Greetings from
The Publisher . . .
The world's just become too small to
ignore anymore
In looking at the previous 20 years of The Light Connection ( TLC ), as I have the last two months, I've noticed that the changes in TLC are exactly what I originally said I wanted in the beginning. Starting with a circle of people and groups I knew in San Diego that I thought were doing good things, I wanted to expand my coverage to more and more people, groups and subjects as I became aware of them. After spending Christmas in Sedona 20 years ago, for instance, we began shipping magazines to half a dozen locations there. So TLC has been distributed there almost as long as it has been in San Diego.
While physical locations are one form of expansion, the expansions I never anticipated has been in “getting political,” as some people call it.
I wouldn't call it that for several reasons.
Once it seemed that creating a great personal space and taking care of one's self was good enough. If you had a workable philosophy for living with a sense of where you fit in on the planet and in the universe and where you were going, relationships with good communication, loving relationships, a harmonious environment and took care of your needs and your personal vehicle for exploring the planet—your body—what else did you need?
On the other hand, when we don't have all those things we probably look like most of the rest of the world and adjust. We make the best of it.
Creating a great space for one's self may be great for happiness and giving us the feeling we're taking care of business, but it isn't enough either. The world's too small now. Too connected. Just like some of today's radio talk shows, it's also too in our face.
While that gives us the need to separate, it also makes it vital that we don't—not without balance anyway. The old saying about your rights ending where my rights begin is a thin, often indistinguishable line these days.
Did I get political or did the world intrude? Once it was the too-huge-to-define Uncle in the East. Now it's no longer distant and impersonal. It's small enough it's with me all the time. It goes shopping with me every day. It affects my choices.
The conflict is not so much about partisan politics. It's about control and secrecy. The truth is I really dislike partisan politics. There's too much “we're ALL right” and”“they're ALL wrong.” News coverage is often negative, argumentative and leaves you with no place to go—no empowering alternative that offers any hope. My hope is that when I have visited the former and stepped into politics or world events I have also looked for the silver lining or benefit that can be gained with a shift in perspective. On a personal level, I eventually end up there. It's not always as easy on the worldly level.
Whether it is a call to action or realizing that we ultimately have to take care of ourselves—and not expect someone to step in and do it.
We have a world of leaders, however, who seem to be embracing secrecy and control—and that's a nonpartisan statement for the most part. It applies to most of them, but naturally the current “in crowd” will reflect that the most.
The simple truth is that if we want to create that healthy environment and life for ourselves we have to pay attention and know what we are choosing. How can we do that in a condition of secrecy?
We seem to be a people growing in personal and worldly awareness that more and more want to know in order to make choices, but live with a government that grows more and more secretive. While it used to be easier to control, and many think it is controlled too much now, we still have many options—besides simply trusting, that is.
If our media is ignoring and slanting certain issues, the whole world's media is certainly not. What “everyone” thinks is at our fingertips through the Internet. The world fits on our desktop.
What's in the food we eat? Was it genetically modified? Where did it come from and was it sprayed with anything? Additives? What went into making the products we wear? What affect does it have when we buy certain products? If every business adopted the business model of Wal-Mart and bought cheap goods from China, what is the tipping point that sends us downward to the point where there are simply jobs and no opportunities? Or no jobs or buyers?
The world's gotten too small because now all the people involved in our buying choices are just around the corner. No matter where they are, they can also be up close and personal.
Meanwhile, no one seems to look ahead. The fuel we use in our cars is a great example of this and why we devoted so much space to offering an alternative to the dysfunctional and unhealthy system we have now. Like smoking cigarettes, we all know we will pay the price for our oil addiction. We're paying it now.
One segment of society has even been designated as the ones who will roll the dice to see if they pay the ultimate sacrifice for this system. For some of them, that literally means rolling the dice over and over and over and over again as they face their fourth tour in Iraq.
While this is done under the banner of spreading freedom and democracy, do we really need politicians with great philosophies for changing the world? Or do we need good administrators? In today's environment, the politics and whether you agree or not don't even really matter.
No one seems to be able to administer programs even when we almost universally agree something should be done. FEMA and New Orleans comes to mind. Did we agree on health care and drugs for the elderly? Clean air? Water? There are certain things we all want.
Give us administrators who can manage, please.
I'm coming to the proposition I ended with last time: It doesn't matter whether you believe that we choose where we incarnate, or whether you think that there is a reason or purpose in our life that we can know or discover as we go along, or if you simply think that since you live where you do there comes with it—and comes with all of the above—the idea that being in that society means on some level that we accept what comes with this territory. What we agreed on is that the power of the government comes from us—turns us into US—gives us the power. Gives us not just the opportunity, but also the responsibility to participate and pay attention to where we are being led.
We were born into or live in a society that says it is our responsibility to pay attention. We are in a society that was founded on the idea that power corrupts, and that leaders are not to be trusted automatically, but need to be watched. The patriot watches, suspiciously.
What good is the right to make choices if we know nothing about what we choose? Too often our government is making it harder for us to get the information we need. Its policy of secrecy is challenging our right to know. It's time to use what we have or give up the illusion.
Whenever we see clearly that “smoking (or whatever) is bad” for us and we have a clear choice, don't we need to take the obvious path? Take a look at what's going on with biodiesel. It simply makes too much sense to ignore.
In the next year the laws will change and clean-burning diesel fuel like they use in Europe will allow diesel cars to be imported that previously could not pass environmental tests (because of the dirty fuel, not the cars). It will allow us to have access to many more diesel cars. Honda and Volkswagen already have cars that get close to 100 miles per gallon.
Once those cars are here in mass—and they will be if consumer demand calls for them—we can put biodiesel in them and rock the world. We don't have to play. We don't have to now, but how many of us can is limited now. Soon, from the “bottom” up, we could change that.
And there is a whole world of choices we can make to create the world we want to live in. That's the type of expansion I mean.
And if you believe that—the bottom-up concept—then you really have forgotten how our democratic republic works. We're not the ones on the bottom, right?
Have a great month,
Steve
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