophile. If God is not present in the Sacrament of Ordination then ordination has only symbolic value. Eliminating God's mysterious presence would seriously debase the significance of ordination. Because of its claim that church and clergy are divinely appointed, the church cannot take a chance to admit anything that would take away any measure of its own divine, transcendent position.

Pedophilia and other sexual abuses by clergy present a profound theological problem. God's presence in ordination is a "sine qua non" in Catholic dogma. The only way to uphold the absolute assertion of God's presence in the sacrament of ordination was to act as though the "sinful" acts did not exist. By keeping quiet about this matter, the nature of the perfect, omniscient, omnipresent God was preserved.

The deafening silence over the years and the present efforts to obfuscate the issue are meant to maintain intact God's perfect nature. To what do a few abused children amount if absolute dogma is preserved? The main concern of the Church is to maintain its doctrinal purity and the assertion that it represents a perfect God.

It has always been more important to the church to preserve dogma than to protect the innocents. After all, believers are told that in the next world they will sit at the right hand of God. To preserve theological rightness, a little suffering really doesn't hurt all that much. A little sexual abuse isn't all that bad either if dogma is preserved.

As a matter of fact, come to think of it, such an experience might even be good for an abused child because it builds character! Didn't Paul write in Romans 5: 3-5 that "we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us." Imaginative use of Scripture can be turned to serve dogmatic pragmatism and justification of the most unspeakable behavior.

But sooner or later, all absolute beliefs, whether religious, political, or economic, flounder when their essentially finite foundations meet the expanding horizons of new insights and knowledge. The human tragedy of social injustice, economic oppression, and political autocracy supported by the church throughout the ages resulted from the failure of dogmatism to yield to a more rational understanding of the ways of the world than ancient myths and irrational, provincial beliefs.

The church today stands in the same position in which Ptolemy, a brilliant astronomer, mathematician, and geographer, found himself in the 2nd Century A.D. His astronomical research dominated that field for over 1,000 years.

Ptolemy was a devout Christian who had accepted the Biblical/Platonic of God's perfection. One aspect of this belief assumed that God revealed himself only in perfect geometric figures such as the Five Perfect Solids and Circles. Circular planetary orbits held their absolute place in ancient minds as the consequence of that subjective belief system. There was no hard evidence to support that premise.

Ptolemy was dismayed when he observed that planetary orbits were not circular! This went against his dogmatic belief about a perfect God revealing himself only in perfect geometric designs. What to do?

Of course, he had two options. The first one was to challenge ancient dogma. That would have been the conscientiously scientific and honorably theological step to take. Regretfully, Ptolemy was a dogmatist and could not bring himself to challenge the old view.

The second choice was to find an explanation to bring observation into agreement with dogma. Of course, his justification did not have one cent's worth of truth in it. It is always more important to dogmatists to defend their petty beliefs than to search for truth.

So, Ptolemy developed the idea of epicycles. This was the theory that smaller circles, epicycles, were the orbital paths of planets. These epicycles, one for each heavenly body, moved along the path of a large circle, the deferent. To an earthbound observer, Ptolemy claimed, circular orbits rotating while attached to a larger circle, gave the illusion of elliptical orbits. It was circles within circles and none of this foolishness of elliptical orbits.

The idea of a perfect God was maintained! Who gave a damn about what was correct. A false premise has been explained with a false theory. It was more important to Ptolemy to defend dogma than to investigate whether or not the dogma represented any substantive reality.

In the present problem of sexual abuse by some of its clergy the church also has two options. It might be tempted to come up with some sort of "epicyclical explanation" about ordination. Some sort of dogmatic balderdash might be issued that would maintain the doctrine of God's actual presence in the rite of ordination.

Or the church has the singular opportunity to say that a new day has dawned. The hierarchy could say that ancient dogmas were promulgated with sincerity and honesty based upon the best available information. However, the dynamic process of an ongoing, changing universe, causes changes in understanding God's nature.

In view of new discoveries and insights, the church could say that it will forego defending outworn and indefensible doctrines as being eternally absolute. The church could admit that God is not in the rite of ordination. The hierarchy could admit that it has been mistaken about the matter of the Sacrament of Ordination. That would clear up a lot of confusion. How, for example, can one explain that a just God would ordain Torquemada? He was the Spanish Inquisitor General who personally, it has been said, executed 2,000 non-believers with hideous acts of torture.

Admitting its erroneous assumption, the church could now say that it will use its not inconsiderable resources to seek economic justice, political righteousness, and religious wholeness in the world. If such a result should follow, the issue of pedophilia will have served a great cause - essentially the cause for which Jesus died: rightness and integrity.

Sometimes the old has to be turned to ashes so a new Phoenix could rise. Meister Eckhart said, "only the hand that erases can write new things." Should the church not heed the clarion call, it will produce nothing but noise and confusion. As Paul said in I Corinthians 13:1, "If I speak with the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."

Has the time for love not come?

[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations."]

John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org

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(YellowTimes.org) – No, there is no blue dress with telltale stains. No, there is no evidence of indiscretion at age 40 written off as a "youthful" fling. Such sexual affairs exposed by the media are mere peccadilloes compared to the travesties the evangelist committed. His grievous evil gave and continues to give aid and comfort to the Hydra's head of poisonous snakes permeating our society.

Reverend Billy Graham's sin lies in propagandizing the belief that the Bible, word for word, is the immutable and inerrant word of God Himself. Failing to understand the historical development of these 66 books, spanning a period of about 1,000 years, Billy Graham and his fellow fundamentalists select and choose a narrow range of Biblical thoughts. They then palm off these dogmatic fragments as direct expressions of the will of God.

That narrow reading of the Bible aided and abetted the development of the evils besetting America today. The Enron debacle is just one example of the morass perpetrated by these minions. Their god is greed but they take solace and comfort in believing, based on Billy Graham's misinterpretation of Biblical thought, that their eventually self-destructive practices have the blessings of God.

No one reading the Bible with an open mind can arrive at the conclusion that its entire contents stem from the writing of a single, sane mind unaffected by cultural bias. The Sixth Commandment simply states, Thou shalt not kill (Exodus 20:13). It would be difficult for even the most astute contract lawyer to find codicils, exceptions, and addendums, changing that simple proscription. Yet, in Exodus 21, we find all sort of situations where the Bible demands that persons be killed. Included are the commandments whoever strikes father or mother shall be put to death (verse 15) and whoever curses his father or mother shall be put to death (v.16). No extenuating circumstances, such as hitting or cursing a drunken father who slaps the boy's mother around, are given. The boy must be killed, God says!

In Chapter 22, the list of those to be killed for various crimes goes on. Included are female sorcerers (male sorcerers seem to be accepted) those found guilty of bestiality (mind you, I don’t advocate that kind of sexual behavior but couldn’t we get the person to a psychiatrist first?), those who bring offerings to any god save God (now who is to decide that one? Is it a fundamental evangelist of the Church of Christ or a Roman Catholic Liberation Theology priest?). Also to be killed are those who abuse resident aliens, widows, and orphans (vv 18-21).

Verse 21 promises particularly brutal punishment for those who take advantage of orphans and widows. God says: I will kill you with the sword. Personally, I believe that denial of medical care to widows and orphans constitutes a form of abuse. I am still waiting, as also, I am certain, are the undertakers in Austin, Texas, for God to make good on this promise. He would have to have a sword in each hand to dispose of all the State Legislators who continuously deny medical care to the poor and orphans. How can any correct-minded person believe that the Sixth Commandments and these cultural taboos listed in Exodus 21 and 22 are not self-evidently contradictory?

I want to quote just one juicy tidbit contradicting biblical inerrancy. I Corinthians 13:4 states love does not insist on it own way; is not irritable or resentful (v.4). Yet, Paul, who penned these words, also wrote Galatians 5:12, I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves. Having become irritable and resentful with some of his church members, he suggested settling the problem by having the dissenters castrate themselves. Gloria in excelsis Deo.

What horrible consequences ensued and are ensuing from a total misconstruction of the Bible as advocated by the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham? I am concerned with two major implications.

1. God’s Assumed Perfection

Matthew 5:48 states unequivocally, Be perfect, therefore, as you heavenly Father is perfect. There is an assumption that the eternal God is perfect in every way. Perfection is beyond modification. Yet, even the Bible contains internal evidence that God does indeed change.

In Isaiah 2:4 we read that God says, they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. But in Joel 3: 9-10, the same God is quoted as saying, Proclaim this among the nations: prepare war, stir up the warriors, let all the soldiers draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. What in the world is going on here? Did God decide to change from the persona of a St. Francis into a Donald Rumsfeld? At any rate, no one who reads the Bible with an open, inquiring mind can claim that God is unchangeable or perfect.

A neat evidence of God changing his mind is found in the story of Sodom (Genesis 19). After God decided to destroy the city and kill all of its inhabitants because of their sexual preferences, Abraham talks God into saving the city if fifty righteous men could be found. Upon mulling over that number, he cajoles God into reducing that number first to forty-five and eventually to ten. God sounds like the merchant in a Middle Eastern bazaar whom I successfully talked into selling me some beads for about 10 percent of the original asking price.

The reason fundamentalists oppose the theory of evolution has nothing at all to do with scientific fact. If indeed God did not create the cosmos as a finished piece of work, then he is not perfect. Perfection cannot create anything that might have to be changed later. Yet, we know that God did not rest on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2). We know that old stars die and new stars are born all the time. We know that viruses mutate. We know that the cosmos is not static. To the horror of dogmatists, the reality of the cosmos suggests God did not create a perfect, unchanging, immutable world. There is much we do not know. But all observations agree that this universe is swirling, changing, moving, and undergoing constant metamorphoses. Nothing is perfect. The only thing certain, besides death and taxes, is change. Uncertainty is a fundamental characteristic of the subatomic building blocks that are the brick and mortar of the universe.

