America's biggest barrier to social and political progress is provincial thinking

Flooding in Europe[/caption]

Carol Forsloff ---The provincial nature of America's thinking has produced problems for the country since the inception of its independence from Great Britain as a separate nation.  The fact that colonists from Europe, and  immigrants from other countries over the years, made the choice to emigrate to the New World never meant that the values of the Old World should all be left behind, like the tatters of a less than amicable divorce.  It is time for America to get over its fixation on itself and begin to think globally as a fair partner as opposed to a self-righteous population where only the chosen few might prosper.

Isolationism historically has been inspired by the notion that America is somehow better at everything than everyone else.  Yet the rest of the world has produced great scientists, great literature and inspired thinking.   Those best known for their moral principles, like Mother Theresa and Mahatma Gandhi, also brought to international attention the need for global thinking with individuals making considerable sacrifice to shine a light on universal needs.

Today's news on American television's major network NBC reported only briefly on the flooding in Calgary, France and Switzerland, part of the massive events that have occurred in many places throughout Europe.  Devastating, torrential rains have driven thousands from their homes, while places like India continue to struggle with increasingly treacherous weather conditions.  All of this is happening as Alaskans enjoy warmer temperatures than anyone has experienced in recent decades during the 2013 summer.  This, combined with the scientists predictions over much of the past 20 years, reminds us that climate change is producing food scarcities, economic problems, social and political unrest and a host of other issues that are addressed locally, when the whole world is experiencing common problems.  And it is America's biggest barrier that its isolationism has meant  years of denial and a method of dealing with an international problem by addressing only the impact on areas of the United States most dramatically impacted, like the Eastern seaboard and the Midwest  following the storms of 2012 and 2013.

The mainstream news today,  mentioning only briefly the storms in Europe, Canada and Asia, said  nothing about climate change.   Instead the name North West given to the newest addition to the Kardashian saga, a baby born to Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, provided news networks with much of its major attention.

The Kyoto protocol has been an effort to address climate change on an international scale.  Whereas the United States eventually approved the agreement to reduce carbon omissions, Congress refused to sign that agreement.    The Kyoto Treaty emphasized the reduction of greenhouse gases, coming on the heels of world scientists' admonitions that the continuing explosion of fossil fuels into the atmosphere would have terrible consequences to world climate.  Yet America, who presents itself as a world leader, offers little leadership in addressing the problems created by climate change.  Those who declare the United States' value as a democracy with moral values have yet to declare their allegiance to helping the world's people in the effort to address the world's problems related to climate change.

While President Barack Obama deals with the problems of immigration and gun control, the biggest barrier to America's social and political progress is scarcely mentioned in most of the President's speeches.  That global thinking that scientists have hoped might occur as they, as a community, have addressed the problems as of international concern, remains the necessary step towards America's serious leadership in global affairs.  The country whose arrogance makes its pronouncements as separate and therefore unequal to the rest of the world's problems means its friends will continue to lack trust in America's leadership, as the unified solutions remain beyond the concerns of the major world contributors, such as Russia, China and the United States, in any real or determined way.

Does God want us to be stressed?

Samantha Torrence - American culture is in an uproar between warring factions that have very different notions on how to achieve ultimate happiness. One faction is the Christian Right which comes under much scrutiny for being heartless and hard. The Christian Right has defended itself by stating their beliefs come from values such as self-control, self-reliance, personal responsibility, and perseverance. The influence of fundamentalist Christianity on American culture is irrefutable and one of its major contributions to American society is the romanticizing of suffering, sacrifice, and its rewards.

Where does the impression come from that suffering builds character and therefore is desirable? Many times Christians point to God as the source of the inspiration so to understand the foundation of valuing stress the Bible must be consulted. When God created Man in the Garden of Eden, humans lived a life with no stress, worry, or care. This type of life is what God had meant for us but as the book of Genesis goes on to explain, man committed sin. The price paid for this transgression was the introduction of stress into the world.

Genesis 3:16- 19
To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."

Simply put, for Original Sin, man was condemned to sorrow, pain, toil, and ultimately death. It is accepted in the scientific community that stress is the major factor in illness and ultimately death of the human body. So how did this curse become associated with positive values? Perhaps it was Man’s self-defense mechanism that transferred this transgression into a simple lesson in the value of hard work and reward? The Bible has much to say on the subject of suffering and faith. Many times the stressful trials in the Bible are tests from God to strengthen the faith of an individual. These examples of trials rewarded by the grace and mercy of God seem to be inspirational to many of the Christian Right.

