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Like most Americans I’m sure, I find myself profoundly upset these days by what’s unfolding in Ukraine and its portrayal by the mainstream media.

In particular, I’m having a hard time understanding how Americans in general and especially U.S. politicians can so sanctimoniously rend their garments over Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine while completely forgetting even the latest U.S. invasions of sovereign states.

I’m not saying that Putin’s crime shouldn’t be acknowledged as such. It absolutely must be. But to my mind, it seems strange, not to say highly embarrassing, that those repeatedly guilty of the same and even much greater offenses can with straight faces denounce the Kremlin’s leader.

Can’t they see – can’t we see – that their own similar and more heinous crimes (many still ongoing) have simply deprived them of any moral authority to condemn Russia?

In sackcloth and ashes, they should simply shut up, beg forgiveness, and sit down with their criminal counterparts to resolve the Ukraine problem diplomatically. As it stands, their moral authority is otherwise absolutely zero.

Still however, our “leaders’” denouncing Russia has the potential to awaken even the most somnolent among us who haven’t lost our ears for irony, hypocrisy, propaganda, virtue signaling and outright lies.

In fact, I can identify at least a dozen alarms going off right now that should (but probably won’t) wake up all but the completely deaf. Let me list them briefly and then conclude with a painfully true but illustrative personal story.

Here are the 12 alarm bell developments that everyone should hear:  

1. National leaders like Putin resorting to war and invasion to solve international problems are at last revealed as insane and pathological. That means that if Putin is crazy, so must be his American counterparts who authored (and continue to do so) similar and even more catastrophic invasions, viz., the Bushes, Clinton, Obama, Trump, and Biden – not to mention ALL their predecessors at least since WWII.
2. Moreover, those politicians and their spokespersons have all been unmistakably unmasked as liars and hypocrites. Their public statements about President Putin’s guilt for violating international norms and law represent stark admission of their own crimes. Here I’m also thinking of Condoleezza Rice who played a key role in the 2003 war in Iraq. She recently unwittingly indicted herself as a war criminal by stating that “When you invade a sovereign nation, that is a war crime. It is certainly against every principle of international law, international order. . ..”  QED to say the least!
3. International law long ignored by the United States is finally being affirmed and invoked by U.S. politicians. Accordingly, their routine violations of such statutes should prove more difficult for them in the future.
4. Similarly affirmed has been the International Criminal Court at the Hague, whose authority the United States has repeatedly undermined and refused to recognize. There is actual talk of bringing Vladimir Putin before the court to answer for his illegal invasion of Ukraine. If Putin is (justly) prosecuted, the door will have been opened for similar trials of the U.S. presidents named above. That’s good news.
5. Non-stop coverage of refugees and war victims in Ukraine has revealed the inevitable results that such pathological incursions produce whether the victims are mostly white and European and reside in Ukraine, or are mostly black and brown in the myriad U.S, theaters of operation.
6. As a result of such media coverage, thoughtful Americans are forced to face not only the similar fates of the mostly non-white (and therefore invisible) refugees their own wars have produced, but also the fatalities and maiming of those victims.
7. U.S. sanctions have identified Russia’s billionaires as somehow responsible for their nation’s militaristic policies precisely in virtue of their billionaire status. As Rob Kall has pointed out, such identification not only punishes war profiteers; it also represents an initial step towards general recognition of billionaires (inevitably connected with the military-industrial complex) as criminal shapers of aggressive national policies wherever they reside.
8. As the editor in chief of OpEdNews argues, this very identification could (and should) lead to the prohibition of billionaires as such.
9. Armed insurgencies against illegal foreign invasion have been justified and heroized instead of being vilified as “terrorists” as has happened to insurgent patriots e.g., in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
10. More powerfully still, civilian non-violent resistance has been shown to be effective even against the mightiest of militaries. We’ve realized that menacing tanks and advancing troops simply can’t run over the thousands of peaceful resisters we’ve all seen blocking their way.
11. Perhaps most painful of all, U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, like their Russian counterparts in Ukraine have been unmasked as legitimate targets of patriotic insurgencies. (I know that’s hard to hear. But the power of this point lies in its shocking truth). I mean if we and our media implicitly rejoice at the high volume of Russian casualties in their illegal war, similar response seems regretfully due similar results in our country’s own criminal conflicts.
12. On the positive side, highlighting point #11 provides yet another cogent reason for the peace movement to dissuade young people from joining what Jonathan Katz has called “gangsters of capitalism” – Katz’s description of the U.S. Marine Corps since its inception.