The issue is not whether in some other universe, unknown to us, a perfect God might exist. In this world, God is working still. In this world, perfection is a long way from becoming reality. If God’s creation were perfect, the Biblical message would not contain the hope that a Messiah would come whose intervention in the world’s affairs would make this a perfect cosmos.

To the horror of the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham, none of his pontifical announcements are perfect and set in concrete. He is but one finite human being, limited in knowledge as all of us are. He has no absolutes to proclaim. Whatever interpretation he – or anyone for that matter – gives to the Bible is based on his and everyone else's bias and subjectivity. To use the Bible to "proof-text" parochial dogmas is a prostitution of the Biblical text.

2. Personal Salvation without Justice and Righteousness

Billy Graham speaks just one mantra. He claims that an individual is saved through the act of accepting Jesus. Of course, no one knows what that really means. It is pretty much up to every individual to subjectively interpret the meaning of his or her salvation. There are about 1,000 different churches, sects, denominations, assemblies or what have you! So if a person’s interpretation of his God and her Bible conflicts with one particular set of dogmas, he or she can just go across the street to another church featuring the particular religious "flavor" holding a personal appeal for the individual. A doctrine espousing personal salvation without a concomitant profound social ethic stands in direct contradiction to the biblical message.

It is a fact that hate groups quite often spout their venom in God's name. I have a propaganda booklet I obtained in Germany after World War II entitled, "Hitler, as no one knows him." It contains almost 100 images of the Fuehrer depicting himself as a loving, caring human being. On page 57 he is shown leaving a church with the caption reading, "A Snapshot becomes a Symbol." Of course, the implication is that Hitler was a God-fearing person.

And so it goes. Members of the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and dozens of other hate groups proclaim their faith in God as they kill those whose beliefs and practices fail to meet their provincial, narrow, and prejudiced standards.

The only thing Billy Graham requires of believers is that they accept Jesus, attend the church of their choice and support it. It recently became public knowledge that the Rev. Graham agreed with former President Nixon in their common disdain for Jews. What has become of Jesus' injunction love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you? Whatever happened to his teachings that those who are meek shall inherit the earth, the merciful shall receive mercy, the pure in heart shall see God, and peacemakers shall be called the children of God? A subjective interpretation of the Gospels allows each individual to pick and choose from the wide variety of behavioral patterns described in the Scripture. Both Hitler and the Grand Dragon of the Klan easily find Bible verses to support their position. Billy Graham's "proof-texting" of the Bible permits such ridiculous misuse of the Scripture.

Such undisciplined subjectivity results in

a. freedom without responsibility – a condition resulting in licentiousness,
b. individuality without social concern – a condition resulting in run-away selfishness,
c. and inspiration without observation – a condition resulting in ignorance.

The biggest travesty committed by the Rev. Graham and the fundamentalists of our day and age is their almost total disregard of the Biblical prophetic tradition. Biblical prophecy does not primarily deal with forecasting future events. Biblical prophecy deals with the political, economic, and religious unrighteousness of a nation's leaders. Scripture prophesies future doom and gloom because of the injustice inflicted now upon the masses by the few who govern. Biblical prophecy is not as much concerned with the "Sweet by and by" as with the "Nasty here and now!"

Hear the words of Amos. My transliteration is based on Amos 5: 21 – 24. "God says, I hate, I despise your Christmas pageants and I take no delight in your church assemblies, conferences, synods, and gatherings. Even though you build cathedrals to honor me and plaster memorial plaques on every pew and furnishing in your churches, I will not accept them. I will not look upon the tithes you bring in your offering plates. Take away from me the noise of your Easter cantatas; I will not listen to your organ recitals. But let justice roll down like the waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream."

When does the self-styled fundamentalist movement ever tell America's fat cats that Jesus said, It will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19: 23 – 24, Mark 10:25, and Luke 18:25). When was the last time the Rev. Billy Graham told assembled business tycoons, the prelates of the churches, and the political wheelers and dealers that the words in Matthew: 23 apply to them? Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

The prophetic message is missing from the pronouncements by the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham and his entourage of Biblical literalists. That is his unpardonable sin! He and his followers have really done a number on the rank and file workers of America. They curse abortions and homosexuals, they want to pray in every public school, and place the Ten Commandments on the front lawn of every County Court House in the country. And many people believe that if all this were to happen, justice and righteousness will appear. Well, I have news for a misguided America.

You can eliminate every abortion in this country and not a single uninsured family will receive medical coverage. You can get rid of every single homosexual and the minimum wage will not be raised. You can pray in school three times a day and some corporate executives will still raid your pension funds. You can place the Ten Commandments on every Court House Square and your prescription drug bill will not be reduced, your Social Security fund will still be a political football, and education will be insufficiently funded. You are doing neither yourself nor God a favor by voting for these Pharisees who seem pious enough but squeeze the lifeblood out of the soul of our nation.

Is it any wonder that the preaching of individual salvation without social responsibilities produces a Kenneth Lay? Entering his church on a Sunday morning after the Enron cataclysm, he told reporters to leave him alone so he can worship his God. What kind of God does a miscreant like Kenny Boy worship? Under Billy Graham's Gospel of personal salvation without attending social responsibilities amoral behavior is to be expected and becomes the norm for the leaders of a nation who have sold principles for pots of gold.

But then again, has not Christianity for the most part sold its souls to the rulers of the material world? Rick Roderick a former philosophy professor at Duke University, said that there are prophets who play golf with the Pharaohs and those prophets who seek to lead the people out of bondage. Billy Graham and his literalist preachers love to play golf with the establishment. They shamelessly forfeit their Biblical responsibility to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted. The Bible knows nothing of personal salvation without social responsibility.

The news of personal salvation may warm the cockles of your heart but it will do nothing for the righteousness of America. The sin of the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham is in claiming to preach the Bible but failing to understand its prophetic core content. Concerning these wolves in sheep clothing Jesus said, For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and all kinds of filth. So you also look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

The sin of the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham is his presumption to speak for God. He does so by iterating only one part of the message contained in the Bible. He omits the substantive part of the prophetic call to social righteousness and justice. He claims falsely that the Bible is a book written by a perfect God who expressed himself infallibly. Claiming that the Bible is infallible, he seduces his hearers into believing that he quotes absolute truths and that his statements have God's personal approval. This dogmatism has led to a denial of responsibility to others while permitting the controlling alphas of our culture to believe that they have God's blessings as they shred more financial data that might prove embarrassing. They feel secure in the arms of God as they pile up cost overruns upon cost overruns for weaponry that sometimes even the Pentagon does not want.

They bray about their faith in God while depriving properly registered voters from casting their ballots. They shout allegiance to God while protecting major corporations as they despoil rivers and land with cancer-causing chemicals. They fold their hands in pious prayer as they impose ever harsher tax burdens on the masses and give huge tax refunds to those who are already obese with wealth. And the personal Gospel preached by the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham allows them to feel that they are safely in the arms of Jesus while violating every principle he ever stood for and died for.

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "If you, even you, had only recognized the things that make for peace . . ." (Luke 19: 41 – 42.)

And he is weeping still.

John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org

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(YellowTimes.org) – Blame Matthew Riemer! His insightful article on the vanishing freedom of the American press, titled "Welcome to the Information War," finally caused me to put some of my fears about the present situation of the Ship of State into writing. The parallel between Germany of the 1930's and present-day America is frightening.

Destruction of the vision of a government by the people and for the people has been going on for decades. No cataclysmic storms precipitated the current crisis. The confluence of many events and conditions precipitated the reason why Old Glory is flying upside down.

I compare history to a mighty river's drainage system; many small tributaries converge to eventually make the mighty Mississippi. But when you are standing at the headwaters of the Prairie River in Minnesota, you cannot visualize that its waters become part of a very big system.

So too, looking at single movement within a nation does not provide an overview of the whole. However, looking at many tributaries, one gets an idea how isolated events merge to make a powerful trend. Seemingly insignificant happenings in places far removed from their eventual consequences shape and make the mighty river of human history.

I think the first condition one must comprehend in order to understand what is happening in America is the reality of the actual make-up of the human brain. I deal with this in my series The Human Theater of the Absurd. The first article appeared in the May 15 edition of YellowTimes.org.

I fully realize that this topic does not make the best-seller list of the New York Times, but sometimes a book less popular then Oprah's recommended books must be understood in order to grasp fundamental causes responsible for human behavior.

Briefly, totally egocentric behavior patterns are deeply embedded in the human brain. They are responsible for most actions by most humans. Neural circuitry shapes the destiny of men and nations far more than we are wont to think. The dynamics embedded in the human reptilian brain cause the shameful events we call history. I believe it is essential that one must understand, however unpopular it might be, what neural connections shape the destinies of humankind. It is the unchecked dynamics of the basal ganglia - the reptilian part of our brains - that precipitates the causes destroying mighty nations. Americans need to wake up to the fact that history witnesses the glory that "was" Greece and the grandeur that "was" Rome.

What are some of the tributaries creating the present dire situation? I do not believe that those who dictated the conditions of the Versailles Peace Treaty after World War I foresaw the consequences of their actions. They could not conceive that 14 years later Hitler would come to power and that a mere six years later he would precipitate World War II. The imposition of reparation payments forced Germany into poverty. It was Germany's economic blight that brought the downfall of the noble experiment of the Bonn Republic. Economic insecurity is surely one of the most powerful factors enabling a dictator to gain power with the assent of the people.

