I’ve often written about religion, both supporting many of its inherent qualities, and criticizing its more superficial adoption and the wider ramifications of such carelessness. A quote comes to mind, the essence of which is, you will always have people doing good acts and evil acts, but it takes religion to make a good person do evil acts. It’s not just religion, though. It is any belief that has not been fully examined.

You might say that Wall Street people, the banking people and our Washington leaders have a religion. Perhaps it’s a little like that golden calf the Jewish people made by collecting up all the people’s gold, melting into an image of idolatry, and worshiped in place of God. But what happens if we do not give up our gold?

Government is not evil, necessarily. It has a potential to unite us in common causes, just like religion. Just like the pursuit of idols. The important thing to remember is that all are human creations, whose purpose was, at least at one time, to help us unite our collective selves together.

Ideologies and beliefs are powerful. They are often even stronger than tradition and habit. It is the easy path, thinking in habitual ways. These ways are safe, they require little effort, and you can find many people to back you up. However, these ways are never the way of the hero. The habitual is not the way of the martyr. Change requires a sacrifice of one thing for another.

It is this line of thinking from which the often touted term “jihad” emerges. But what is holy to us? A tattered and dilapidated notion of true freedom? Some intangible fluff represented by “the pursuit of happiness”? Some radically unbalanced notion of Justice? It takes belief to make a good person do evil.

Right now, the United States has more people in prison than anyone else in the world. We are utterly without peer for taking away people’s freedom. We also invade more countries and fight more wars than any other country on Earth. We bribe and coerce more governments than anyone else, to insure that America’s “best interests” are realized. What are these interests? Well, in South America it was making certain our oil companies and other corporate interests were firmly rooted, and that nobody there had free health care or easy access to education. This, in exchange for a promise of prosperity under dictatorships and coups we staged. This is why Iran dislikes and distrusts us, too. And England. We are not a good country.

Yes paradoxically, we are good. Almost all of us, individually, are good people. So how is it that our leaders, both locally and nationally, somehow turn us into this giant black-hearted oppression machine? We don’t want people be killed so that Exxon can get more oil. We don’t want millions of people to slowly starve to death because they won’t agree to grow just a few select crops and import the rest from us, and other key partners. We don’t think people should be left to die when they don’t have money. We don’t want people to be tortured.

It is obvious that our government does not represent our wishes. Instead, our government represents ideologies that are devoid of a human conscience. However, our government is large. Many social programs within our government do represent our wishes. Unfortunately, the prevailing ideologies believe that we have limitless money to spend on the industries devoted to killling people, yet no money to spend upon ourselves, for the benefit of even our most basic humanity.

I can scarcely imagine what society we might create if we devoted our resources toward our own betterment instead of siphoning out all our resources to feed the machinery that only can kill. I don’t even mind the idea of a very large government, as long as it served the true best interests of the United States, which is the interests of all its people.

Unfortunately, it is ingrained into us from early on that our best course, as an individual, is to seek all that we want and desire for ourselves. There is little thought given to seeking what would be best for all people, not just ourselves. This mentality lingers even still. What business owner does not create and dangle carrots of hope before his employees, yet always holds absolute control within themselves? What intents and arrangements are formed between business people that do not, inevitably, lead to the fulfillment and triumph of one self-interested strategy over another? Is it any wonder that we normal people, when placed in a position of power, become corrupt by the inherent idolatry that has permeated the very formation of our character, and as such, is often invisible, even to ourselves?

When you are a religious person who tries seeing the world from outside the limiting scope of your belief, you encounter one of the greatest challenges that anyone might face. That challenge is, truly looking at yourself. This is the challenge we face. Any change that comes without meeting this challenge will be only the most superficial and meaningless change.

And in the spirit of government being capable of good, I have to mention Heidi. She lives deep in the bowels of the Center for Disease Control in California with all her biology ickyness — I mean goodness. We have a very long history. Heidi is an extraordinarily intelligent person, and I don’t say that lightly. She’s probably smarter than me, though I’ll never admit it. Strangely, I can never remember us ever really arguing about anything, though we have some fairly pronounced differences. She is exceptionally gracious. I could say that I am, at least, more honest than her, but I’d be dishonest saying it. I love Heidi — she is one of a kind.

The CDC has started requiring a couple days off each month, I am imagining, as a result of budget constraints. With this small bit of free time, Heidi has started offering health consultancy. I have no idea why, considering she is also a professor at UC SF and UC Berkeley. Her research specialties are sexually transmitted diseases and women’s health issues, including the insidious HPV, and also the collection of medical data for analysis. I mention this because some of you are policy makers who can most certainly benefit by listening to someone of Heidi’s character and expertise, and you, Johnny my boy, Mr. Big Wig at Planned Parenthood, if you guys need some serious research expertise.

Anyway, you can contact Heidi and learn more about the all-around sexy creature herself on her website. But don’t get the wrong idea from my silly words, this woman is hard-core. Mind like a vice grip. Now you’ve been warned, too.

We need to spend all that we possibly can on education for people. We need to focus our thoughts and energies into bettering our lives, and realizing that a better life does not, in any way, mean the accumulation of money credits. A better life is simply, just about each other.

One of my earliest memories is sitting on a little wooden chair with a row of giant Dr. Seuss books, spines aligned revealing their titles, seated neatly on the half-height bookcases at our local public library. Once a week my mother and her friend Ramona, who was the playground teacher/arts and crafts person at our local elementary school, would take me so I could choose the books I wanted to read during the next week. I liked Dr. Suess books a lot, and books about the sun, even though I didn’t understand much of what they said.

