Evading Reality

We should remember the warning of Ayn Rand: "We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality."

Slipped His Moorings by Charley Reese

"The two most dangerous leaders in the world are George W. Bush and North Korea's Kim Jong Il. The lights seem to be out upstairs in both men. Neither man can see the world as it really exists.

I wish to stress that. It's not a question of having a difference of opinion. Rational people can easily disagree on what is the right policy. When people see things that are not there, however, reasoning and debate are useless. It's like a demented person who believes someone is hiding in the trunk of the car. No amount of explanation will convince that person otherwise.

For the president to compare Osama bin Laden, a crank with maybe a thousand followers scattered around the globe, with Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin is preposterous, absurd, and even laughable. To suggest bin Laden could take over Iraq is even more so. We have 140,000 troops, a Navy, and an Air Force, and we can't "take over" Iraq. How in the name of heaven could bin Laden do it with no soldiers at all? He is, after all, a Sunni with only a small following among Sunnis, and the majority in Iraq is Shi'ite."

Read all at link above.


What motivates George Bush and company to say what they do, to do what they do?

If everyone says and does from a foundation of how they see their inner self and their relation to what appears to be out there in the world, we can understand the principles, ideals, ideas, illusions, beliefs, assumptions that give rise to our words and actions. Where there is conflict within one's idea of one's self there is usually that same conflict projected outward in the world, however unconciously. With so much destructive power one would hope that our leaders would have a good grasp of their psychological makeup in order to avoid injury to themselves and others.

One would also hope that in a free society, and a responsible society, that it's members would rein in those who are so readily willing to drag the entire society into years of conflict where the enemy could be anywhere and anyone.

In order to be "great" in the world, one must be at peace with himself and with that world, project that inward peace out into the world. This is how one serves humanity, by serving with compassion and peace. Warmongers, who would achieve greatness through conflict are only fighting themselves...unless we join them in their illusion of war which then becomes our illusion.

me in the EE