While certainly, conditions in America do not resemble the poverty of Germany during the depression, a situation is developing in America causing many people to feel very insecure about their lives. While the media tells us that things are looking up economically, unemployment is a real problem for about 5 percent or more of the workforce.

Do we not fool ourselves when unemployment figures do not include those who no longer are looking for work because they have exhausted all avenues open to them? What would America's unemployment percentage be if we included those who, after much effort, despaired of finding a job and given up? Furthermore, many who are employed are working at such low wages that they live with the constant concern about making ends meet.

Contributing to the undercurrent of economic instability is the staggering credit card debt. Usurious interest rates, legally charged by banks, keep people of the middle class in perpetual anxiety about their financial situation; add to that the fact that over 40 million Americans do not have health insurance. These are conditions leading to an imbalance providing a fertile ground for a "Savior" to rescue the frustrated individuals. People worried about their finances and their ability to obtain proper medical care do not have the inclination to analyze the consequences of political events. Economic uncertainty is as powerful cause as any to unbalance a people's ability to live as politically free individuals.

A second tributary to the river's flow towards dictatorship can be found in the close connection between the profit-making goals of large corporations and the government. That was the condition in pre-Nazi days. Germany's large corporations, Thyssen Steel, Krupp Armament, I.G. Farben Chemical, and others were supportive of Hitler's movement. They believed, correctly, that an autocratic government would be on their side in keeping wages low and funneling tax moneys into their corporations.

The close relationship between giants such as Enron and the government are a close parallel to the German condition. Dictatorial governments are always on the side of big business. The tycoons of big business and big politics are united in their basic ideologies: people and resources are mere tools to be used to further the purpose of the controlling alphas. To me, the most destructive American corporate enterprises are the oil and gas interests, the pharmaceutical corporations, and finally the defense industries. I am sure you have your own list of malefactors.

Major oil companies resist every serious effort to develop alternative sources of energy. As a result we are dependent on very unstable parts of the world for much of our oil. The cabal consisting of major oil corporations, automobile manufacturers, and their minions in Congress keep America enslaved to the Arab world and Venezuela. We are sleeping with partners who, on a moment's notice, can kick us out of their beds

The most revolting feature to me is the production of huge gas-guzzling contraptions that have become status symbols of the American dream. That dream may turn into a nightmare. Not only do they waste oil, but are also exempt from emission controls in order to bring down their costs. If that is not a scene in the theater of the absurd, then I don't know what is! But then again, dictators and would-be dictators always benefit from the absurd.

Many folks not only complain about the high cost of prescription drugs but some of our elderly citizens, in particular, have to make a choice between buying drugs or buying food. Some go to Canada to purchase their drugs at much reduced prices. These conditions cause those affected much frustration and doubt. Of course, the tributary called frustration becomes a significant factor of the main stream leading to dictatorship.

As a public relations campaign, some major pharmaceutical houses offer some sort of special deal to impoverished seniors. That is not a solution, but only a diversionary tactic. The problem lies in the hubris of the executives who raise the prices every few months and then engage in deceitful campaigns to have the public buy "new" drugs for illnesses when older drugs, no longer protected by patents, are not only cheaper but are every bit as good as the new drugs. Naturally, the drug companies would love a dictatorship. They could and would put folks like me in concentration camps.

Equally evil is the military industrial complex. General Eisenhower warned us of the wicked influence such a clique would have upon America. Cost overruns, inefficient weapons, and a Congress selling its votes to the highest bidder, all combine to saddle our country with an economic burden that is destructive of a strong nation. Is there any difference in the relationship between Krupp with Hitler and General Dynamics with Bush? Add to that the totally insipid idea of developing a Star Wars Shield and you begin to understand the depth of the nefarious activities that take place between "Big Politics" and "Big Money." Their motto is "Lets Screw the People."

Of course, one of the most dismaying contributing sources to the drama playing itself out in America is the disappearance of the independent, inquiring press. Matthew Riemer did a magnificent job in describing the problem. I would just like to add one thought.

The public has been duped into believing that the press is liberal and therefore to be rejected without even getting a hearing. Slogans and catch phrases are the tools of the rulers to make the masses do their bidding. In Germany the words were "Communists," or "Jews." Here the words calling for immediate rejection of a person or an idea is "Socialist" or "liberal." Pat Robertson is teaching us how to curl your lips and keep a frozen smile on our faces while we growl, "Socialist, liberal."

I like to suggest that the press has been anything but liberal for years. Much noise was made over the Clinton/Lewinsky affair, but hardly any negative press was given to Newt Gingrich who told his wife right after cancer surgery that he wanted to divorce her. Little was said about this rather brutal incident. There were rumors that Newt was having an affair but the press never followed through on that accusation with vigor.

Then there was the Republican Congressman who had an affair at age 40. He shrugged it off as a youthful indiscretion. Hell, at age 40 you are over the hill. This was not a youthful indiscretion. This was adultery pure and simple. Then there was a Republican County Chairman who seduced his stepdaughter who later drowned her two children. Not much was ever said of these choice examples of sexual perversion. A liberal press would have followed up those leads with glee.

It is rather amazing that the supposed liberal press did not make more of President Bush's wayward youth. The man seemed to have been pretty much into inhaling something or other, but we never heard much about it. Then there is the fact that he was, or still is, AWOL from the military. He was supposed to report for duty someplace; I think it might have been some air station in Alabama. Instead, as I understand it, he went to work on some political campaign and never reported for duty.

We had one guy in our outfit that spent a day with his wife who had come to visit him. He was reported as being AWOL and spent time in the stockade. A liberal press would have had a picnic with Bush's AWOL status. We never heard much about it. Liberal press? My foot! Reactionary businessmen and politicians wanted and got a press that was nothing but a mouthpiece for their propaganda. Goebbles would be proud of the American press! Der Stuermer and most American newspapers seem to have the same editors!

And now we get to the final piece de resistance. Of course, it deals with September 11. I told my wife soon after it happened that our entire FBI and CIA apparatus ought to be fired. How can we spend the kind of money on those two organizations and not have any inclination of what is going on in the world. And today, as I am writing this column, comes the news that President Bush had been told about the possibility of terrorists hijacking planes, with the possibility of flying them into buildings. So it was not our intelligence services that failed! Of course, the presidential spin-doctors are going to whitewash this sordid negligence on the President's part in not taking some affirmative action! Or did he act by not acting?

Bush's acquiescence to the warnings calls to mind the burning of the Reichstag in Berlin. Hitler needed an event to galvanize the German people to vote him into office. His thugs burned the parliament building and blamed the Communists. The event had the desired result. The Germans elected Hitler.

Bush faced a fading presidency, his popularity ebbing to an embarrassing degree. The terrorist threats seemed like a gift from heaven. After all, did the President not say that Jesus was his philosopher? And here was Jesus coming to help his beloved son. The American people will always rally around the flag in a time of crisis. Maybe he thought, so what if a few thousand Americans get killed. The presidency might be resurrected, particularly if POTUS (President of the United States) acted "presidential," whatever that means. He did and America responded.

Of course, Bush also has Ashcroft in place as his deputy in charge of the Gestapo. In the name of all things that are holy and sacred, the deputy will ferret out all un-American traitors. Himmler would be more than delighted to present our Attorney General with the Membership Party Emblem with the Golden Wreath. It was awarded for loyalty to Reich and Fuehrer. The consistent violations of personal liberties are washed down the sewer under the pretense of protecting ourselves against terrorists and aggressors.

Now also emerges that stalwart protector of American values to help our Deputy Fuehrer. William Bennett is heading up a right-wing financed group called AVOT - Americans for Victory Over Terrorism. All who object to any aspect of POTUS's program for the military, homeland security as well as his budgetary and social proposals are considered to be in sympathy with the terrorists. AVOT makes it its business to ferret out those Americans who do not understand or are unwilling to defend our fundamental principles. Of course, Bennett and his ilk define what those principles are.

The tributaries are flowing and converging into a mighty river. Will that river reach its intended destination? That is the question before the American people.

[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations."]

John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org

YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction must identify the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org . Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org  are appreciated.

"I am mad, madder than Hell" 

By John Brand, D.Min., J.D.

Printed on Sunday, July 14, 2002 @ 22:43:24 EDT http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=491 

By John Brand, D.Min., J.D. YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)

(YellowTimes.org) – On November 4th, 1944, Co E, 410th Reg., 103rd Infantry Division moved on the line outside of St.Die, France. We relieved a unit of the 3rd Division that had been on the front for over 100 consecutive days. As soon as we moved into position, German artillery hit our area. The Baptism of Fire is a cruel experience. Within a minute I lost all sense of being a civilized, caring human being. All of life centered around one thought, "Get the bastards before they get you." Next morning we had our first casualty. Private Kopko, the only son of a widowed mother, took a direct hit. The shrapnel pierced his helmet and skull. Quicker than you can read this sentence, what had once been a vital human being, now lay dead on the cold ground.

I don't even remember the name of the next guy who got it. He was a schoolteacher, a rather quiet man. He joined our platoon just before we went on the line. I understood he had a wife and child. Shrapnel hit his guts – as nasty a wound as there is. He was still alive when the stretcher-bearers carried him, screaming and writhing, to the rear. I don’t know if he made it. Probably not.

Death. Wounds. Hell. Screams. Fear. Hate. Bastards. Merde.

Yet, deep down inside, we knew that we were fighting because Hitler's madness had to be stopped. We were citizen soldiers. Our aim was to get on with our private lives. But before we could, a job that had to be done! Behind the terror and the bravery, the screams and the stealthy night patrols into enemy lines, there was a strong belief that our sacrifices would make this a better world.

