Towards An Ethos........

"You'd be surprised how little I knew even up to yesterday." Jack Kerouac.

"George Bush, Uncle Sam......., Iraq will be your Vietnam."

What did you learn in school today?
(by Tom Paxton, 1964)

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned that Washington never told a lie.
I learned that soldiers seldom die.
I learned that everybody's free.
And that's what the teacher said to me.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned that policemen are my friends.
I learned that justice never ends.
I learned that murderers die for their crimes.
Even if we make a mistake sometimes.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.
 

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned our government must be strong.
It's always right and never wrong.
Our leaders are the finest men.
And we elect them again and again.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.
 

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned that war is not so bad.
I learned of the great ones we have had.
We fought in Germany and in France.
And some day I might get my chance.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.

Half English

Billy Bragg 

My mother was half English and I’m half English too,
I’m a great big bundle of culture tied up in the red white and blue,
I’m a fine example of your Essex man
And I’m well familiar with the Hindustan
'Cause my neighbours are half English and I’m half English too.

My breakfast was half English and so am I, you know,
I had a plate of Marmite soldiers washed down with a cappuccino
And I have a veggie curry about once a week,
The next day I fry it up as bubble and squeak
'Cause my appetite's half English and I’m half English too.

Dance with me to this very English melody,
From morris dancing to Morrissey,
All that stuff came from across the sea.

Britannia, she’s half English, she speaks Latin at home,
St George was born in the Lebanon, how he got here I don’t know
And those three lions on your shirt,
They never sprang from England’s dirt,
Them lions are half English and I’m half English too

Le-li Umma le-li-ya, le-li Umma le-li-ya,
Le-li Umma le-li-ya, bledi g’desh akh! le-li-ya

Oh my country, what a beautiful country you are.

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER
Buffy Sainte-Marie

He's five feet two and he's six feet four,
He fights with missiles and with spears,
He's all of 31 and he's only 17,
He's been a soldier for a thousand years.

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
And he knows he shouldn't kill
And he knows he always will
Kill you for me, my friend, and me for you.

And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA
And he's fighting for the Russians
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.

And he's fighting for Democracy
And fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all,
He's the one who must decide
Who's to live and who's to die.
And he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
Condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon to a war
And without him all this killing can't go on.

He's the universal soldier and he
Really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from him, and you, and me
And brothers can't you see
This is not the way we put an end to war.

"Dead fish float with the tide, live ones swim against it." Thomas Whittemore.

"The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement" Karl R. Popper.

Compassion before profit, creativity before conformity, spirit before materialism.

Dumb All Over - Frank Zappa

Whoever we are
Wherever we're from
We shoulda noticed by now
Our behavior is dumb
And if our chances
Expect to improve
It's gonna take a lot more
Than tryin' to remove
The other race
Or the other whatever
From the face
Of the planet altogether
They call it THE EARTH
Which is a dumb kinda name
But they named it right
'Cause we behave the same...
We are dumb all over
Dumb all over,
Yes we are
Dumb all over,
Near 'n' far
Dumb all over
Black 'n white
People, we is not wrapped tight
Nerds on the left
Nerds on the right
Religious fanatics
On the air every night
Sayin' the Bible
Tells the story
Makes the details
Sound real gory
'Bout what to do
If the geeks over there
Don't believe in the book
We got over here
You can't run a race
Without no feet
'N pretty soon
There won't be no street
For dummies to jog on
Or doggies to dog on
Religious fanatics
Can make it be all gone
(I mean it won't blow up
'N disappear
It'll just look ugly
For a thousand years...)
You can't run a country
By a book of religion
Not by a heap
Or a lump or a smidgeon
Of foolish rules
Of ancient date
Designed to make
You all feel great
While you fold, spindle
And mutilate
Those unbelievers
From a neighbouring state
TO ARMS! TO ARMS!
Hooray! That's great
Two legs ain't bad
Unless there's a crate
They ship the parts
To mama in
For souvenirs: two ears (Get down!)
Not his, not hers (but what the hey?)
The Good Book says:
"It's gotta be that way!"
But their book says:
"REVENGE THE CRUSADES. . .
With whips 'n chains
'N hand grenades. . ."
TWO ARMS? TWO ARMS?
Have another and another
Our Cod says:
"There ain't no other!"
Our Cod says
"It's all okay!"
Our God says "This is the way!"
It says in the book:
"Burn 'n destroy. ..
'N repent, 'n redeem
'N revenge, 'n deploy
'N rumble thee forth
To the land of the unbelieving scum on the other side
'Cause they don't go for what's in the book
'N that makes 'em BAD
So verily we must choppeth them up
And stompeth them down
Or rent a nice French bomb
To poof them out of existence
While leaving their real estate just where we need it
To use again
For temples in which to praise OURGOD
("Cause he can really take care of business!")
And when his humble TV servant
With humble white hair
And humble glasses
And a nice brown suit
And maybe a blonde wife who takes phone calls
Tells us our God says
It's okay to do this stuff
Then we gotta do it,
'Cause if we don't do it,
We ain't gwine up to hebbin!
(Depending on which book you're using at the time...
Can't use theirs. . .it don't work . . .it's all lies...Gotta use mine...)
Ain't that right?
That's what they say
Every night...
Everyday. ..
Hey, we can't really be dumb
If we're just following
God's Orders
Hey, let's get serious...
God knows what he's doin'
He wrote this book here
An' the book says:
He made us all to be just like Him,"
so...
If we're dumb...
Then God is dumb...
(An' maybe even a little ugly on the side).

