State of the Bizarro World Union

Tonight, our President evoked the time-honored mythology of war to remind us that our cause is righteous. He reflectively and on cue looked betrayed by the bad intelligence that was out of his control. He was reassuring, reminding us that the "raging tyrant" got what he deserved and that we and the world were safer because he was gone. He recognized that some citizens had to sacrifice and compassionately ached for their profound loss and sadness.

He simplified terrorism for us and helped us clearly understand how dangerous and driven these people are and how they will stop at nothing until we, the mighty United States have been obliterated. He reminded us how what happened on September 11th illustrated how dangerous these people are. And most importantly he helped us, by clearly outlining our only two choices - fighting them or ignoring them. Finally, it is all clear to me how the brave, the committed, the noble will lead the way to victory, if only the defeatists can step out of the way. Now that he has helped us understand we can redouble our efforts for victory... in Bizarro World.

• A world where if you kill enough of the right people, you will have peace.
• Where 30,000 to 100,000 of someone else's innocent wives, children, brothers and fathers are considered "necessary sacrifices".
• A world where you can lie about things that everyone knows is not true, yet not be held accountable for the lies.
• A world where victory over an enemy who was not capable of harming you is worth the lives, limbs and psyches of our nation's children.
• A world where lies and arrogance creates a thick smoke that obscures the truth, right in front of our eyes.

On the same weekend as our President asked us to join him in his mad fantasy, Bono, Bill and Melissa Gates were receiving the Time Magazine Person of the Year award. Imagine that we took the intelligence and energy of our business, civic and religious leaders and combined it with the committed efforts of regular citizens from all walks to alleviate all suffering, there is no doubt that we could meet the goal of creating peace, justice and security in the world in a surprisingly short time. Furthermore, if we establish human-to-human connections across cultures, the kind of rhetoric that we heard last night will be ineffective.

In life, the heart of a person determines everything. Our intentions create our reality. That reality roles up into our culture and creates the world in which we live, whether kind or violent. If a country or a religion's leadership is making amoral, greedy decisions that create the death of innocent people, then somehow our collective intentionality is allowing it.

That is why dialogue, understanding and evaluation between cultures is critical. On this blog we will attempt to stand above the fray of politics and understand what is really happening, what we really want, what our opponents really want, with the goal of realizing that we are not very different. Over the next few posts we will evaluate specific issues, starting with where the issues in the Middle East began....Oil.