The final paragraph of the Yalta Conference Report, February 1945, expressed our hopes. "To the soldier who slogged it out in the mud, the Yalta Conference and the San Francisco Conference are tangible evidence that the United Nations have a definite goal . . . that this time the peace will be carefully and deliberately planned . . . that the hours in muddy foxholes, the eternal moments lying, pinned down to the muck by machinegun fire, the swift seconds of the assaults of a strongpoint, will not have been spent in vain."

The back of the World War II Victory Medal bears the inscription, "Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, freedom from fear." Those declarations made our sacrifices worthwhile. They put meaning into the hell of war. We really believed that we were fighting for a better world.

We returned home and set about to build a greater nation. Filled with the assurance that our dead did not die in vain, that those of us who came home with disabilities would see the fulfillment of our dreams, we worked hard to realize this nation's potential. And now over fifty years later, our dreams are crushed, our hopes are destroyed, our sufferings are a mockery! I am mad!

While those dominating politics, business, and religion spout patriotic slogans, proclaim the virtues of capitalism, and preach that this is a nation under God, the reality is one of the grim dismantling of all things decent and right and honorable. And for what? That a few bastard businessmen can deposit a few more millions into their personal checking accounts? That a few plutocratic politicians can pervert the welfare of the people? That a few paranoid preachers can evoke more division than unity in the gospel they spread?

I am mad because a handful of propagandists have caused the American people to buy into the charade that government is bad and private enterprise is an unqualified bonanza for all. Well, it certainly has turned out differently, hasn't it? While executives at Enron, WorldCom, Anderson, and sundry other corporations were putting millions into their personal bank accounts, the employees and investors hold worthless pieces of paper in their hands. And what really makes me mad is that our Attorney General recluses himself from the case because his own Senatorial campaign fund received contributions from Enron. But has he appointed a Deputy to pursue this matter vigorously? Surely, among the many thousands of laws, regulations, executive orders, there must be one that can make "Kenny Boy" accountable. But no, he is still roaming the streets or holed up in one of his many mansions laughing at the poor suckers he has taken for a ride. And that makes me mad . . . madder than hell.

There is nothing sacred about private enterprise. As a matter of fact, it has turned out to be the embodiment of evil. Ask the millions who were bilked out of billions in the sovereign State of California by the Enron shenanigans. Glory to God in the highest! And it is ordained by the Almighty that profits are good for everyone. Ask the more than 40,000,000 uninsured citizens. Ask the ones who receive inadequate care by H.M.O.'s. Just the other day my wife went for her blood pressure checkup. Her doctor has done a fine job of controlling it. After he finished his exam, she asked him what she might do about feeling constantly tired. He looked at his watch and said, "Ruby, you have to make another appointment to talk about that. Time has run out." The poor man has to see so many billable patients and just has a few minutes for each one. Glory to private enterprise making people's health a profit center.

Glory to God in the highest for having major industries pollute soil, air, and water. Then their minions in Congress pass laws to keep the corporations from having to assume liability. The cost of the clean-up is shifted to the taxpayers. And then the funds are cut because we don't have enough money to take care of everything that needs attention. But we still plan a Star War Defense Shield. Although every respectable scientist has said that it cannot be done and every test has failed, we still fill the trough with the swill of money so the fat boys can grow fatter still.

Death. Wounds. Hell. Screams. Fear. Hate. Bastards. Merde.

Count the blessing of unrestricted free enterprise. You see it in the face of untold elderly who have to make a choice between buying needed medications or food. The large pharmaceutical companies change a few molecules in prescription medicines so they can obtain new patents. The new product, in most cases, is not much better than the old one. Holding new patents in their grubby little hands, they can squeeze more bucks out of a captive public. Ain't free enterprise grand?

Who in the hell needs governmental oversight? Well, the people do to level the playing field. But does "Big Bidness" want equity and fairness? If you believe that, I have a really good deal on the Brooklyn Bridge. You see the blessings of free enterprise in the sorrowing faces of those who lost loved ones when their Ford SUV's turned over killing some of their relatives. So we enter into a debate whether Ford or Firestone are to be blamed. And not a single executive who knew about this death threat has spent a day in jail.

Unrestricted free enterprise is not enterprise at all. Lack of oversight provides a license to steal.

Death. Wounds. Hell. Screams. Fear. Hate. Bastards. Merde.

Of course, I am mad at the politicians. If they want to get elected and reelected and reelected, they have to have money.

NEWS BULLETIN: The name of the Lord God Jehovah has just been changed. The President, upon advice of the Attorney General, and with the approval of the Congress, the Supreme Court by a 5:4 vote, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, changed the Lord's name to: The Lord Mammon. So everything is all right with our nation under our new god.

And the representatives of the people have to have money to go on TV and tell us about their grand plans to fulfill the expectations of the people that this shall be a government of and for and by said people. Oops! Sorry! I made a mistake. No, they have to have money to tell us how sorry their opponents are and how unworthy they are to represent us – the people. And who gives our reps the money to provide this meaningful information? Why it's the proponents of the only true God, The Lord Mammon. So when laws are written, who writes them?

Death. Wounds. Hell. Screams. Fear. Hate. Bastards. Merde.

That leaves me with the final object of my disappointments and the realization that our sacrifices were in vain. I am mad as hell about the fake religion that charlatans have presented to the American public as Christianity. In the early 1950's, I was driving home along Highway 82 in North Texas rather late one night. The only radio station coming in loud and clear was one located in Mexico carrying religious broadcasts. I was rather amused at the ignorance that came over the airwaves. I thought to myself this sort of cheap emotionalism would only be accepted by the most ignorant of people. I heard the following spoken with a deep southern drawl and a saccharine voice.

"Friends, neighbors, this is your Christian friend, speaking from Kentucky. Now friends, I know that many of you have problems with your wife or your husband. Some of your children are not turning out all right. And I know that some of you are having trouble with your boss. Well, friends, your troubles are over. Every Thursday morning, I go to the upper room in my house and I pray hard. I pray hard to the Lord and the Lord blesses me. Holy drops of oil appear in the palms of my hands. (At this point the voice was quite shaky and filled with emotion.) Now friends, if you will send me $ 5.00 I will send you a cloth on which I have wiped some of the drops of holy oil from the palm of my hands. Now neighbor, if you take that cloth and touch your loved one with it, drape it over a picture of your loved one, rub your bosses car, or toolkit, or his desk with it, neighbor if you do that, all your troubles will go away. Send your $ 5.00 to me and I will send you the cloth with holy oil. The Lord God Himself has blessed it."

And I submit to you, America's popular religion today is not more than snake oil being peddled by charlatans. Educated people have bought into the claptrap of personal salvation without social responsibility. Popular religion is like the rabbit’s foot supposedly bringing you good luck. It has all of the superstition of a four-leaf clover or hanging a horseshoe over your barn door with the open end pointing upwards. It is like the witches' brew in Macbeth. Myths, fables, and belief in the absurd make up the potion guaranteed to bring whatever one wishes. Our leaders think that if we invoke the name of God long enough and loud enough, God will descend from heaven and bless this nation.

The prophetic tradition of the Bible is quite clear on the point that a nation preoccupied with materialism will go down the tube. I am paraphrasing Amos 8:4 – 6 bringing his words into our own socio/economic setting. "Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land saying, When will the weekend be over so we can get on with the business of making money and cooking the balance sheet by transferring debts to offshore companies. We will provide inferior services and products and make a hell of a lot of money. We will be deceitful but it’s all within the law because we have written the laws ourselves. We will charge the masses more than our stuff is worth and overcharge them for things they must have like electricity, food, and gasoline."

If you think I have overstated the case, read the passage yourself, find out its historical setting and you will realize that Amos was twice as tough on the controlling alphas as I ever thought about being. If you access my columns in YellowTimes.org entitled, "The Rev. Dr. Billy Graham's Unpardonable Sin" (April 23) and "Why religion persists…" (June 25) you will understand my concerns.

What do these self-styled Christians know about the great prophetic tradition of an Isaiah, an Amos, a Jesus? All they can ask is, "Are you saved?" And by the Lord Mammon you are not if you don't do it my way! Damn you if you don't!

This is not what we died for and suffered for. This is not why we suffer our disabilities gladly. This is not why Pvt. Kopko got a piece of shrapnel in his skull.

Death. Wounds. Hell. Screams. Fear. Hate. Bastards. Merde.

[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations." (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/075961041X/yellowtimes-20)]

John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org 

YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction must identify the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org . Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org  are appreciated.

http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=491 

By John Brand, D.Min., J.D. 

YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)

(YellowTimes.org) – Some friends of mine told me of a wonderful weekend they spent at a Bed and Breakfast in the Texas Hill Country. They took advantage of the available hot tub. Now they did not tell me that they enjoyed this little escapade "au naturel." But let's just assume they did - it certainly adds a little spice to our imagination. They did confide that they had a good bottle of wine which they thoroughly enjoyed emptying. Then in the midst of this Bacchanalian venture they started singing Southern Baptist hymns.

Now there can be nothing more incongruous than singing Southern Baptist hymns while drinking wine in a hot tub. The participants don't even have to be in their birthday suits to highlight the polarity of this scene. Those readers unfamiliar with Southern Baptists mores need to know that good Southern Baptists do not imbibe and cavort around in hot tubs. It just ain't done! To be in this sinful state and sing hymns is the height of contradiction.

Does it take too much of an imagination that my friends in this joyous state of abandonment were entertaining further thoughts of personal physical intimacy? Not in my book it doesn't. While their minds were anticipating earthly pleasures, their voices sang hallelujahs to God. I submit to you this a parable of the schizoid condition of present-day America. I am not saying that enjoyment of life and spirituality are mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact when enjoying a beautiful sunset or a Rubens painting, Beethoven's Emperor Concerto or moments of intimacy with my wife, I experience a profound sense of spirituality. I am saying that cavorting around and singing Baptists hymns are two totally incompatible activities.