Let me drive those last two points home with that personal illustration I promised about the potential for consciousness-raising that the Ukraine war provides.

Recently, a handyman my wife and I have employed in the past announced that he’s temporarily leaving his own family to go off to Ukraine to join the resistance fighting Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of that country. The man is a veteran of U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Somehow, he has his own “tools” (weapons, I presume) and has requested financial help for his project from people like us. It seems he wants to use his military training and “tools” to kill invading Russian soldiers.

While something within me admires the man’s passion and apparent bravery, I couldn’t help wondering what he would think if e.g., in 2003 conscientious and compassionate (like him) Ukrainians recognized the illegitimacy of the war in Iraq, and decided to leave their families to go off to the middle east to kill invaders like him and his fellow soldiers?

I don’t think he’d like that idea.

But, of course, the parallels between Putin’s crimes and the much greater and more frequent analogous U.S. crimes in which our friend participated would never occur to him – or to most Americans for that matter. And that’s because like good patriots (and especially as a member of the U.S. armed forces) he’s been effectively propagandized by drill sergeants, generals, politicians, media figures, and academicians whose job it is to keep such analogies hidden – to make us forget not only what we’ve done in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, but what our drones, guided missiles and bombers are doing in literally untold locations at this very moment.

To repeat: the 12 developments just listed have the potential to overcome such conditioning. But for that to happen, they must be named by the already awakened.

That’s the task before us. What isn’t named can’t be recognized or changed.

Today’s lesson (17) once again emphasizes the power of propaganda and brainwashing within Plato’s cave. We’re reminded that from the beginning of our lives we’re subjected to the “wisdom” of the world that supports imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy.

We see nothing as it is – not even the walls of our room or our own bodies. Everything is shaped by what our keepers have taught us long before we’ve had a chance to think for ourselves.

So, we grow up believing that empire is good, that whites are genetically superior, that capitalism benefits everyone, and that men are naturally superior to women.

And it goes further than that:

• We’re taught that laws are just and inviolable, and somehow divinely endorsed. In reality however, laws are fashioned by the rich and powerful to keep them wealthy and powerful. They can never be endorsed by the God Jesus embodied who champions the poor and oppressed, not their captors.
• We’re taught that enforcement of those non-neutral laws is carried out fairly, when the truth is that the rich and powerful rarely pay the price for their crimes, while the poor and powerless are severely punished for the slightest missteps.
• Similarly, we’re taught that what’s called “legal,” “rational,” and “logical” trumps other ways of knowing – e.g., through feeling, intuition in general, women’s intuition in particular, divine revelation. . .. Conviction of that sort is the basis of patriarchy.

You get the idea. Virtually everything in our world is not neutral but biased towards the rich and powerful. 

This first part of A Course in Miracles calls us to decontaminate our minds from the sway of such convictions.

Put otherwise still, none of the thoughts just mentioned is neutral, much less true. Instead, each favors the interests of the teachers, priests, politicians, generals, and aristocrats who have created the shadow world in which we all live. As we’ll see in future lessons, those interests end up oppressing people Jesus identified with.

Here’s the way Lesson 17 puts its main thoughts:

• “The thought comes first. . ..” (That is, before we’ve had the chance to develop discernment).
• As a result, “You see no neutral things because you have no neutral thoughts.” (Only those that have been imposed on you since birth.
• “Regardless of what you believe, you do not see anything that is really alive or really joyous.”
• “You are unaware as yet of any thought that is really true, and therefore really happy.”
• “I do not see a neutral wall, because my thoughts about walls are not neutral.”
• “I do not see a neutral body, because my thoughts about bodies are not neutral.”
• “This is not the way the world thinks, but you must learn that it is the way you think.”

Reversing your thought processes even about walls and bodies is difficult. But to repeat, that is the fundamental task of this first part of A Course in Miracles. Remind yourself of this task periodically throughout the day. Keep the thought before your mind: “I see no neutral things.”

“I see no neutral things.”

Readings for the 5^th Sunday of Easter: ACTS 6: 1-7; PSALMS 33: 1-2, 4-5, 18-19; 1 PETER 2: 4-9; JOHN 14: 1-12

Although it might not be apparent at first glance, the readings for this Fifth Sunday of Easter address homelessness. During this COVOD-19 pandemic, it’s an exceptionally vexing problem that finds many Americans unable to pay their rent or mortgages. In New York City, for example, many of those rendered homeless end up seeking shelter and the possibility of social distancing within the city’s subway cars. 

As if in response to such developments, today’s selections centralize the concern of the Great Cosmic Mother for her children in similar situations of powerlessness and abandonment.

