Originally published on The Huffington Post:

Affirming Altruism

Somewhere between high school and college we argued about selfish acts. Only, we didn't call the alternative to them unselfish, we called them altruistic. (It never occurred to a single one of us deep-thinkers to question whether calling them altruistic was pretentious; optimal words came naturally to us once upon a time.)

The question posed was, "Is there such a thing as a purely altruistic act?" I remember thinking that all young men and women somewhere between high school and college age must be having the same considered debate we were—and, with similarly facile logic, invariably reaching the same defining conclusion: There is no such thing as a purely altruistic act.
 
Ours wasn't a happy pronouncement. What we agreed on by surprising consensus we agreed on reluctantly rather than cynically. If a plausible corollary was "blowin' in the wind," we didn't see it.

Several years after we earnest few moved on—from our lofty contemplations and from each other—I was nursing a cappuccino and gorging on the nuance du jour with friends at a Greenwich Village café when I heard a familiar voice and turned to see Bob Dylan, legs up, slouched down, amid a sprawled-out group of coffeehouse denizens in animated conversation at a nearby table. Seeing coffee and cigarettes, the prerequisites to good conversation, strewn on their table, it crossed my mind to muse: were they, by any chance, debating the same thing we had—the truly altruistic act—invariably coming to the same conclusion?

...how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn't see?

This was roughly a decade before the "me" generation was appropriately identified. What our generation wanted to be was unselfish: what we all in our starry-eyed idealism wanted to embody was altruism. What was "blowin' in the wind" was the dawn of an invigorating new era, and if the answer we wanted wasn't yet written on the wind, it was visible—if nowhere else, then on our earnestly unfurrowed brows. How did everyone, or anyone, fail to see it?

Yes, how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?

Nothing, over the years, threatened to change my mind. Absolute selflessness, self-abnegation, self-sacrifice were mythological at best—the stuff of scriptures, literature and dreams. Clerics shock us, heroes disillusion, icons pale, leaders fail. Still, something in me clings to the utopian notion of that "purely altruistic act."

Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind...

The question we should be pondering today is can we stand by and do nothing while innocent women and children are indiscriminately gassed and murdered. Not, first and foremost, should the United States intervene in yet another war on distant shores, risk American women's and men's lives to save others, although it's a valid question. Not, should we spend money in a foreign country while people are suffering in ours, an equally valid consideration. Not even, should we go to war and risk American lives to stem further terrorism and to protect ourselves and our children. There is but one paramount question, the purely altruistic one, the humane one, the morally right one, and the answer to it is being addressed by President Obama, who fathoms and feels we must do something!

Yes, how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

The president has nothing personal to gain from waging war in any manner on Syria. Someone should try to explain to Ted Cruz that Barack Obama is already the president and can't run for another term. Someone should explain to Newt Gingrich that he can never be president. Someone should explain to Fox News... no, forget it.

It's reasonable to criticize and differ with the president's handling of Syria, but irrational to attribute his motives to anything self-serving or sinister. This man who makes Republicans stark-raving venomous may be the least selfish of any president in recorded history. Absolutely, purely altruistic? History and historians will decide. What matters at the moment is ridding the world of Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons and arms expeditiously. If negotiation succeeds, the president's reticence to strike summarily is a signature triumph. If it fails, Congress and the American people must empower him to take action against the Assad government because, after all, there just may be such a thing as a purely altruistic act! Unless you consider saving the lives of untold numbers of men, women and children—and feeling good about it—a selfish act.
 

The Bilderbergers?

Many years ago, striding through Times Square in the early daylight following an all-nighter, my eyes were drawn to three stocky men seated at a bare table in a vacant, unlit Broadway cafeteria. Through a smudged plate-glass window, they looked as if they had the weight of the world on their shoulders. In my eyes, attending church was clearly not on their agenda. I mused aloud to a companion that these three men met at dawn every Sunday morning to decide the fate of the world for the week. That’s as close as I’ve ever come to having a conspiracy theory.

Now I have the Bilderbergers to ponder. Never heard of them? Of course not—that’s the point. They hide in plain sight.

The Bilderbergers are not a radio couple like the Bumsteads or Bickersons. They are members of a global elite who gather once a year behind secured doors to discuss the weighty global issues of the future. The present is already past history to them.

The Bilderbergers’ first conference was held in 1954 at the Hotel de Bilderberg, in Oosterbeek, the Netherlands. Choosing anonymity almost to the point of pathology, they are named, presumably by themselves, after real estate. Hence, The Bilderberg Conference, The Bilderberg Group, The Bilderberg Club, the aw, shucks, just folks Bilderbergers!