I am suggesting that much of present-day America finds itself in such a schizoid state. We fly flags everywhere to evidence our patriotism. With sincere feelings we recite the Pledge of Allegiance. We proclaim with pride "…with liberty and justice for all." But then we say, "Whoa, we don't want liberty and justice for those who criticize the President." As a matter of fact, several administration officials have stated that censure of any of President Bush's plans, pronouncements, executive orders, edicts, decisions and determinations is just downright unpatriotic. So, what does the phrase "Liberty for all" mean when we can't disagree with our leader? Are we singing a hymn and then cavorting around in a hot tub?

We proclaim that there is justice for all in the land of the free and the brave! But it seems to me there is more justice for some than there is for others. With one wave of the hand, the most insidious Act ever passed in the entire history of the United States, the USA Patriot Act, withdraws justice from anyone who appears to intimidate or coerce a civilian population. Now what for heaven's sake does it mean that someone "appears" to intimidate civilians?

Appearance does not require that I hold a Colt .45 to your head and threaten to kill you. No, if my activities just appear to be intimidating, then I am guilty of having violated the Patriot Act. Who or what is this nebulous "civilian population" that feels intimidated by my acts? Do my columns criticizing some of the Administration's policies appear to be intimidating? Well, to someone who believes in the Bill of Rights, they are just an invitation for possible discussion. To truly patriotic individuals they are just food for thought. To a super-patriot, "them there is intimidating words." Then such an emotionally charged self-defined defender of American values might just accuse me of being a terrorist. What is the distance between someone who actually brandishes a weapon terrorizing someone and the individual whose speech appears to be threatening to someone who wouldn't know the difference between the Magna Carta and Joseph Stalin? I submit to you that in our schizoid state that distance is becoming shorter and shorter all the time.

While we are singing hymns to our Founding Fathers, Congress at the urging of the President, gave the Attorney General the right to decide who is a suspected terrorist. All the Attorney General has to do is to certify that he believes that someone is a suspected terrorist. No proof needs to be provided. The Attorney Genera's word is all that is needed. No court order is needed to detain someone of being a suspected terrorist in jail for up to six months incrementally. That could mean a lifetime in jail, one six months detention after another. And no legal due process steps have ever to be taken. To further evidence the mental sickness of our nation even more, the Act states that the action of the Attorney General is not subject to review by any court! Boy if that isn't singing Baptists hymns while cavorting around in the hot tub, I don't know what would be.

Of course, I am always much more concerned about possible underlying reasons for what we do than to describe the actual results of our folly. What in the world would cause some leaders of our nation to salute the flag and then do everything in their power to destroy the essence of what that flag symbolizes?

It seems strange that the answer might be found in an episode that took place some years ago on a farm in Upstate New York. Paul M. MacLean, M.D., the eminent researcher of the evolutionary development of the human brain, kept a flock of ducks on his summer place. One evening he noted one duck being attacked by other members of the flock. When he went to see what the commotion was all about, he noticed that the animal being assaulted had a bloody spot on its head. The other ducks kept pecking away at that blemish. The following day, MacLean painted a red spot on the head of another duck. Sure enough, the scene of the previous day repeated itself. The flock again attacked the duck with the blemish.

Any chicken or turkey farmer has seen similar episodes many times. Members of the flock will attack a chicken or a turkey that happens to be injured and bleeding. MacLean postulates that deep within a very primitive part of the brain is a neural alarm system ringing a bell when confronted with a strange or unfamiliar situation. It can be postulated that alerting a creature in the face of the unknown is a survival mechanism. It is as though the brain was signaling, "This is strange! You don't know what it is. You need to protect yourself against this potential danger." Humans, no less than ducks, have a similar survival mode. In the face of the unknown we become defensive and protective.

I propose that hostility between tribes, races, or other diverse groups has its genesis in this ancient neural connection in the brain. The difference does not even have to be physical in nature, such as white skin vs. black skin. Differences arousing the defense mechanism can be conceptual, ideological, or religious in nature. Nationalistic leaders have taken advantage of this predisposition of the human brain to rouse their followers into action: Gentiles vs. Jews, Palestinians vs. Israelis, Irish Protestants vs. Irish Catholics, Capitalists vs. Social Democrats. It doesn't take much to arouse this "blemish" factor in human beings.

At the drop of a hat we sing patriotic hymns, wave the flag, and with almost the same breath deny someone holding different ideas the protection of the Bill of Rights. An interesting fact is that religious wars, the Crusades, the Thirty Years War, etc., etc., were not conducted to eliminate criminal elements. They were conducted to kill those whose mere ideas were different. A lot of good people were killed just because they interpreted the idea of God in different ways. Hell, we sing Baptists hymns while cavorting around in the hot tub all the time.

One of the earliest recorded events in which a leader summoned his people into action by waving the blemish factor before them is recorded in the book of Joshua, chapter 24. Joshua seeking to rally his tribe around his Lord said, "Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served. . . or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." The implication is that "our" Lord is far better than the gods of the Amorites. It is easy to coalesce a group into solidarity by pointing out the differences existing between it and others.

Then an interesting psychological phenomenon occurs. People holding a particular point of view achieve their sense of selfhood by comparing themselves to others rather than deriving their self-worth from within their own essence. The sense of personal identification is derived through stressing and emphasizing seeming differences. It is these differences rather than an individualistic sense of integrity that validates such a person's selfhood. We, who serve the god of our ancestors, are better than the Amorites. Never mind that some who serve the god of the ancestors may take advantage of members of their own tribe. Never mind that some Amorites have a very high sense of personal morality. The assumption is that they are Amorites and therefore they are full of blemishes. We are Israelites therefore we are o.k.

As tribes become successful states, the blemish factor applies to differences of opinions among various groups within the state. Capitalists see blemishes in labor and labor sees blemishes in capitalists. Once the blemish factor is established it is very difficult for these groups to work with each other. Deep emotions are attached to our preferences and prevent productive co-operation. Both sides fail to realize that each one needs the other to make a whole. Capital without labor is simply an idea. Labor without capital cannot make a living. The reality of mutual needs is blotted out by some stupid subconscious assumption generated in brain tissues dating its origin millions of years ago. No wonder our country is singing hymns while frolicking around in a hot tub.

The impact of the blemish factor affects many facets of our lives. If my sense of importance arises from comparing myself to others, I will drive hard to create a deep chasm between the others and myself. If I am a corporate executive I will seek to attain earning that are several times as large as that of the peons who work for me. If I make 100 times as much as that hourly temp, then I am 100 times better than he is. If Bill Gates makes a bit more than Kenny Boy then Bill is a better man. But it isn't only among the super-rich that this game is played. If I live in West Austin, I am better than all these blemish-ridden folks in East Austin. If I drive a gas-guzzler, I am a person with fewer blemishes than one who drives an economy car. Don't tell me that I am making all this up. TV ads imply that you really are someone if you are driving a big van.

Folks in public office often derive their sense of self-hood from the mere fact of being elected. Then everyone who represents a different point-of-view is seen as a person with a blemish. These are folks who need to be eliminated. The stronger the need for deriving self-identity by comparison with others, the more intense the need to eliminate all blemished folks. If one derives one's basic sense of being by pecking at everyone who is suspected of having a bloody spot, all those who hold different opinions have bloody spots and need to be neutralized. Having eliminated them fills the victor with a short-lived sense of accomplishment. However, because the real sense of self is lacking, soon this inner void cries out for more victims to be eliminated. Under the banner of doing away with all those who are considered unpatriotic or suspected of being terrorists, a never-ending supply of folks with blemishes is assured.

The victor sings hymns and splashes about in his little hot tub. Except this tub is filled with the proverbial blood of those whom he proclaims to be his enemies.

Of course, the blemish factor causes us to make value judgments. Whatever my particular point of view happens to be, I adjudge as right and good. Ergo, anyone differing from my position must be wrong and bad. And so, the political machinery of the potentially greatest nation on earth grinds to a standstill. Because neither side is willing to see its need for the other, much legislation is myopic and eventually self-destructive. There is no Republican America. There is no Democratic America. There is only an America based on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. To be sure, these are living documents and must be interpreted against current needs and present problems. But the solution is neither Democratic nor Republican in nature. The solution lies in the effort to be and to become humane.

But as long as we see blemishes in each other, we are cooking up a stew of mutually self-destructive agendas. The President of the United States when taking office swears to uphold its Constitution. No one can uphold our Constitution and see blemishes in everyone who has different ideas. It seems to be that our sitting President sees blemishes in anyone who begs to differ with his agenda. He sees his program as a God-given mission. Therefore anyone opposing him must be silenced by any and all means possible. That is not my understanding of what the barons fought for in 1215 at Runnymede and found a most exemplary manifestation on July 4, 1776.

It seems that the present-day power structure in politics, business and religion is singing mighty hymns of patriotism while swigging away their bottle of booze in their hot tubs.

[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations."]

John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org 

YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction must identify the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org . Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org  are appreciated.

''Bible 101:
not all it's cracked up to be'' 

Printed on Friday, August 02, 2002 @ 02:07:41 EDT http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=556 

By John Brand, D.Min., J.D. YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)

(YellowTimes.org) – A gentleman who has read some of my articles is very much concerned about the state of my soul as well as the soul of YellowTimes.org publisher Erich Marquardt. He suggests that if we do not believe in the errant word of God, we will certainly wind up in hell. I have always replied rather politely to his e-mails. Yet, my first impulse was to quote the Bible back to him: "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged." (Matthew 7:1) That is just one passage of many in which folks are warned not to judge others.

