"Hell on earth is a damned good business idea. I personally, along with all the Iraq war corporate profiteers, have made a fortune from the human suffering created by scapegoating." -- Brad
Radical Honesty December eZine. Article 1
Brad Blanton about the author
The Psychological and Social Revolution of Our Times
It has fallen upon us to lead a revolution on two fronts at once: a revolution in human consciousness and a social and economic revolution.
First, we must do what the other fundamentalist terrorists in America and the Middle East have not done, namely; take responsibility for and own our demons of displaced hatred and aggression. This means we can't project our own fundamentalist terrorist thinking onto Cheney and Bush they way Islamic terrorists have-and the way Bush and Cheney have disowned and projected back their hatred in becoming anti-terrorism terrorists. We are all fundamentalists and terrorists. And if we don't transcend and inhibit this tendency in ourselves and stop it from happening with others we are all doomed. This is critical personal psychological work, done with help from friends, and the survival of humanity now depends upon it.
Second, we need social action to bring about critical change to human society. We have to stop both corporate capitalist fascism (state terrorism) and religious terrorism. They sustain each other. It's a cops and robbers game. Cops need robbers and robbers need cops. Do away with either and the other side starts creating its opposite number immediately in order not to lose its job.
When we lost "Communism" as a boogeyman enemy we had to create "Terrorism." And we have to create, in the place of these antiquated institutionalized murderers, new governmental structures that will sustain and reward honesty, transparency and deep democracy. In our favor is the possibility that the whole world is getting bored with old black and white movies with simplistic plots. All we have to do is congratulate people on what they already know, and provide alternative entertainment, but quickly.
Both psychological maturation and social change are required. Either answer alone is not enough.
The lives of billions of humans and other living creatures are dependent on us doing this. Here are the first three steps:
Step one is to admit that we have a problem.
Step two is organizing a therapeutic community for telling the truth and advancing telling the truth as the best option.
The third step is to reward telling the truth over lying, economically. We have arranged things to turn out better economically when we lie. We must take away the power of corporate capitalism which has created an economy based on withholding, secrecy, lying and perennial violent conflict and we must make new laws and institutions that reward transparency and honesty.
Step One: We have a problem. Us. Me and you. All of us together. A problem for Humanity.
We are participants in a murderous empire. We are privileged characters. While we are meditating and indulging in personal growth and spiritual development without compassionate social action we are elitist snobs of the privileged minority of the world's people. This is a formula for failure as human beings. We, the self indulgent personal growth seekers and "liberal" thinkers are just a teeny weeny little middle class clique, and we can't do the revolution this way. Top down management by another spoiled, privileged class won't work much better than corporate top down management. Corporations lie. Politicians lie. Governments lie. They do it and get by with it because we continue to lie! We are not better than they are. We need each other's help in healing ourselves through practicing openness and honesty. Step one is to admit this over and over again and to remind each other daily.
Step Two: Organizing a therapeutic community for telling the truth and advancing telling the truth as the best option. Taking Responsibility for what we disown and project:
The good news is: if we ask ourselves, "What can I personally do to help promote peace, me personally, each and every day?" the answer is, first and foremost, GET REAL and start TELLING THE TRUTH. Our addiction to lying, moralism and self-righteousness is fundamentally incurable, as is our addiction to comforts that compensate for the suffering of alienation that is always the result. We can only seek to somewhat control the addiction to moralism, manage it, through sharing honestly. Moralism and righteousness and the comforts which we are addicted to that substitute for the nourishment displaced by them are a given. We all have this dis-ease. We are all addicted to the compensating comforts as well as the disease that causes the need for them. The good news is that the disease is manageable through a substitute addiction, much like methadone "cures" heroin addiction. An addiction to honest sharing will not cure all our addictions but will solve the problem of being controlled by our addictions. Like food addiction, you can't quit eating altogether, but you can learn how to control bad eating and overeating by being honest, making promises to each other and asking help from each other. Managing the disease of moralism requires the substitution of the thrills of honesty and authentic uncertainty to substitute for addiction to the bullshit illusion of control. Hysterical corporate fundamentalist terrorists like (suck my) Dick Cheney don't like to hear this. It is like an AA group to cure corporate economic fascism from the bottom up.
Step Three: Discovering how to reward telling the truth over lying, economically and politically. The social action answer: What do we need to do to change our society?
Morris Berman says, "We are heading over the cliff because of uncontrolled trade deficits, a "negative identity" that feeds on war against weak nations, a fatuous culture of TV and empty movies, failed schools and pain-free universities, our shopping mania, a captive press, lost civil rights, lobbies that run Congress, and a Justice Department that freely rewrites Constitutional law. And we are a doomed society mainly because the public itself is no longer active or aware, and keeps re-electing the very people undermining its remaining freedoms...America takes away love and gives its citizens gadgets, in return, which most of them regard as a terrific bargain."
The social revolution requires these personal and social reforms:
A retraining program in telling the truth, where public education as we know it is brought to an end, and a new focus on learning and sharing becomes primary.
Facing and getting over our addictions to many forms of comfort.
Overthrow of the fascists currently ruling America, including Democrats,
Imposition of oversight and control of corporate influence on government
Replacement of the lackeys of the corporate wealthy ruling class with citizens' deliberative councils made up mostly of people who are not rich.
A restructuring of government and education using honesty, transparency, generosity and deep democracy and citizen deliberation as fundamental principles.
You and I and millions of others know that this is true. We need to mobilize the support of the 50 to 100 million Americans who see we're on the wrong track but don't yet know what to do about it. We have a lot of help and more power than we think. In the next article are some great ideas from some of the leader leaders.
Brad Blanton, Ph.D, has been a psychotherapist in private practice in Washington D.C. for over thirty years. He is the author of the best-selling Radical Honesty series, and CEO of Radical Honesty Enterprises.
You can find Brad Blanton finishing his new book, the autobiography "Some NEW Kind of Trailer Trash". Click here to pre-order now.
