Report from Iron Mountain: Old Paradigm Thinking about the Desirability of War

http://www.stopthecrime.net/docs/Report_from_Iron_Mountain.pdf

Report from Iron Mountain reveals the mindset that still prevails, which underpins the ongoing military policy of the U.S.

Crying a River of Tears

Last night I dreamed about a fabulous teacher who was full of passion and flair. She got up and stood on a small students' chair to get her students' attention. That's when I got the feeling that she was great.

Teachers are so important in everyone's lives, but so often the recognition and acclaim goes to sports figures, politicians, and celebrities who can act or sing well.

Today I read that Trump has cut off the budget for children to have teachers at detention centers. I'm so against detaining children separate from their parents in the first place. And then to create conditions that are worst than in refugee camps is completely abhorrent.

I hope volunteers step forward. I've taught immigrants long enough to know that the politics of hatred run deep in the institutions of the U.S., and that anyone who would volunteer to go into a detention center would also probably be mistreated and disrespected.

The kind of people who work in these places are so often petty tyrants who love having control of the people under them. Being cruel and mean is their nature, and they can do things in an impersonal, institutional way that hurts others.

If I could, I would cry a river of tears that would flood the world, and sweep everything horrible

Trade Wars

I don't understand what people are referring to when they say that Trump has started a second front in Mexico with the trade war on China. It's not a second front: it's more like the fifth or sixth or seventh front. We already have a trade war going on with Russia and Iran.

Then there are economic sanctions with North Korea, and a slew of other smaller countries: the Balkans, Belarus, Burma, Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Liberia, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe.

Face it, we have a fractious president who likes to fire people... or push them to resign. Furthermore, he doesn't have a clue about how to conduct diplomacy with other countries, even those who have long been allies.

Trump has been burning up any good will towards the U.S. that remains in the world (what was left, that is, after all the many murderous interventions in other countries) with his war on trade and immigrants. The increasingly isolated position of the U.S. is not just a result of Trump and his policies, and ill-advised aggression towards people and countries, although he's rapidly accelerated the process. The U.S. is a country which has lost its way, and gone off the tracks.

If the U.S. has truly been an economic empire, it's end days are fast approaching, because international trade is the foundation of that empire, and our global economy, based on vulture capitalism, is increasingly fragile. Of course, it's an economic empire that has been enforced by a very active military. Between threatening and bribing other countries, the U.S. has been able to get away with murder.

Frankly, we need a new economic system that doesn't exploit people and the environment. And the military needs to be wound down, and converted to peaceful purposes, such as assisting with crisis management in natural disasters. A long healing process needs to begin, with justice and reparations made by corporations and individuals and families who have profiteered on the wars that the U.S. has waged.

However, I'd like to see a transition phase where we gradually change to a better system. I don't want to see the global economy crash and burn, and I don't want to see the U.S. come apart at the seams either.

What it would take to shift the military mindset

Something shifted in my thinking this morning. I began to see the people in thrall of the military mindset to be pitied rather than feared, as not very evolved in their soul and heart. Yes, in this material world, they may be powerful, they may look successful, and they may have accumulated a great deal of money. But really, how important is any of that compared to the ability to be kind and compassionate, or to see others as sisters and brothers?

What drives these people who want to dominate the world with military force? Fear. Insecurity. The need to prove themselves. The sense that they are so different from others that they need to kill anyone who they feel might threaten what they have.

They are not strong enough within themselves to simple be one among others; their weakness drives them to use military force to prop themselves up and appear strong, like the use of crutches for a lame person.

It is very important for these people to shut others out, to feel superior to them, to club together, as in the white people first, America first movement. It's not just America first, it's the Western world fighting to retain dominance in world affairs.

I welcome a multi-polar world. I welcome the coming world where the U.S. no longer dominates the globe with its military force. It's coming. And its coming is inevitable.

The truth is that we are multi-dimensional beings. And that this material world is like the earth's crust. That's all we see or really know of this planet. But the Earth is so much more than it's surface. Is the center of the Earth hollow? Is it made of crystal? Or is it molten magma, as scientists tell us?

Whatever is in the center of the Earth, we have no experience of it. I believe the scientists, but there are people who think it's hollow. Is this the round earth/flat earth controversy of our times? I doubt it. Most people just don't think about the Earth beyond its surface that we know.

War and violence will end when people realize the truth about what's really important. It's not about gaining material wealth nor is it about having acclaim, power and success. It's about our spirit and soul evolution, becoming better people, appreciating what we have, caring more for each other and all life.

And if we were to learn that deep inside ourselves, in the universe within, that we are part of each other, and part of the Earth, and we cannot harm others without harming ourselves, would we put down our arms, and declare peace together?

'You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you will join us. And the world will love as one." -- John Lennon

Vengeful God, Corrupted Christianity, U.S. War on Terror, Evolutionary Shift in Perception of Spirituality

What a profound contradiction and hypocrisy we see in those who call themselves Christians, but who support the U.S. waging war on people in Muslim countries. Christ taught us to love each other, to love our neighbors as ourselves. Among the Ten Commandments, we are told, "Thou Shall Not Kill."

So when did killing others get to be such a big part of Christianity? Wasn't it always part of the way that people actually practiced this religion? I guess I'm thinking about the Crusades, but I think it goes even further back. Of course, the Inquisition was really horrid.

My sense is that Christ's teaching got corrupted, and his basic teachings about being good people, and not killing or stealing from others, all of that, got lost in the shuffle.

So is the U.S. a Christian nation with all of the wars that it wages, and all of the violence it creates in other countries with its plans to create civil strife, the lies, the deceptions, the manipulations that we keep learning more and more about.

An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth? Wasn't that supposed to be Old Testament thinking that Christ was changing. He was a revolutionary, and he was a true evolutionary as well.

But wasn't the war on terror motivated by getting revenge? The shock and awe attack on Iraq, wasn't that about terrorizing the people there, regardless of their involvement with 9/11, which was never, ever proven.

Isn't the ongoing war on terror all about revenge on terrorists, wiping them out from the face of the earth, as though using the very same tools will make anything different.

What about Afghanistan? Why is the U.S. still waging war n Afghanistan? Can anyone tell me? It would appear that it has more to do with a holy war against Muslims than any clear objective that I have failed to see elucidated.

Well, perhaps the ongoing presence of the U.S. in Afghanistan is more about the drug trade and making windfall profits for the military industry, as some have posited. But who really wants to believe that the motives are so base, for our young men and women to suffer and die there? To say nothing of ruining the lives of Afghanis and their country for no good reason.

And I have seen plenty of evidence that 9/11 was an inside job with people in our government colluding with Mossad. it would seem the Israelis still believe in the wrathful God of the Old Testament, and that Christians have forgotten that Jesus gave us a message of love instead.

No wonder I went on a quest for a different spirituality than the Catholic faith I was raised in. I needed something more than the hypocrisy imbedded in Christianity, and frankly, the failure of organized religions to get along with each other. It's really old paradigm to focus on how we are different from each other.

In the new paradigm we are much more focused on how we are part of each other, and part of the Earth as well. The new paradigm is an evolutionary leap of faith that we can do better than this, this world of war.

Each of us needs to ask ourselves not what humanity can do for us, but what we can do for humanity and future generations; not what the world can give us, but what we can give the world. This takes a paradigm shift to expand our horizons, and it takes a profoundly changed sense of ourselves, and who we really are.

Humanity faces an identity crisis. How we resolve this determines our fate.