My second impulse is to point out to him that we are in deep trouble if the entire Bible is the inerrant word of God. Some of the most lurid stuff is found in the pages of the "Good Book." If the bare metal breast of a lifeless statue offends the Attorney General, he would probably have a serious fit if he ever were to read the 23rd Chapter of Ezekiel. The prophet recounts the fact that the tribes of Israel and Judah had not been faithful to God. The following are the supposed inerrant words of God reported in verses 18 - 21.

"When she (Judah) carried on the nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned from her sister (Israel). Yet she increased her whorings, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians fondled your bosom and caressed your young breasts."

Boy, this God is really expressive. In view of the fact that the popular image we have of God is one of decency and decorum, propriety and purity, I have a hard time accepting that kind of language as the inerrant word of God. It would make the ladies in most Sunday School classes blush to high heavens. And yet, fundamentalists insist this indeed is the true, eternal, and righteous word of God.

And then there is this story in Judges, chapters 19 - 21. Let me very briefly restate it. I am not taking literary license with a single word. A Levite, name not given, from the hill country of Ephraim, had a concubine whose home was in Bethlehem in Judea. (Whoa, well a little editorializing is all right. Does that mean that the inerrant word of God allows me to have a concubine? My wife can't complain about my request. After all, concubinage is ordained in the inerrant word.) One day the aforementioned lady got her nose out of joint and went back home to her Dad. Hubby followed her intending to sweet-talk her and bring her back.

He arrived at his father-in-law's house (the woman in question in a later verse is called the Levite's wife, so I guess we can call her Dad the Man's father-in-law) and the two men ate and drank. They ate and drank for several days! (So, the inerrant word suggests that partying is o.k. I like that. The Biblical God takes on a bit of Bacchus's character here. I wonder if the Puritans knew that?) Anyway, time for partying was over. The Levite and his concubine/wife left for the hill country. At night they stopped in the village of Gibeah, home to some members of the tribe of Benjamin.

The Levite and his concubine/wife were seated in the town square when an old man invited them to spend the night. The offer of hospitality was accepted. Again we are told that host and guest drank and ate. While they were having a good time, a perverse group of citizens banged on the door demanding that the host turn the guest over to them "so that we may have intercourse with him." (Judges 19:22) The old man refused because as a polite and decent host he simply could not honor their request. He continued in v. 24, "Here are my virgin daughters and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do whatever you want to them."

Now this must really be exemplary moral behavior. The father protects his guest but is quite willing to have his daughters and his guest's concubine raped. There is not a word of God expressing his disapproval of the old man's offer. This, according to the reader who wants to save my soul, is the inerrant word of God. It is also the inerrant word to Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and who knows how many other millions of Americans who have bought into the fairy tale of the infallibility of the Bible without ever having read the book. But wait, it gets worse.

The Levite pushes his concubine out the door and she was raped and abused all night long. (v. 25) In the morning her master/husband (what do you call the man who has a concubine? I really don't know) saw her lying at the door. He said, "Get up, we are going." When she did not respond, he put her on a donkey and proceeded to go home.

Sometime later it dawned on him that the lady was dead. So after he got home, he cut her body into twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent his servants to each of the twelve tribes of Israel with the message that the vile acts of the Benjaminites cried out for justice. Of course, not a word was said that he pushed her out the door knowing full well that the men who demanded to have sexual fun with him would not have a prayer meeting with the young lady.

Well, the furor of this affair caused a terrible war that caused the death of thousands upon thousands. And then in the end, in God's name, the city of Gibeah was burned. On God's orders all the men, women, and children, as well as all animals were killed. To completely avenge the death of the concubine, some of the other towns of the tribe of Benjamin were also torched.

Now here is a sleeper. Six hundred Benjaminites escaped. After a few months, everybody's blood had cooled down. It was discovered that these men did not have any prospects of getting married because all the women of their tribe had been killed. So the elders of the tribe of Israel, with God's approval one must assume, authorized the surviving Gibeonites to kidnap some women from Shiloh to take as their wives. Everybody lived happily ever after.

This is supposed to be the inerrant word of God? Come on, I have higher morals than that.

Chapter 15 of I Samuel presents a rather weird picture of the deity. The prophet Samuel claims that God ordered him to anoint Saul as King over Israel. In the same breath, he orders Saul, in God's name, to attack the Amalekites "and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." Talk about a bloodbath!

Well, Saul fought a victorious campaign and started to implement God's commandment to slaughter one and all. But Saul was no dummy. He saved the best of the sheep and the cattle, the fatlings, the lambs and all that was valuable. Knowing something about international politics, Saul was also clever enough not to kill Agag, the king of the Amalekites. One never knows when a former enemy might prove to be an asset. After all, both Germany and Japan, our archenemies about sixty years ago, are now our buddies. Saul just anticipated international diplomacy by about 3,000 years.

Well, Samuel, even without modern hearing aids, heard the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle. He got pretty mad and started to berate Saul. "Damned," (this is my rendition of what he said to the king) "the Lord told you to kill everybody and everything. And what in the hell did you do, you ingrate? You take it upon yourself to defy God's word." Well, Saul could not stand the prophet's disapproval and confessed that he was a sinner by not chopping off all heads.

Saul was particularly contrite because Samuel threatened to dispose the King and anoint someone else in Saul's place. That really put Saul into a repentant mood. One assumes that to glorify God, Saul did go ahead and kill all the animals. It does not say that in the Bible but I assume that is what happened, particularly in view of what happens next.

Samuel demanded that King Agag be brought before him. Samuel said to the King: "As your sword has made women childless, so your mother shall be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal." (v. 33) Can't you just hear all the angels in heaven breaking out in the Hallelujah Chorus? How happy one and all must have been to see the blood spurting from Agog's severed head.

Now if that is the 24-karat image of God, the genuine sterling silver image, recorded in an inerrant book, I claim that I would make a better God than that caricature. That brutality does not reflect an eternal essence. It does reflect tribal ethos of about 3,000 years ago. I might add, the tribal ethos that hasn't changed all that much. By God, we want bin Laden! We'll hack the S.O.B. to pieces in the name of all that is holy and honorable.

The New Testament presents its own particular problems calling into question whether the Bible can really be said to be the inerrant word of God. Colossians 4:1 states my concerns most clearly, "Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly." Not a word is said against the practice of slavery. To be sure, passages in the New Testament enjoin believers to treat their slaves in a humane manner but there is no word against the institution of slavery. Col 3:11 states that in the "renewal" there is no difference among classes of people such as Greeks, Jews, barbarians, Scythians, slave and free. But nothing is said about the practice of slavery itself. I Corinthians 12:13 repeats the same thought. There is to be no difference among believers but again we find no injunction against slavery.

It is somewhat difficult for me to consider a book to be the inerrant word of God that does not raise its voice against slavery but by implication condones the practice.

Another serious problem is posed in some passages of the New Testament that totally and unconditionally erase any trace of personal freedom in one's quest for a deeper meaning of life. Romans 8:29-30 states, "For those whom he (God) foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called. And those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." This express suppression of human will is further underlined in 9:16 of the same book: "So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy."

This last statement is particularly meaningless. If human will is excluded from the ultimate and final decision regarding one's fate and destiny, why would God have to show mercy? He already, according to Paul's writings, has decided whose dice will roll a seven or an eleven and whose will come up snake eyes or double sixes. So what is the place of mercy in a predetermined game? Mercy is needed if snake eyes are rolled and God says, "Oh, what the heck, give the poor sucker a chance" and he changes the roll into a seven. But there is no leeway here. God determined a long time ago who is going the win the pot and who will be left destitute. Such nonsense does not reflect inerrancy. Come on, now. I said "win the pot" not smoke it.

One final passage calling into question that God is the authentic author of these 66 books written over about 1,000 years. We have heard a lot from religious fundamentalists about wanting The Ten Commandments plastered all over this country. For openers, if they really believe that these injunctions came from God himself then all these Bible thumping folks will have to come out strongly against the death penalty. Exodus 20:13, "You shall not murder."

No place does it say that State sanctioned murder is not murder. Now the Bible, as we have seen with Samuel and Agog, is full of killing and murder and mayhem done in God's name. But the Commandment says, "Don't." Our President said that Jesus is his philosopher. Yet, he loves the death penalty. Doesn't make sense, does it?

But the Sixth Commandment is not my main point. What for heaven's sake kind of a deity is it that would say something like this, "for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of the parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing mercy to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments." (Exodus 20: 5,6) Come on now! I don't even know who any of my 16 great-great-grandparents were. If one of them said, "Damn you God!" I am to be held liable for his apostasy! That would be a really neurotic God who holds his grudges that long.

By the same token, if a truly faithful person, 1000 generations from now has a descendent who is totally ungodly, totally evil, totally sinful God promises to be kind to him. Surely, Adolf, Joe (Stalin) and Benito must have had somebody 1000 generations ago who was a pretty God-fearing character. One thousand generations ago is about 20,000 years. In that period of time one has accumulated a lot of ancestors. According to Scripture, Adolf, Joe, and Benito go free.

That doesn't make any sense to me. Only if one checks one's brains in the narthex of the nearest church can one subscribe to the idea that Scripture is inerrant. So, those of you who want to save my soul and those of others, start reading the Bible with your brains intact. If you really believe the Scriptures you would learn that one is to "love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." (Mark 12:30, Matthew 22:37 and Luke 10:27 and sundry other passages in the Old Testament.)

[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations."]