These, the readings tell us, were also the concern of Yeshua’s Jewish followers immediately following his death and the mysterious experience they came to call his “resurrection.” For those reformers of Judaism, social problems like hunger and homelessness were not to be solved by force or organized abandonment, but by compassion, sharing, service, and loving kindness.

Homeless in America

But before I get to that, think for a moment about homelessness in America. It’s deeply connected with the U.S. prison system which has actually become the de facto form that low-income housing assumes here.

That point was made last week on “Democracy Now,” when Amy Goodman interviewed Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore. She’s the co-founder of California Prison Moratorium Project (CPMP). CPMP represents an abolitionist decarceration movement in the United States which houses approximately one in four prisoners in the entire world. (Perhaps coincidently, the U.S. has also produced the same proportion of COVID-19 deaths.)

To begin with, Wilson Gilmore contrasted the U.S. approach to crime with those of other industrialized countries. Within our borders the emphasis is on deprivation, isolation, punishment, pain and force. By contrast, many other systems emphasize rehabilitation.

Of their “Reformative Justice” dispensations the interviewee said “Where life is precious, life is precious. In places where the state, the government, municipalities, social justice organizations, faith communities, labor unions work together to lift up human life, the incidence of crime and punishment, including incidents of interpersonal harm, are less likely to occur. . . We also see that in places where inequality is the deepest, the use of prison and punishment is the greatest.”

In the same interview, Wilson Gilmore went on to specifically address the problem of homelessness here and what she called our country’s strategy of “organized abandonment.” By that she meant urban organization like New York City’s, where working class neighborhoods are routinely razed to make room for gentrified condos and exotic shopping experiences.

There, displaced lower-class renters are left on their own. Some, of course, are welcome to return to their old neighborhoods as waitpersons, delivery personnel, janitors, nannies and caregivers. That’s bad enough, but others are excluded altogether. They’re left homeless and find themselves with nowhere to seek shelter and social distancing but in those MTA subway cars I just mentioned.

Nevertheless, instead of dealing with the real problem of homelessness, NYC’s mayor and the state’s governor have justified increased deployment of transit police who apply to the systemically abandoned the same sort of force that their counterparts use in American prisons.

In the U.S., Wilson Gilmore observed, force and violence turn out to be the default strategy employed to address most problems.

Today’s Readings

All of that contrasts sharply with the approach to homelessness depicted in today’s readings. They describe the first Christian community of Jewish Reformers. After all, they were followers of the great Hebrew prophet from Nazareth whose family found itself without shelter at the time of his birth. He later promised the poor that in God’s New Order (what he called God’s “Kingdom”) far from being displaced, they would inherit the earth itself.

What follows immediately are my “translations” of the readings in question. Please look at the originals here to see if I’ve captured their spirit in relation to hunger and homelessness.

ACTS 6: 1-7: Soon after Jesus died, a cultural social justice rift surfaced among members of his Jewish Reform Movement. Some (called “Hellenists”) were not Jewish enough for the rest of Jesus’ followers. Hellenists were too Greek – too like the despised goyim. So, in the daily distribution of food, Hellenized widows were neglected. In response, Jesus’ apostles appointed “deacons” precisely to provide daily bread for those women and their children. As a result, the Jesus Movement grew spectacularly among the Hellenists. Even many Jewish priests joined up.

PSALMS 33: 1-2, 4-5, 18-19: It is this sort of concern with fairness and justice that mirrors the love, trustworthiness, kindness, and generosity of our Great Mother Goddess. Even in times of severe famine, it is her will that no one starve or go homeless. She is merciful, and we place our trust in her.

1 PETER 2: 4-9: Jesus’ nickname for his friend Simon was “Rocky” (perhaps because he was especially good at throwing stones at Roman soldiers during the first recorded Intifada). In any case, Rocky (Peter) called early members of Jesus’ Reform Movement “living stones” in a divine House of Spirits. Jesus himself, Peter said, was its “corner-stone.” (Speaking from experience, Peter knew what stones can do to confuse enemies and bring them down.)

JOHN 14: 1-12: More than three generations after Jesus’ death, John the Evangelist, recalled Jesus as continuing the House of Spirits imagery. He has Jesus say: “In God’s GREAT HOUSE there are no homeless or hungry people. When you shelter the homeless, you are really sheltering me. That is the way of the Great Mother; it is my way too – the one I’ve manifested time and again by my concern for and identification with the unhoused, hungry, sick, blind, widowed, mistreated and despised. Follow my example. Even exceed it,” Jesus urged.

