Today's Considerations
In the U.S., 2,977 people were murdered when airplanes were flown into the Twin Towers in New York City on 9 / 11. That was
- and remains - the most-covered news event in U.S. history. Yet in the U.S.,
nearly 14,000 people are murdered . . . every year. The coverage of the killing
of 14,000 in the U.S. every year? Not so much. Perspective?
Since that pointer was offered less than two weeks ago, scores have been added to
the total number of those “killed in mass shootings in the U.S.” Yesterday, December 2nd, the
numbers continued to increase with another mass shooting that killed 14 and
that left an estimated 21 wounded.
In the last 7 days in the U.S., 6 mass shootings have
occurred; in the 1004 days prior to 2 October 2015, there were 994 mass
shootings in the U.S.; and that rate is increasing: yesterday, December 2nd, was
the 336th day of the year and 352 mass shootings have already occurred in 2015.
And if one adds to those totals the number of people killed in instances of one-on-one
killings (now averaging 300 per week), that puts the U.S. on track to have a
total of 15,300 killed this year.
By comparison: in Germany, there were only two mass shootings
within the last five years, compared to over two thousand in the U.S. in the same
time frame.
So now, to perspective: the dialogue on the national level
is dominated by politics with the pro-gun, anti-gun-control, mostly-conservative
Republican members of the U.S. Congress on one side of the debate vs. the Democratic Party president on the other side who has been encouraging congress for
years to take action in order to
(a) stem the sale of military-style assault rifles being bought by civilians
and to
(b) close the gap in the law which requires that all would-be
purchasers of firearms undergo a criminal and mental background check if they want to buy a
weapon from a gun store but allows criminals and the insane to buy weapons at weekend “gun shows” which require no
background check.
Regular visitors to this site are aware of the format of
offering generalized pointers and then following those with specific examples to
illustrate the current relevancy of the pointers. Constantly available on a
daily basis are examples of warped perspectives, but examples of clear perspectives
are far more difficult to come by.
Yet some do have a
clearer perspective about the insanity of the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress’s
refusal to address the gun issue being discussed today.
EXAMPLE #1:
One reporter in her editorial yesterday wrote that “there
are no solutions in sight, except any number of obvious solutions that have
been immediately obstructed by Republican lawmakers, like expanded
background checks or bans
on assault weapons.”
EXAMPLE #2:
Several prominent, pro-gun Republicans yesterday provided more evidence of their
warped perspectives:
From Republican Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz: “Our prayers
are with the victims, their families, and the first responders . . .”
and
From Republican Presidential Candidate Ben Carson: "My thoughts and prayers are with the shooting victims . . ."
and
from Republican Presidential Candidate Rand Paul: “My thoughts
and prayers are with the victims, families, and brave first responders . . . “
and
from Republican Presidential Candidate Lindsey Graham: “Thoughts
and prayers are with . . . “
and
from the highest ranking Republican in the U.S., second in
line behind the Vice-President to the Presidency of the U.S.: “Please keep the victims
… in your prayers”
and from
Republican Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee
whose most recent book was released in conjunction with his current run for the office of
the President of the United States in which he praises guns and touts his opposition
to the Left’s suggestion that the gun-related problems in the U.S. could be addressed, at least in part, legislatively:
As an example of a clear perceptive regarding what could
work and what is not working, the editorial staff of the New York Daily News confronted
the warped perspectives exhibited by Republicans who are presently in the national spotlight with this
headline:
That headline is relevant to a non-dual discussion of humanity’s
mind-centered, typically-perverted behavior because
(A) it marks the first time ever that a major, mainstream
newspaper in the U.S. has ever challenged the warped perspective which prevails
among the 97% on this planet who claim to be affiliated with one organized religion
or another, namely, that "we must use prayer to bring about change" and that "God will answer prayers" and that “we must return to God to heal the world’s problems”
and that “God is the only solution to the problems that confront humanity”
and because
(B) it parallels the shift in the focus of the message offered
by Maharaj who moved away from the notion that the roots of humankind’s problems
have something to do with either religious or spiritual shortcomings and have
everything to do with mental issues rooted in personality identification and
in the personality disorders which those bring
and explains
(C) why Maharaj advised: “Give up spirituality” and “follow your
normal inclinations" and "forget spirituality."
A clear perspective, in fact, shows that
(1) the emotional intoxication and the mental illnesses generated by dogma-induced fanaticism are key contributors to humanity’s currently-pervasive problems
and that
(2) human-generated problems can only be addressed via
human-generated solutions.
Moreover, an objective viewing via a clear perspective,
whether it involves looking at what happened yesterday in the U.S. or what has
happened all around the globe during the last 5000 years, would make clear to
any wise observer that, indeed,
(3) “God isn’t fixing this” . . . or anything else.
Once again, Maharaj was spot on when he spoke - not from the standpoint of a political agenda or a religious agenda or a spiritual agenda - but "from the perspective of the Universal Consciousness."
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
The four most recent posts follow. You may access all of the posts in
this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts
as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]