Just folks like Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Sofía and King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, and Prince Charles of Wales. American folks like Presidents Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. Senators John Edwards, Tom Daschle, Chuck Hagel and Sam Nunn. And current Governors Rick Perry of Texas—and, according to the record, Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, present in Chantilly, Virginia in 2008. Or was he in Argentina?

Initially, the Bilderberg Conference organizers fashioned their invitational list to include two participants from each nation, one to represent a conservative viewpoint and the other, a liberal perspective. To this day, attendance remains by invitation only. But who extends the invitations and who accepts is shrouded in as much secrecy as what the devil they do when they get there. "Bilderberg's only activity is its annual Conference,” states a 2008 press release from the American Friends of Bilderberg. “At the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued…" A Hudson Institute statement on Bilderberg declares, "We seek to guide global leaders in government and business." The 2009 Bilderberg conclave took place in Athens, Greece. And look what happened to Greece!

How do some 130 rich and famous, powerful and royal, participating members of the Bilderberg “society” avoid attention, much less scrutiny, year in and year out? Why does the media always look the other way? And why are the Bilderbergers so shy about being Bilderbergers? Bill Gates initially told everyone he was going to a medical conference in Barcelona instead of to this year’s Bilderberg gathering in Sitges, Spain. I love that Tony Blair lied to Parliament about attending Bilderberg in 1993. Not so with U.K. Prime Ministers for and aft, from Margaret Thatcher to Gordon Brown and Britain’s present PM, David Cameron. Not content to keep to their own counsel after whatever they did for or to their countries or others’, Bilderberg alumni include Former Prime Ministers from France, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Finland, Iceland, Poland, Canada and Sweden; Chancellors of Germany and Ministers of Ireland; EU Commissioners; UN, WTO and NATO officials.

In the world of finance, the former and present Chairmen of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker and Ben Bernanke. Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers. Most, if not all, of the world’s major bankers. Factor in an international array of charlatans of industry. And, the token guests at any power-appointed party, academics and eggheads.

If you’ve been overlooked and feel unfairly slighted, it may make you feel better to know The Bilderberg Conference refused to include Japan. In 1972! The courtly Bilderbergers are, after all, a world-class group. I’m applying for membership. In the name of Sarah Palin.

Complementary sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group
http://www.prisonplanet.com/bilderberg-2010-final-list-of-participants.html
http://www.crystalinks.com/bilderberg.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/jun/14/charlie-skelton-bilderberg-2010
Thanks to Dick Atkins@A-Films for his valuable input.

America Forward

I hate to kick a man when he’s up. The president’s State of the Union speech last night was exhilarating and touching. But…

This is what I was thinking before the speech:

What are they waiting for? Has the White House made all who enter tone deaf? The American people are screaming “jobs!” and the Democrats are only hearing “health care.” The people are imploring, “Talk to me!” and the president is scolding bankers and brokers. Americans are chanting “Now!” and Obama, Axelrod et al still have campaign huzzahs and hoopla ringing in their ears.

And why isn’t Rahm Emanuel screaming… anything?! (I’m listening for “Where’s the exit?”)

Now that I’ve heard the speech, my thoughts are:

If the race is not to the swift, is it to the slow to come around? I can’t see why not.

Clearly, President Obama was late coming out of the gate—so phlegmatically dilatory he had his visionary PACs shaking their heads and chomping at the bit to hedge their bets. That was going into the first turn. As all the front-runners he’s left in the dust know from the gritty taste in their mouths, Barack Obama’s a capital closer.

The real Barack Obama stood up last night. Stood up for the people who cling to their faith in his ability and resolve to make a difference. Stood up to the Party of No, the Supreme Court, and his own recalcitrant party.

Now that he’s spoken out, I know what he’s waiting for. For people to come to their senses. He can talk about listening to people in Elkhart, Indiana or Elyria, Ohio, but I believe he’s waiting for someone like the sobbing woman at an Arkansas town meeting who wants her America back to sober up and figure out what her America is or ever was. And waiting for many more like her.