John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org 

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http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=556 

''Journalism 101:
Life blood of a nation''

Date: Thursday, August 22, 2002 @ 03:01:57 EDT
Topic: John Brand

By John Brand, D.Min., J.D. YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)

(YellowTimes.org) – In August 1938 I stood at a street corner near a newspaper stand in Chicago, Illinois. I had just arrived in the United States about two weeks earlier, the son of a political refugee from Hitler's Austria. Even though my English was very limited, I could tell that a headline in the Chicago Tribune was very critical of President Roosevelt. I thought to myself that I would soon witness the efficiency of the Chicago Police Department. Even in pre-Hitler Austria, the press was under State censorship. Occasionally a censor would miss an article that a supervisor thought objectionable. If by that time the paper had gone to press and been distributed, the police would make a sweep, confiscate the papers, and physically remove them from the newsstands. Had my ride not come, I would still be standing on that corner waiting for the police to take action.

I could not understand the concept of a free press. Later on I learned the importance of unrestricted and open publications in the United States. Of course, Jefferson said it much more succinctly than I ever could. In a letter to Edward Carrington in 1787, Jefferson wrote, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers, and be capable of reading them."

In 1804, in a letter to Judge Tyler, Jefferson wrote, "Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him [the governed] all the avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions."

President Washington and Benjamin Franklin offered similar opinions. Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote in a concurrent opinion, Pennekamp vs. Florida, "Freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society." William Douglas in "An Almanac of Liberty" states, "Acceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation." Of course, I could go on and on quoting eminent persons who believe that freedom of the press is the heartbeat of a free society.

In 1925, Hitler published "Mein Kampf." My translation of a passage on p. 264 reads, "The State has the obligation to supervise the education of the ignorant electorate and is under the obligation to stop all offenses. The State must particularly watch publications in the press because its influence is far-reaching." In other words, autocratic rulers assume that members of the electorate are ignorant and the State must spoon-feed the information they are to receive. Of course, the assumption is that the State, the political bosses, know what is good for the people. The further assumption is that the bosses are right and the people are just a bunch of dumb cattle.

What has happened to the American press? The evidence is overwhelming that substantive issues are not addressed in a meaningful and significant manner. Of course, there has been no overt take-over by our government of the press. The process has been very subtle. It was achieved under the good old slogan of "private enterprise." Now, I am not yet jaded enough in my thinking to believe there was a meeting of the cabal of the relatively few movers and shakers seeking to run America in which it was decided to silence the press. A non-investigating press is needed so significant decisions and activities designed to destroy Constitutional rights are not reported. The minds of these individuals are synchronized. They belong to the same clubs, read the same papers, and listen to the same one-sided propagandists. More than that, they have a sense of mission. At their Fathers knees they were inoculated with the idea that they are superior to other men. They were infected with the germ that they have the right to control and dominate the masses. They were impregnated with the seed that somehow their superiority is a matter of divine right.

No written document exists proclaiming their superiority, but their actions speak louder than words. They bend the laws to suit themselves. They profiteer in the most obscene ways. They decide what is right and what is wrong. But to succeed in implanting their order on America they need a silent press.

The August 19, 2002 edition of the Austin American Statesman presents a perfect example of my concerns. On the "Commentary" page is a "Special" by Jonathan Turley of the Los Angeles Times. In it he mentions the plan by the Attorney General for the creation of camps for the incarceration of "enemy combatants." The gathering whirlwind seeking to destroy Constitutional rights is become more and more destructive every day. The New Order no longer seeks to hide its intent. And what are the headlines of today's Statesman? "Man, 22, dies at huge impromptu rave." "Time to head back to school." "Israeli deal is seen as test." "Hooked on horns." (Big color picture on front page of a University of Texas football fan.) "Male Hormone therapy lacks test." And, finally, "Video cache links al Qaeda to chemical weapons testing."

I do not see a 7-centimeter banner headline, "Remove Ashcroft - Menace to Civil Liberties." Yet on their own Comment Page is all the information needed to remove this man from office. I bet my dollar against your donuts that tonight no newscaster will ask for Ashcroft's resignation.

"The ideas of the rulers are the ruling ideas" is the slogan dominating the thinking of the New Order.

We heard endlessly about Clinton, Monica, and a stained blue dress. The propaganda machine never would let us forget that incident. Yet, when it was known that Gingrich had an affair, the issue was barely mentioned. Nor was there a hue and cry when the former Speaker of the House informed his wife, who had just undergone cancer surgery, that he was leaving her. Other Republican Congressman also forgot to zip up their pants. Yet their "little" affairs were passed over.

While we have heard much about Clinton's use of marijuana, the "free" press has not analyzed the use of forbidden substances by Bush. Clinton's claim that he didn't inhale did not quiet the press. (I believe that to be one the silliest statements of the century.) But Bush's reference to the fact that his abuse of narcotic substances occurred when he was young and should not be an issue was accepted as sufficient explanation. Nor has the press ever made an in-depth investigation of Bush's military record and his seeming failure to report for duty as ordered. The average American would have spent time in the stockade and been given a dishonorable discharge. But the press did not even bother to investigate Mr. Bush.

Substantive issues are not reported in the press. On January 16, 1991, hours before the United States attacked Iraq, Congressman Henry Gonzalez of Texas introduced a resolution seeking to impeach the President of the United States, the elder Bush, on charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors." It was House Resolution #34. There were four distinct charges Representative Gonzales included in his Resolution. The Bill was referred to the House Judiciary Committee. That was the last anyone heard of it. When introducing the Bill, Congressman Gonzales reminded his peers that the Constitution "provides for removal of the President when he has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, including violation of the principles of the Constitution." But the country at large never heard of Resolution #34 and Congressman's Gonzales effort to preserve the Constitution.

Another most significant heroic action went unreported. Cynthia McKinney, a Congresswoman from Georgia, was the only person voting against the Patriot Act. By her lone vote she demonstrated her integrity and courage. She also probably believed that the 3200 pages of the Patriot Act had not been written in the three weeks after 9/11. No national coverage was given to this lone woman whose heart and pluck were never reported by the press.

Nor have we read any significant information about the content of this Act. The vast majority of Americans are not aware that the Constitutional right of free expression has been wiped out with this one law. With one single pronouncement, the Attorney General can put anyone he wishes under arrest, deny him or her access to a lawyer, provide no reason for the arrest, confiscate any personal property of the individual and keep him or her in prison for the rest of his or her natural life. And the free press is not in arms about this! Where are the banner headlines asking the President to remove the Attorney General?

The comparatively small handful of people who write for YellowTimes.org and other similar electronic sites, or write for Mother Jones, the Texas Observer, and other such venues can all be swept away by the simple command of this one man. And no one would be the wiser. No newspaper article would report the disappearance. No TV anchorman would tell his audience about it. And probably the real tragedy lies in the fact that outside of the members of our families, no one would care.

Failure to expose the violation of Constitutional rights, to lay bare the transgression of corporate crimes, and to unmask the hypocrisy of elected officials is a betrayal of the trust placed in the press. If it were not so tragic, I would be amused by that funny paper called The Wall Street Journal. Supposedly, that stalwart paper employs the smartest writers, editors, and publishers of the business world. Yet, not a single one predicted the drop in the stock market. Not a single one was aware of the malfeasance of Kenneth Lay and Anderson or any of the other crooked acts of corporate executives.

What is the amount the combined salaries of these supposedly brilliant men? Not one of them had an inkling of what was really going on. That says something for the caliber of our press! As I said, if it weren't so tragic it would be laughable to gather the smartest people to report on the economy of the nation and not one has a clue about what is really going on behind the closed doors of the oak-paneled Board Rooms. Or maybe they knew but just would not tell. That is even a worse malfeasance of duty and responsibility!

It is a coincident that while writing this column, I happen to have one of Don McLean's CDs in my player. He is singing, "Bye, bye, Miss American Pie." MacLean is not referring to the death of our democracy when he says that "the music has died." The song continues, "Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry. Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing this will be the day that I die."

We, the American public, need to drive to the reservoir of the collective mind of the press. There we want to fill our empty cups with news about what is happening in our country. Unfortunately, all those "boys," reporters, editors, and publishers, are drinking whiskey and rye. And indeed this might well be one of the significant nails in America's coffin. "This will be the day that I die."

Maybe McLean was not singing about the future of America - or was he?

[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations."]

John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org 

YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction must identify the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org . Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org  are appreciated.

''Physics 101:
The American dream and quantum'' 

Printed on Wednesday, September 04, 2002 @ 01:35:08 EDT http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=648 

By John Brand, D.Min., J.D. YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)

(YellowTimes.org) – In 1934, my family spent our summer vacation in the picture-postcard Tyrolean village of Alpbach. While today it is a favorite ski resort, over sixty years ago it was just a small village at the end of an Alpine valley. However, water as well as electricity were piped and wired into every single house. Having water and electricity in every home in that sleepy village in 1934 was living on the edge of modernity.

The village woodcarver held a singular fascination for me. He could take a block of pine and transform it into the most beautiful figures, masks, and animals. At age 11, I most admired a mask of the devil. It was remarkably ugly. Vulgar lips framed grotesque teeth. Red horns stuck out from a face painted a dirty yellow. I begged my father to buy it for me. He, however, had higher artistic aspirations for his son. Finally, my mother persuaded Dad to give me the money to acquire this rare treasure.

That very evening I went for a walk, beloved mask in hand. The village streets were deserted. The men had come home from the fields and the women were busy fixing supper. Quite unexpectedly, an old peasant woman turned the corner. For reasons unknown to me, I raised the mask to my face. The woman stopped dead in her tracks. She began to make the sign of the cross and I saw her lips moving. I have no idea what she mumbled, but I doubt it was the Laws of Thermodynamics. We stood there for a few moments, I holding up my mask, she crossing herself and mumbling. Then turning her back to the wall she slowly started to pass me, continuously making the sign of the cross

That woman lived with the most modern technology. She had running water and electricity in her home. Her physical creature comforts were embedded in the new century. However, her psyche embraced values dating back millenniums. She sought to ward off perceived evil with prayers, incantations, and superstitious signs and symbols. She was a contradiction. One part of her was as up-to-date as tomorrow's newspaper headlines. The other was anchored in hoary beliefs of an ancient past.

