Letters to the Editor
kenkapkk
Published Letters: 131 Editor's Choice: 13
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The story is everything
[Read the article: A tale of two horrors]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What I admire about Gary Kamiya above almost every other political commentator today is his range and ability to relate events, which are material and "factual", to the greater metaphorical and poetic truths that lay beneath. I wrote in a previous letter on another essay how the story we tell ourselves is often more significant than the event itself, that the story that "wins" is called "history".
Kamiya grasps this truth in a profound way. I have seen few writers address this dilemma of the Amereican soul, especially as it relates to Iraq. And I believe Iraq is a crystalization of this shadow aspect of America that has been moving in the undercurrent of the national consciousness nearly forever, and particularly in the last 50 years.
These words are extremely powerful, especially in the context of my letter on Gary's last column re: "America at a Crossroads"- to which I titled, "Not Ready Yet".
"America is responsible for the Iraq nightmare. But this truth must be repressed. It does not fit our **official narrative.** No state wants to be told that it is the national equivalent of Seung-Hui Cho. And so the Bush administration, which now has the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on its hands as well as that of more than 3,300 Americans, clings to its Big Lie, insisting that the dreadful ongoing slaughter in Iraq proves that we were right to invade in the first place.
This is a profound perversion of logic and morality. Fortunately, fewer and fewer Americans believe it. But the mere fact that it is our official governmental narrative about a great human-rights catastrophe, one we set in motion, brings shame upon our country.
Even though Bill Moyers IS expressing truth and outrage on the media's role as well as the lying that got us into the war (PBS still does great stuff), this realization is not one the nation as a whole seems able to understand.
But writers like Kamiya stand as the national conscience for all of us. I am deeply grateful to Salon that he is a Senior Editor and contributor.
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Bell the Cat
[Read the article: Last refuge of the scoundrel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Stories serve a great purpose to illuminate events. Normally I love Gary's essays but this one is a retread, albeit stoked by some flare ups recently. The story written here is still "The Emperor Has No Clothes". But that story has been absorbed. Watch Bill Maher, for example, and see everyone still hash out and go into detail more revelations and disgust about the Emperor's nudity. Tenent's book is the latest addition. But its a closed loop. The country gets it.
The real story now is different. It has morphed into "Who Will Bell the Cat?" That story has not yet revealed its ending or end game. The critical mass is approaching when these people will finally be taken down. Then the "cat" will have been "belled". How and when is the question.
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Salon's bias again revealed
[Read the article: God grief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As an avid Salon reader, and also one who has engaged in metaphysics for over 35 years, I am getting tired of Salon's straw man arguments and assault against spirituality and "God" via articles such as these. Why does Salon choose to highlight atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchens fairly often with critiques written *by* sympathizers who are "unbelievers", and feature essays on mysticism ("The Dark Side of Castaneda") that dwell or focus on the sghadow aspect of the subject?
I can't remember one essay from Salon recently that either treats a significant book, philosopher, or author from the more 'New Age Camp" with seriousness, integrity and genuiune curiousity. Further, I don't see any balance in perhaps having someone who has *had* major mystical experiences and the intellectual capacity to frame them adequately represented either infependently or as a reviewer of someone such as Dawkins.
There is a vast difference between true Gnostic mystical sprituality and what happens through organized religion, and there is room for an extremely fruitful discussion here about the nature of "God" if Salon would drop its blinders and its aggressive antipathy toward the spiritual.
The fact is, the nature of Consciousness exressed in its unlimited aspect both within and beyond the human experience (which we call "God") is something very far removed from the belief systems and behaviors of organized religions. There is a fascinating relationship and congruity with the nature of reality we might term 'Divine" (for want of a better word) with quantum physics and science.
There is also an important dialectic happening that Salon keeps ignoring between this old, organized paradigm and the new emerging understanding based solidly on a tremendous depth of experience (We don't need to look to Blake to find it, although his writings are wonderful expressions). The former is constrictive, controlling, often violent, and ignorant. The new is freeing, empowering, connective, and bestows remarkable understanding as to the nature of reality.
There are always shadow forms to every human endeavor, but there are people who truly have much to offer when one moves beyond the scope of the traditional.
Still, Salon seems unable or unwilling to incorporate or integrate a reasonable balance in this exploration. I reiterate, quit backing straw man jerks like Hitchens. Why is he some authority on ther subject anyway? Because he is a celebrity writer? Does that really give him "knowledge in the affair", because he is "well known?"
The ball is in Salon's court to grow up around this.