Marek, something you said really drives home something I was just ranting about to Doug:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Marek Reavis" <reavisma...@...> wrote: > > Most people who've been participants in the criminal justice > system as defendants, have had pretty shitty lives, are used > to be shit on, and frequently (and not surprisingly) have > internalized all that shit and believe it to be true. They've > been told that their whole lives and in the context of the > criminal proceedings, the same message is being given. But I > know that there is very little difference between them and me, > and that difference I don't perceive as being that substantive. Beautifully said, Marek. One of my favorite Bruce Cockburn songs is called "One Day I Walk." It's one of the first ones I ever heard him play: Oh I have been a beggar And shall be one again And few the ones with help to lend Within the world of men One day I walk in flowers one day I walk on stones Today I walk in hours One day I shall be home I've sat on the street corner And watched the bootheels shine And cried out glad and cried out sad With every voice but mine One day I walk in flowers one day I walk on stones Today I walk in hours One day I shall be home One day I shall be home [ Download URL that might work ] http://beemp3.com/download.php?file=535415&song=One+Day+I+Walk There is magic in this song. Bruce is a strong Christian, but one of the good ones. He walks the walk. And, like you, he realizes that there really is not that much difference between him and bums on the street or the supposed criminals except the "turning of the wheel." If reincarnation is real, we have all been beggars, and we all will be again. Someone who has realized this does not spend his life *judging* those who are on the beggar or the criminal "turn of the wheel." He doesn't look down his nose at them and consider himself "better" or "more highly evolved." Sounds as if you are one of those kinda people. It also sounds as if you're exactly the kinda guy that Curtis and I would enjoy hoisting a few with. > I see them pretty much as I see myself and treat them > that way. Attention is love. They feel that (even if they > don't think about it that way) and they respond to it. Of course they do. How would YOU react if you had been looked down on by most of the people around you most of your life? With regard to the sad situation that Doug just talked about, I reacted by talking about an *alternative* to judging people and criminalizing their behavior because you don't like it. It's an alternative I got to see on my many trips to Amsterdam. And it *worked* there. As I've said before, after over 30 years of making marijuana available and controlling it, *less than 5% of the Dutch population have ever bothered to try it*. Compare to the United States, where the great-great- great-grandchildren of uptight, judgmental elitist Protestants (people who had been chased out of every country in Europe *for* being uptight, judgmental elitists) reacted to substances they thought were evil by turning them into profitable industries. They did it during the years of alcohol prohibition, and they are doing it now with marijuana. And IMO the real reason they're doing it is because they are uptight, judgmental elitists who cannot look at a bum on the street and consider him their equal. And the amazing thing is that many of them do this while claiming to be followers of spiritual teachers like Christ who were not so limited.