That Tyrolean woman might very well be an icon of the present American schizoid psyche. Our president and most cabinet members represent this dilemma most dramatically. On one hand, they seek to develop the most sophisticated weaponry that postmodern technology can deliver. On the other hand, their values are grounded in a flat earth mentality. It is a belief system originating in a nomadic people about 3,000 years ago. Their beliefs about the nature of the universe were not connected to the laws governing life. Misunderstanding the order of the world, their ignorance translated itself in hostilities, warfare, economic injustice, and social inequity. It was a macabre performance. It is a dance repeated by our species throughout history. The grisly scene is our everyday.

The postmodern era that drove technology to unexpected heights also gave us a new way of understanding our world. Most Americans, including our president, do not have much insight into the dynamics constituting post-modernity. This column in simple language seeks to point out the differences between the worldview based on Newtonian classical physics and the changes brought about by quantum mechanics. To understand a major cause of the conflicts, the tensions, the stresses of our society, we must comprehend the difference between the old and the new scientific laws.

Be assured that this column is not a lesson in mathematics or physics. I shall simply highlight those factors that I deem significant to better understand the laws governing the world. This insight tends to bridge the gulf between our accepted technology and the concepts supporting our belief systems.

Sir Isaac Newton, without a doubt, was one of the most brilliant men who ever lived. Sir Isaac was also a deeply religious person. He endeavored to make his scientific insights agree with his beliefs. Regretfully, in doing so, like all dogmatists, he did a great disservice to our species. In his "Principia," Newton states that time, space, and motion are absolute "states" in the universe. Each one exists independently of anything else. Neither time, nor space, nor motion have any relation to anything else. If something is absolute it cannot, by definition, have to depend on anything else. Interdependence signifies the absence of absolutism.

Furthermore, anything absolute cannot change. As soon as it changes it cannot be said to be absolute. By implication, if it cannot be changed it has achieved perfection. So Newton presented us with an understanding of the universe that fitted very neatly into his religious belief system. God was thought to be perfect, eternal, and unchanging. According to Newton, the laws of the world reflected that absolute, unchanging, eternal nature of God himself. Newton admitted that there were some discrepancies between his observations and his conclusions about the absolute perfect state of Nature. He dismissed these contradictions by claiming that either the observer had made a mistake or that our statistical methods were not precise enough. And that seemed to satisfy most folks.

That is until a strange discovery was made. Newtonian laws work well enough in our every-day world. However, some scientists believed that there was more to the quest in understanding the laws of the universe than Newton had discovered. Of particular interest was the inherent manner in which light is transmitted. Does light move in a wave or is it emitted in intermittent particles? I am the first person to concede that you can live your entire life and not worry about this question. That is if you have no particular concern about the nature of Nature, economics, politics, religion, and other such matters. But as soon as you have an opinion about politics or economics or what is the nature of God/religion, you had better know something about the nature of light. Why? Even ancient folks lacking our understanding of science realized that light is the essential building block of the universe. I am sure the ancient worthies did not know that visible light is but one manifestation of electromagnetic waves and photons - light particles - are the constituent element of the universe. Yet, they knew that light was the essence of life.

If we want to draw any conclusions about our place in the general order of things, we need to understand some basic facts about light. The lack of light results in death, chaos, and nothingness. Light brings life, order, and meaning. Newton believed that light absolutely, unqualifiedly, perfectly radiates only in particles. He totally rejected the idea that waves are inherent in light. With Newton it was an "either/or" state.

But in the early decades of the last century, it was discovered that light possesses the characteristics of both waves and particles. The dual nature of light defied all common sense, all knowledge, and all logic. But experiment after experiment proved the truth of that discovery. The unthinkable, the irrational, had happened: the essential stuff of the universe is a "both/and" reality. It is not, contrary to Sir Isaac's assumption, an "either/or" matter. I do not believe there is a single recognized scientist who disagrees with this discovery! It is the touchstone of all modern physics.

My concern, of course, lies not so much in the purely scientific discussion of the nature of light. I am asking the question, "If the essential stuff of the universe is a 'both/and' matter, what implication does this have for us?" My basic assumption is rather simple. If we are creatures of light - electro-magnetic waves - had we not better order our lives around those laws and principles governing that reality? Of course, my answer is a resounding "YES!" Maybe the sordid account of human history, the unsettled condition of our nation at this very moment, are, at least, partly due to our failure to understand and to live by the laws governing the universe? Light is life and a starless night is death. All life, including humans, results from light. It governs our existence. Should not the qualities, the essence, of light be the guidelines for our own behavior?

The basic stuff of the cosmos is a "both/and" reality. But for 6,000 years of recorded history, life has always been an "either/or" matter. There is nothing new in John Wayne or Rambo movies. It's always been the guys in the white hats against the guys in the black hats; a thousand different scenarios just keep repeating the old chant over and over again. And blood flows! To those who still base their belief systems on ancient totally inadequate assumptions, post-modernity says, "Get over this 'either/or' mentality. That's one basic reason for your problems. This universe encompasses seemingly totally contradictory forces. It may not make any sense. But get over your 'common sense' view of reality and join the new age."

The call is to embrace and not to reject. It is to include and not to exclude. It is to hold and not to push away.

What in the world would happen if we decided to bring water to the Sahara and turn that desert into a new Eden? What is so tough about that? Any civilization marshalling its resources to fly to the moon surely ought to have the culture to bring water to a dry land and feed the world. What would happen if we gave up our stupid oil and gas mantra and converted the energy surrounding us to bring electricity to the whole world? Can't be done? That is an inane statement. Any civilization sending probes into outer space ought to have the culture to bring power into the darkest corners of the world. We do not even think about doing it because our mind-set is mumbling ancient phrases of exclusion and separation. We are steeped in the error to "them versus us." We mouth a religion of inclusiveness but in our actions we reflect the ancient errors.

Quantum is challenging us to think differently. It is asking us to think in accordance with the fundamental laws of the universe. Quantum is asking us to live by the laws governing the cosmos. The willingness to give up our absolutism of polar values also brings other fundamentals into play.

Quantum helps us to understand that the observer influences the results of his experiments. Let me explain. When laboratory equipment is set up to prove that light is emitted in particles, it will behave in accordance with that protocol. If the apparatus is designed to demonstrate the wave function of light, it will confirm that assumption. How the experiment is designed influences the outcome. When we apply that lesson to our behavior, we come up with the startling conclusion that none of us can escape our own subjectivity. Remember that Sir Isaac said that absolute states could not be influenced by anything. But his assumption that the state of light presents a polar absolute has been proven erroneous by quantum mechanics.

No matter how much we may believe that our opinions, our conclusions, our affirmations result from a purely objective point of view, the reality is that everything we say, do, and believe centers in our subjectivity. It makes little difference how many "authorities" anyone may quote. The bottom line is that we are limited by our own essence. After all, the supposed authorities were also limited by their own subjectivity. Rationally dealing with this aspect of post-modernity, we must shed the parochial absolutism that creates enemies causing hostilities and warfare. Once we affirm our subjectivity maybe we can begin to be amused by the paradox of our existence. The deeper we think about it, the louder our laughter becomes. And in the midst of our laughter maybe we can begin to learn to love.

The third implication of quantum centers in Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty. That conclusion is based on the fact that it is impossible to state with absolute certainty the speed as well as the direction of a subatomic particle, i.e. a photon. In classical physics it is essential that both dimensions be stated with certainty. Heisenberg proved that that requirement could not be met. The larger implication of that observation lies in the fact that uncertainty is built into the universe. "Stuff" will happen. Things that frustrate us and hurt us are not the result of sin, some moral shortcomings, or God flinging darts at us! It's the nature of the universe that the unexpected does and will happen. When bad stuff hits the fan, don't blame yourselves or others. Take a deep breath, learn from it, and get on with your life.

The final conclusion of quantum impacting on our way of seeing the world lies in the fact that the entire cosmos - from the largest galaxy to the smallest single-cell organism is an undivided whole of an implicate order. We are all intertwined and interdependent. John Steinbeck, in "Log from the Sea of Cortez" describes this reality most vividly.

And it is a strange thing that most of the feelings we call religious, most of the mystical outcrying which is one of the most prized and used and desired reactions of our species, is really the understanding and the attempt to say that man is related to the whole thing, related inextricably to all reality, known and unknowable. This is a simple thing to say, but a profound feeling of it made a Jesus, a St. Augustine, a Roger Bacon, a Charles Darwin, and Einstein. Each of them in his own tempo and with his own voice discovered and reaffirmed with astonishment the knowledge that all things are one thing and that one things is all things - a plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planets and an expanding universe all bound together by the elastic string of time. If our President were to accept the invitation to come into the 21st Century, we would not be thinking about invading Iraq. There is a better way! If Kenny Boy had accepted the challenge to attune his psyche to post-modernity, millions would not have been robbed of their life's investments. If John Ashcroft would enter this wonderful, amazing new world, he would not waste his time to locate internment centers for potential enemies of the "Fourth Reich." Quantum gives us the rationale upon which to build a new world. But we have to quit acting and believing like the old Alpbach peasant woman.

[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations."]

John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org 

YellowTimes.org is an international publication. YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction must identify the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org . Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org  are appreciated.

http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=648