Conclusion

Taking seriously the centralization of housing as expressed in today’s readings should lead believers to dissent from our culture’s treatment of the incarcerated and homeless. Imprisonment and organized abandonment are no way to treat those left without shelter by policies favoring the wealthy instead of God’s favorites – those unhoused, hungry, sick, blind, widowed, mistreated and despised just referenced.  

The readings also suggest the need for new policy initiatives. Such measures will include not merely taking care of food needs of single moms and their children (as depicted in today’s episode from the Acts of the Apostles) but also support for :

• Outlawing evictions and foreclosures
• Widespread cancelling of rents and mortgages
• Building 12 million green housing units over the next 12 years
• Massive investment in public housing under community control.
• Rent freezes, rent control, tenant protections, and anti-displacement measures across the nation.

Of course, the chances of those measures taking legislative shape under the current political dispensation are about nil.

But that in itself shows how far Christians have strayed from actually following Yeshua.

Instead, we’re more like those among early Christians who looked down upon the culturally diverse Hellenists and neglected their widows and children.

So, today’s readings issue a special call to us to from Jesus, his main man, Rocky and the entire cadre of Jesus’ surviving apostles to become deacons – service workers at the disposal of the hungry and homeless.

After all, it’s the way of the Great Cosmic Goddess. 

I found “Murder Most Foul” intriguing. Its retelling of the assassination of JFK was provocative as it attributed it to Deep State forces. But the lack of melody was disappointing. It was also difficult to understand the connections between Dylan’s narrative and the over-long list of songs he centralized. It seemed mostly random and unconnected. Along with references to his story, my own “translation” tries to subtly connect as many of those song titles as I could to Dylan’s well-told tale. I’ve referenced “Only the Good Die Young,” “I’d Rather Go Blind,” “Scratch My Back,” “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “Twilight Time,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” “The Old Rugged Cross,” “In God We Trust,” “Cry Me A River,” “That Old Devil Moon,” “One Night of Sin,” “Misty,” “Anything Goes,” “Blue Sky,” “Deep in a Dream,” and “The Blood-Stained Banner.”

Near the Ides of last March
The Seer from Duluth
Sang a swan’s song
To all
About murder and truth.
 
He sang to a world
Sick and under arrest
In a globe-wide pandemic
And put to the test
By an earth in decay
In the Antichrist’s age
When faith, hope and love
Disappeared from the page
(Of our nation’s own book).
 
It all began
(He said)
On a Dallas dark day
In the blinding-bright sun
Which brought hell to pay
To an Aquarian Age
Shaped by spinning magicians
With a shot that all heard
But nobody listened.
They exploded the head,
They blew the brains out
Of the King JFK
(But we’re all left in doubt)
 
He was a sacrificed lamb
Put down like a dog
Mocked and shocked
By the killers
While spreading a fog
Yes, everyone watched
But few can recall
What our own eyes revealed
We saw nothing at all.
 
It was carefully planned
During nights filled with sin
And carefully timed  
With LBJ in
Standing prepared
To step forward and take
The place of late Claudius
At 2:38.
 
The message was sharp:
We forbid New Frontier
Segregation will stay
With everyone here
With ghettoes in ruins
Illumined at night
By red lights and crime
It’s all such a fright
Ruled by cops on the beat
To enforce
Elm Street’s nightmare
For the sake of elite
For the sake of what’s right for
Cash on the barrelhead
(After all, business is business).
 
We’ve seen this crime’s movie
Again and again
But frankly, Miss Scarlet,
We don’t give a damn
We’re distracted by Woodstocks
Beatles, acid and flags
We’re forbidden to ask
As if mouths filled with gags
Prevented owl’s questions
Beyond what we’re told
About Oswald and Ruby
We’re left out in the cold
With mouths firmly shut
With those questions so old
All left unanswered
(And subject to scold).
 
It’s all unfair to Jackie
And Marilyn too
It’s unfair to us
To me and to you
We’re blind by our choice
To back-scratchers all
Who refuse to take questions
Whenever we call.
They kill all the young
The brave and the good
They make us all fearful
That we’ll be misunderstood
At this twilight time
As rivers we cry
Watching our heroes
All bite dust and die
As we sing about crosses
And the God who’s a lie.
 
So, we’re all feeling misty
Lonely but brave
Under the old devil’s moon
As in Plato’s dank Cave
We wander in mystery
Where anything goes
We’re deep in a dream
When we’ll wake
No one knows.
We’re surrounded by darkness
Nightfall and death
Under a banner
That’s blood-stained
With nothing that's left
But music and jazz
And that prophet
In howl
Who shakes us to wake us
About murderS most foul.