So, what's happening on this page? And why does this web site exist? 

And welcome to the land of rhetorical questions..... 

And what if there were no rhetorical questions?

Hmm, exactly. 

You don't have to answer them, do you. 

And neither do I, but I'll try.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

"But politics seldom depends on facts for its decisions." (R.M. Pirsig, Lila).

Values: 

Well, idealistic or what? And by the way, these are some of the web weaver's values, nothing to do with the band 10,000 Things. (If they do coincide, then that's a coincidence). 

What is the point in being anything other than idealistic? What's the point in not caring? This is very much tied in with "The Environment" and we're all concerned with that.

And Politics; What is not, at least tangentially, a political issue? 

Sex, that can't be political? But clearly it is a political issue - AIDS is a global political issue. Prostitution, homophobia, paedophiles and pornography are legislated for and against by governments everywhere.

Try something else - a cheese sandwich? Political? 

Is the cheese imported? Has the butter come to Britain from the other side of the world? National and global politics come straight into play with economic and legislative issues. And the goat or the cow from the milk of which the cheese was produced? The treatment of farmed animals is subject to legislation, (which is imposed by people for whom we vote. If we vote).

It's clear that whether it be rhetoric or foodstuffs, we all tend to swallow what we want to swallow. We are not, and cannot be, any more entitled to food, shelter and the other basic rights than any other nation is. I'd like to say, (hell, looks like I'm going to say), that my views are founded on something, they're not groundless.

I'm very sure that we should get involved in politics, actively, to the extent that we stop saying politicians are useless. We should elect politicians who aren't useless. Where from? From amongst a movement started by those of us who have realised that we too (not just the allegedly unwashed weirdos), can attend demos, and donate to worthwhile causes, and write letters, and visit MPs' surgeries, and talk to friends and colleagues, and not just sit around feeling inadequate and guilty.

To conclude, (yes, I will shut up eventually), forget history for now, because it's now (and the future) which is important and there is one thing which I do believe is undeniable:

If the western world and, increasingly under commercial pressure from the west, the "developing" world too, continues to use and abuse land

things will only get very much worse.

Every time we switch on a light, drive to a shop, book a holiday, (etc., ad inf.), we're concerned with the environment. So the question which concerns this web weaver is, Are we concerned about it? What can we do differently or better to improve it?

What do we think about the edges of our streets being lined with recyclable tin cans and plastic bottles? What do we think about the environmental costs of cheap air travel? About nuclear power? Fossilized, and therefore finite, fuels, etc., ad inf. again.

It has never seriously occurred to me that not caring is an option, even when faced with the obvious fact that a large number of people, from the US President down, (or should that be up?), don't care sufficiently, if at all, about certain very important issues. I cannot be persuaded that the environment is an unimportant issue.

Here appears to be an uncommonly large amount of good sense:

Sangharakshita on Ecology.

Appreciating Nature

The value of an inaccessible mountain peak, or of a serenely floating cloud, consists in its very valuelessness. It has no relevance to our material needs. We cannot turn the snow-clad peak into a human habitation, neither can we harness the white cloud to any earthly chariot.

Nature is most beautiful when most aloof. Perhaps it is because of their sheer irrelevance to the needs of man, their utter indifference to his petty hopes and fears, that upon the face of gigantic mountain ranges, with their dreadful sunlit peaks and terrifyingly precipitous plunges into gloomy gorges, plays the intense and terrible light of a beauty never seen in fields or orchards, or in any other aspects of nature which have been brought in relation with the necessities of human life. 

Not that fields and orchards are unbeautiful. Formally speaking, they may be no less significant aesthetically than wilder and sterner scenes; but what the tabloid newspapers call `human interest' generally obtrudes itself, like the moon between the earth and the sun in a solar eclipse, so that we see not the brightness of their beauty but only the dark shadow of their utility. For the same reason that he eschews bad art the art-lover would therefore be well advised, at least during the early years of his apprenticeship, to avoid the more domestic kind of natural beauty and to cultivate, instead, appreciation for those aspects of nature which, since they have no connection with ordinary human interests, are most capable of liberating him from the bondage of selfish desires. 

Egoism is natural to man, and to be overcome only with the utmost difficulty. Only too readily do we stop to pluck the flowers of the world's beauty, instead of wondering and passing on. 

A mountain, or a starry sky, offers no foothold to our desires. We are left, as it were, naked in the midst of a great empty space full of sweeping winds. Consequently, our enjoyment of their beauty is of the truly aesthetic order, and a faint anticipation of that intenser enjoyment to be offered us by the still brighter beauty of works of true art.

(Sangharakshita, The Religion of Art)

"We've ceased to feel nature, so we are alienated from nature, and this is the significance to some extent of the whole ecological movement, which is trying to bring back that sensitivity to nature" 

(Sangharakshita, Seminar on the Conditions of Communal Stability, Wellington, New Zealand, 1979)

"Nothing is as terrible to see as ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) 

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] (1903-1950)

"One man that has a mind and knows it, can always beat ten men who haven't and don't." George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) 

"If you think you're too small to make a difference, you haven't been in bed with a mosquito." Anita Roddick

Neil Gunn 281202, etc.