Let’s begin 2015 with one eye seeing “close to,” the other eye “far out”

Why? Because otherwise we “lose sight” of what’s important as we sit in front of our screens, mesmerized, by the latest incomprehensible Uranus/Pluto scene of mayhem and destruction. When we do manage to keep our focus both wide and narrow at once, simultaneously, then we can hold our center, too. Remain in equanimity. Rather than getting magnetized into fury, despair, or hopelessness, instead we recognize that We the People are powerful players in what appears to be a genuinely “climactic” extended drama here on our beloved home planet, Earth. The Neptunian field is that of infinite possibility. The choice becomes: what is the direction of manifestation that we personally, would like to see, and how is each of us, personally, going to act to help initiate that manifestation.

(How? Start with what’s at hand, close to, what you KNOW you must do to remain or to get in touch with who you really are, the fullness of your beautiful being. This one initial action — and yes, it’s probably difficult, because so unfamiliar to the thick, sludgy personality that has covered up your brilliant essence all these years — will radically change both your inner state as well as what’s in front of you. Then, once again, act, starting with what’s at hand, close to, on and on, beginning after beginning, ultimately surrendering into the widening sphere of influence that the very first heartfelt, soulful, genuine action, activated.)

Okay, so to the latest “close to” news focus, which happens, this morning, to be in France.

Now I know there might be “terrorist” attacks that are “real,” i.e., not staged false flags. I mean, of course there’s room in this emerging world for that, too. But you know what? Like just about everybody else who pays close attention to the context of these dramatic, usually bloody, and highly MSM media-massaged events, I assume “false flag” first, and then ask, why? Who benefits.

In the case of this morning’s supposedly “Islamic” attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, of course, the question is first, what’s the current geopolitical situation with France? (And, I imagine, it’s morphing relations with Germany, Russia, NATO, the U.S. the Ukraine . . .) I haven’t been following it closely, so I have no idea. But of course we always “hate” “Muslims,” that’s a given. That’s for starters. And all attacks can be used as excuses to ramp up more “police protections,” i.e., police state. For the rest, We’ll have to wait for the alternative free press — and we are legion! — to pay attention to the elements that might have contributed to this attack, of this kind, at this time and in this place.

Always, it’s as if we are provoked to tear our attention off one new, erupting, dastardly situation in order to get instantly refocused in another direction. Hmmm. So we might ask: What are we supposed to get distracted from now? The pedophile scandal with bigwigs Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, Bill Clinton and others? Might this be what “they” want us to forget? That the ongoing pedophile scandal might be metastisizing beyond its original borders (priests, sports and media figures in the U.S.; priests, political and entertainment figures in the U.K.)?

Meanwhile, I’d say, let’s begin to practice this (admittedly difficult) double focus: one eye lazering in on this moment in Paris, France, the other eye attempting to continuously widen, widen to achieve even deeper, more expanded perspective, both in space and time. For example, the following two essays serve to frame up the current context, especially of the U.S. Empire and what I’ve begun to call War, Inc.

First, Tom Engelhardt takes a trip down memory lane, back to 1963, and asks us to look forward from there, to see what we’ve done and what we’ve become. It isn’t pretty.

A Self-Perpetuating Machine for American Insecurity
Welcome to the National Security State of 2015

Next, Peter Dale Parry and Robert Scott examine what’s been going down in this country since the 19th century re: the U.S. military’s dark side, its standard, hush-hush “use of selective terror.” Keep in mind, however, that Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (2005) — subtitled “1492 – Present” — demonstrates that what we now call “the military” might actually be better termed “the specialized action wing” of what appears to be a huge shadow in our national character. Perfidy, apparently, was seeded into our colonial origins. We’ve always thought of ourselves as better than others with a “manifest destiny.” We’ve always looked the other way while murdering and destroying The Other, whether within or beyond our borders.

It’s Not All About Democracy: The Very Dark Side of American History