Barack Obama is waiting, patiently, because Barack Obama is first and foremost, is and always will be what he supremely was, a community organizer. Not to recognize and grasp it is not to understand him. He learned how to bring people together and accomplish the seemingly impossible with little or usually no resources other than his own, namely, his brain, his soul and his remarkably indefatigable will. In Dreams of My Father, he tells of organizing a protest to present the problems and living conditions of people from a poverty- and crime-stricken Chicago slum to a Chicago municipal authority. Lacking faith in a system that had all but abandoned them, only two or three people from the neighborhood showed up to board the bus Obama has arranged, not easily, for the trip to downtown Chicago. Refusing to let it end there, he went around the neighborhood rounding up people, more than enough, to make a good showing. Wednesday night, he wasn’t exaggerating when he said, “I don’t quit.” He doesn’t.

I don’t want my America back, I want my America forward. My belief that my chosen president wants the same thing is restored. In my previous entry, I said, “I still believe in him. I have no choice.” Now I say: choice or otherwise, I believe in him.

Something's Bothering Me

Am I the only one waiting for the real Barack Obama to stand up? Not by a long shot, according to the long faces I talk to.

My mother used to say, “I’m not a mind-reader.” While I mulled that over, she would add, “If something hurts… or something’s bothering you, honey… tell me.” Her “tell” had a warm extra beat in it that made it easier for me to speak.

Mom isn’t here and I don’t know whom to open up to, but something’s bothering me—a lot these days. All the more so now that we have the results of the Massachusetts’ senatorial election and I have to live with a Republican’s rightful claim to the seat that Ted Kennedy occupied for 46 years.

I brought up my daughters in a similar, but blunter, fashion than my mom raised me. When either would hem and haw and say, “I don’t know whether I should tell you…,” I’d say, “When in doubt, spit it out.” They always did. Full of doubt today, I’m following my own dictum, starting with:

I don’t understand where the presidential hopeful formerly known as Change We Can Believe In disappeared to. The campaign trail’s great communicator has become the oval office’s stage whisperer. We charged his predecessor et al, the Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal we couldn’t believe in, or even believe, with paranoid, unwarranted, unethically excessive secrecy. What do we make of this Obama-Emanuel-Axelrod coterie? If they’re conspiring behind closed doors, what’s the plot? If they’re biding their time, what are they waiting for? I cling to my charitable notion that my chosen president is playing possum. But how long does a possum wait before he springs into action? A threatened possum is supposed to growl and raise his voice. This one, if (understandably) feeling threatened, is threatening to become Rip Van Winkle.

When I elect a president, I expect him to take office. Not the space, but the province, capacity, authority and performance. If he’s not prepared to govern, or is inclined to continue doing what he already excels at, gathering forces as he gathers force, let him keep running. If he wants to be a philosopher-king, he’ll be more at home on a mountain top than on Capitol Hill. I’d read and listen to him as I would heed the Dalai Lama. But I think this country requires a thinker who knows how to twist arms. Good intentions alone don't sway Joe Lieberman. FDR thought he could handle Stalin. Who has Obama handled?

How do we protect our presidents from their ivory towers? Will the real Barack Obama finally stand up? And if so, to what or to whom? He quickly became someone he wouldn’t recognize. In just one day short of one year from his inauguration day, the president has out-Cartered Jimmy Carter. Could anyone be that naïve? Could I?—I’m still waiting to see the White House strategy unveiled. Trigger-ready to say, “Ah, that’s what he was doing all along! There’s the genius of the community organizer, taking and building everything step by cautious step! How clever he is! And at his own expense, without regard for his image or the polls!”

But while I wait… and wait… my sanguine expectation buckles under the weight of the words of philosopher/theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Man is a messenger who forgot the message.” Has my chosen leader forgotten the message, the task, the objective? Has he become the establishment he campaigned against, specifically the embodiment of the anti-establishment voter’s bete noir?

The voters of Massachusetts aren’t any dumber than the voters of any other state in this country. In choosing against the incumbent Democrats and their agenda, not only have they voted primarily against national health care reform, but also, they have voted, astonishingly, for the status quo of ungodly bonuses, unconscionable greed, and unbridled further self-serving of establishment bankers and Wall Street brokers. Maybe 52% of the state’s voters are dumber.

Our most steadfastly Democratic state to all intents and purposes gave the country back to the people who left it in ruins. They opened the door to let the lunatics take over the asylum.

I still believe in Obama. I have no choice.

Dynamite

Alfred Nobel could never have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Not, at least, in his lifetime.

Nobel, a Swedish chemist, developed nitroglycerin—not for angina, but for explosives. Having succeeded with an effective blasting oil, he resourcefully developed and patented a blasting cap—a detonator—for triggering the explosion of nitroglycerin.