I’m told that I was reading before I entered kindergarten, but I have no memories that are in relation to time or place, to know for myself. I do remember first grade, sitting in circles, reading books out loud with other children, being so bored and laughing at “see Spot run! Run Spot, run!” repeated over and over again. I also remember being told by the teacher that I cannot tell the other children what the words are; they must figure them out for themselves. It was a frustrating process for me. It was an exercise in patience.

It was largely my mother’s fault, I am certain. I remember her taping the written name on everything in the house. I remember the sounds of letters, and struggling to understand why “th” or “ough” was the way it was. I remember when sounding out letters became more than just that — when the words started forming their associated objects in my mind, and reading comprehension began. I can only presume that is what made Spot running and running so boring to read.

Today I was reminded of this by a Seattle Times article about a huge jump in library use by the public. They attribute people’s more frequent library visits to our economic downturn. I would be interested to know what types of books are being checked out. We are known to be one of the most literate places in the country, and our King County Library System is second only to Queens Borough, NY in use. Nationally, 68 percent of Americans now have a library card.

Even more surprising, at least to me, is we are reading more actual literature. The article claims that for the first time in 25 years, more of us are wanting to read something substantial. Half of us, in fact. If you look at 18-24 year old people, the increase is even more substantial. This is very good news, considering the vast majority of university degrees are currently in business. My hope is that people are beginning to question, and are seeking answers, that focusing alone upon business and money simply cannot provide.

Social sciences come in second to business, with around half as many undergraduates. That is an interesting group of people, whose powers can be used for good or ill by the predominantly business world. The same holds true for the third and fourth place disciplines of education and psychology. It is interesting noting that our society, characterized by its dominance by business and marketing, produces people educated mostly with degrees in business, psychology and broad social sciences. Our education is dominated by business, and then the disciplines of studying the mind, and the society, and back to education.

Most surprising to me is that philosophy majors, though a tiny minority, have been slowly yet steadily increasing. These are the people trained to think beyond any given discipline. They question everything, and seek answers. Possibly this trend reflects what people are doing on their own, by reading more literature. We attribute the invention of the public library system to one of our country’s founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. What we might forget is that many of our founding fathers were also deep into the philosophical writings and ideas of the time, that were wandering about in Europe. These philosopher’s critiques of their own cultures, and their ideas for better ones, could be played out and realized in our nascent America, which was not burdened by the traditions and power structures firmly established in their European societies. And this, our founding fathers did.

But as with all free things, some one, some group, or some prevailing purpose or idea will seek to take ahold. For us, this is money. It is money, at the cost of us caring for one another. It is a monstrous industry grown up around war and destruction — of control, painted in the guise of “security”. It is the pursuit of money, where all else is secondary, even life.

There is no way I can express how happy it makes me, learning that people are reading more. How happy I am that they are seeking alternate ideas and perspectives. How happy I am, that it matters to them.

Thousands of letters were sent to families of soldiers who died, and these letters were signed, looking like a human, by a computer. Each letter named this family’s son or daughter, “John Doe”. For some reason, the Pentagon said this horrified them. But what is the difference? Nobody from the Pentagon saw or signed the letters, anyway. The soldiers are John Doe, even if the names were right. I suppose you could say, it is the efficiency of business.

Our President in a national interview claimed that one of the greatest successes of his Presidency, looking back, is the triumph over Al Qaeda in Iraq. When reminded that there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq until he attacked it, his response was, “Yeah, so what?” In the meantime, millions of people are dead and crippled in horrific ways, while a very few others become even richer, and our government and economy go bankrupt.

And by example, Israel, which was created a few years ago forcibly on Palestinian land, subsequently locks the Palestinian people into walled-off areas where their food, medical supplies and power are all controlled by Israel. The Palestinian people elect, legitimately, through a democratic voting process, Hamas to be their government leaders. We and Israel refuse to recognize the outcome of this election because Hamas is not a supplicant to the Israeli will. Instead, we kill thousands of Palestinians. It is true that Palestinians have fought against Israel occupying their land. It is not ethically correct for them to kill Israelis for this. Nor was it ethically correct for Israel to be established there in the first place. Nor is it ethically correct for Israel to do what they are now doing, to the Palestinian people. Nor is it right for us to say to Israel, we are behind you 100%.

War is easy. It is also highly profitably for the few correctly-positioned people. High short-term gains. It takes a lot of money to be elected. When we take into account emergency and supplemental spending, the United States is giving around $1 trillion dollars each year, into the military/industrial complex. This is more than all other nations on Earth, combined. At the same time, we are the only wealthy and industrialized nation that does not provide health care to its citizens, yet we pay more per capita for health care than any of them by far, to insurance companies and hospitals.

I wonder what might happen if we took even half the money we spend on destruction and spend it, instead, on the constructive, both here and for other people around the world. This might hurt the oil industry, and the pharmaceutical industry. And if we provide ourselves with cheaper universal health care, we would certainly hurt the medical insurance industry. But maybe George Bush’s wisdom isn’t really all that far off: “Yeah, so what?”

Move beyond the psychologists and sociologists. Look at the true images of war and death. Find out why so many of our soldiers are committing suicide. Find out why so many Israeli soldiers are. Imagine why our own soldiers, thousands of killed young men and women, are never seen, nor the many, many thousands more that have been mutilated, yet still live. Move beyond the business people and look at what a war economy means. Move beyond the business people and look at care and compassion, only for those with money, really means.

It is hopeful, believing that people are questioning. We stand on the brink of so many possibilities that science and technology have brought us. Just imagine what we might be capable of, if we can bring our more pround sense of humanity into this future. A future that instead values life over all.