Middle East

An Opinion on the Middle East

One of the most tragic aspects of the Middle Eastern conflict is the level at which the powerful parties completely define what is known about the nature of the conflict and who is at fault. The cycle of violence will likely continue as the dominant parties, Israel, USA, and Western Europe refuse to acknowledge in any concrete way the nature of the crisis. Information is so skewed in the American press that the American public has no objective understanding of the region.
Causes of conflict in the Middle East can be found in the Israeli mindset that can justify dehumanizing Palestinian’s, Islamic Fundamentalism’s resulting response to Israel’s actions, and the effect petroleum dependence has upon the governments of the Western Nations. Someone once said that money has a corrosive effect on democracy.
The Palestinian/Israeli issue and violent Islamic fundamentalism are symptoms of a greater problem, the value of oil. Oil is the main engine of destabilization in the region. If oil were to cease flowing out of the Middle East much of the Worlds economies would suffer catastrophic contractions. Middle Easterners have been cursed by being born over a sea of oil that Western nations need to keep their economies going.
If a complete disruption of oil flow out of the region occurred the Western response initially would take on a military face. A response that would have little or no positive effect indeed it is likely that a humanitarian crisis would result. Depending on the level of consensus that would gel between governments regionally and internationally it could either spin out of control into a world war or be the beginning of a substantial reevaluation of positions regarding the region.

To share an angels pain

I awoke to an angel crying
I thought, why
Would an angel undying
Be sitting by my bed crying

I reached out to this angel
I touched a thin delicate hand
To ease what must be
Tremendous anguish

I lost my sight, but I saw
I became deaf, but I heard
I was mute, but for one word
Truth

The source of the world’s pain
Is found in each and everyone of us
Lives spent torn between love and hate
Alone

The angel looked in to my eyes
And began to sing
You are not finished yet
And that is too bad

Touching the Infinite

I use to think that touching the infinite was a myth, a pretty story to be passed out during deep philisophical conversations with my fellow armchair saviors. The truth is we are the luckiest organism on this planet. Luck has given us the capacity to remember and communicate our experiences to the generations that follow us and to recieve that same wisdom from those that have preceded us. The world is incredible. All of the living things of our world in their many many expressions have a passionate desire to live. You could say this a no brainer but when you briefly glimpse the true magnificence of our existence, or maybe better yet when you transcend this endless rat-race of our culture for a second, this desire to live and the awareness of it in all others is a thing of incredible transformative power. It is unfortunate that it is always a transient sensation.