After losing a brother and a factory from two separate nitroglycerin explosions, Nobel managed to stabilize his mighty explosive and give it a name that stuck—dynamite. A chemist with a head for business, he patented it. An innovator with a taste for explosion, he subsequently invented a blasting gelatin—gelignite—and a blasting powder—ballistite—to go with his blasting oil. For Nobel, who accomplished all of this and became wealthy from it in the quarter-century between 1862-1887, life was a blast.

Nobel said, “If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.” One turned out to be so good it is his undisputed legacy—the creation of a prize for “the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” The Nobel Peace Prize.

Gandhi didn’t win it, but Arafat did. Sartre asked that his name be withdrawn from consideration, and not only did the Nobel committee award him the prize, but also ignored his refusal of it. Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho declined it because peace had yet to come to his country, but that didn’t deter his co-awardee Henry Kissinger from accepting it.

It’s fair to say that President Obama won it for being an advocate for both “fraternity between nations” and“the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” For little more because he’s had time and opportunity to do little more. What he will do regarding “the abolition or reduction of standing armies” remains to be seen. If the committee for the Nobel Peace Prize intended to encourage him; to support his honorable endeavors; to put the best light on the worst of human conditions, war; doesn’t that only serve the public good?

Alfred Nobel envisioned a future that is yet to come. “My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.” If only.

Holy Terror

In case you haven’t heard, God hates Barack Obama. That’s The Word according to Pastor Steve Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. In his own words:

Here’s my sermon: Why I Hate Barack Obama. That’s my sermon tonight. … And I’m going to tell you something. I HATE Barack Obama . You say, “Well you just mean you don’t like what he stands for.” No, I hate the person. “No, well you mean you just don’t like his policy.” No, I hate HIM! Now I’m going to prove this from the Bible tonight why I SHOULD hate Barack Obama, why God WANTS me to hate Barack Obama, why GOD hates Barack Obama. God doesn’t love everybody.

I can’t go on quoting him. He’s insane. But I have to.

Now turn back to Psalm 58 and let me ask you this question: why should Barack Obama melt like a snail? Why should Barack Obama die like the untimely birth of a woman?

I know, it doesn’t quite make sense, but who’s keeping score in the ward?

Why should his children be fatherless and his wife a widow as we read in this passage? Well I’ll tell you why. Because it’s Barack Obama who thinks it’s OK to use a salty solution…

At this point, he rants about abortion. Apparently, Obama is responsible.

And I’d like to see Barack Obama melt tonight. … God appointed him because that’s what this country has turned into, that’s what we deserve as a president.

If I’m keeping score, that’s one for God.

And I’d like to see Barack Obama melt like a snail tonight. Because he needs to recompense, he needs to reap what he sow[s]. He deserves to be punished for what he’s done. … Break his teeth, O God, in his mouth. … He ought to be aborted.

It’s difficult to follow the ravings of a lunatic, but I’m doing the best I can:

You say, “Why are you preaching this?” You know what? Because it makes me mad…. I'm fed up tonight…. Because I'm angered by a bunch of preachers who want to sit back and let America go to hell, let our freedoms go to hell, let the souls of Americans go to hell, and we all just sit back and just, we're comfortable, we're lazy, we're lukewarm, we're neither cold nor hot, and we want to come to church and have our ears tickled. Hey! This isn't to tickle your ears, it's to give you a swift kick in the pants!... You need to come to church and get a boot in your rear end.

But fret not, because:

There’s nothing more encouraging then the Bible!

So, is the Bible-thumping man of God encouraged to pray for his fellow man? Not if the fellow is Barack Obama.

I'm not gonna pray for his good. I'm going to pray that he dies and goes to hell. When I go to bed tonight, that's what I'm going to pray. And you say, “Are you just saying that?” No. When I go to bed tonight, Steven L. Anderson is going to pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell.

Ask yourself what would happen if you were to utter a single one of the venomous lines above about the President of the United States. Imagine what the reaction would be if anything even close to one of them came from the mouth of a Moslem. But Pastor Anderson can continue to address his “congregation” and all the abundantly available nuts in earshot, and still be allowed to walk the streets.

So if you’re on the beach, by all means enjoy yourself—but get your head out of the sand. Tempe, Arizona isn’t far away from wherever you are.

Note: If you can bear all 20 minutes and 40 seconds (in two parts) of the pastor’s rousing sanctimony, starting with his fury about the “dikes” and “faggots” behind the pulpits of the United Methodist church, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-qr6gxIHhQ. The Obama tirade starts at 5:45 and continues with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-OT8_cwWC8&NR=1