The attempt to find value in stress and suffering has become an almost zealous pursuit in America. Many churches praise those who go through trials and hardship as people oppressed by the evil of Satan for being pious and righteous. Even outside of the church in other aspects of life pain and stress are seen as precursors to achievement, and this perception does have some merit. Take the concept of muscle strength and exercise for example, one must tear muscles and tire the body so it knows to repair and become stronger. Another example is in the financial sector, you must sacrifice time and money into an investment to receive a growing return. On a more basic level, to survive an encounter with danger an animal must experience great stress and overtax its mind and body to escape its stressor. In all of these aspects the hard work and stress put in comes back with rewards. These are examples of eustress or positive stress that can motivate people.

Eustress can be a positive influence but in certain cultures the instances that cause Eustress are looked at as necessary trials for all to overcome. So body builders are not satisfied with just tearing their muscles a little at a time they overdo it and cause injury to their body. Some people over invest and lose greatly with no returns. Animals die because their bodies were too weak to fight off an attacker. In these cases, Eustress becomes Distress. Americans take Eustress and form it into Distress utilizing the same attitude which caused Eve to first sin, the need for complete control.

Faith churches, which are growing faster than almost any other Christian faction, put great distress on people who are already going through hardship by preaching that people with horrible situations simply do not have the faith in God they should and that is why they cannot overcome. This could almost be considered a form of mental abuse which contributes to the cycle of abuse in churches, families, and communities. The Church’s need for control to enforce the value of suffering and protect people from hopelessness has morphed into a need for control to keep a flock in line. The conditioning Christians receive to accept and practically seek stress has become a detriment to a society as they condemn others for not accepting the stress in a willing manner.

A recent example of this seeming lack of compassion for not accepting unnecessary hardship comes with the Right’s attack on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) initiative. OWS has the catch phrase” We are the 99%” referencing the percentage of people who do not control the majority of the wealth. The Right has come back with its own anti-advertisement with the catch phrase “We are the 53%” The stories on the website sponsoring “We are the 53%” reference personal stories of people who claim to have been through horrible trials and hardships and still have many but they persevere and accuse the OWS of not being able to suck it up and take it. Many of the stories could be inspiring by showing how self-reliance, self-control, perseverance, and personal responsibly can help one overcome the mountains before them. They could be examples of how accepting ones situation and meeting the problem head on without relying on the help of others can build personal strength and character which are valuable in the American individualistic society. These stories could be used to inspire and teach people frustrated and down trodden by their lot in life. Truly the people who write them and the people who agree are inspired and have a very positive reaction to the age old saga of overcoming hardships. Those who overcome are inspiring individuals and at the heart of it wonderful people. It is the method of imparting the stories onto others that has made them seem heartless. They make the lesson of overcoming to be a lesson of seeking out hardship and stress rather than what may be the more pointed lesson, that perceiving a hardship in a more positive manner is the surest way to find contentment and to prosper.

Occupy Wall Street is protesting the diminishing quality of life for the 99% around the world who have very little of the world’s wealth under their control. The movement has taken on socialistic undertones as non-affiliated liberal crowds join in the protests. Many liberals who are accused of wanting socialism and communism maintain that they want the world community to come together to provide for one another the very basic necessities of life that can be found on the bottom two tiers of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. These bottom two tiers are said to have to be fulfilled so one can have the opportunity to peruse happiness which is a corner stone of the American culture. Incidentally Maslow agrees and shows that happiness and the ultimate goal of enlightenment cannot be achieved without the first two tiers being met.  By eliminating the struggle for basic needs one could eliminate the stress caused from the pursuit and thus promote health and happiness.



So who has it right? And what would God want for his children?

Certainly God wants humans to be self-reliant and accept problems as they come so they can in the end overcome these problems. Existence itself is hypothesized by spiritual philosophers to be a lesson and a test to reach enlightenment. However, one cannot forget that God created man originally in paradise, and designed the human body to function optimally in situations of happiness rather than situations of distress. In the Bible God continually commands the human race to ease the suffering of one another, to perform charity, and to display love. All of his commands on how to treat others and the concept of “You reap what you sow,” are meant to inspire man towards a life of happiness and love rather than hardship and toil. God does not want humans to be ‘stressed out,’ and perhaps it is a time to challenge the ingrained American love for hardship and replace it with a love of happiness. If the Christian Right let go of its value of all things distressing how much could be accomplished towards the goals of God, Jesus, and the great philosophers that have for centuries been trying to teach the simple lessons of the value of love.

Diversity in America's culture reflected in Christmas events

[caption id="attachment_4453" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Portland, Oregon White Stag Sign"][/caption]

Carol Forsloff - On a December evening a crowd in Portland, Oregon held protest signs,
while others sang rock and roll Christmas songs, as Natchitoches,
Louisiana in the South brought it's a wonderful life in
the most traditional way showing cultural contrast at Christmas.

A trip by a transit train to downtown Portland from the Beaverton -

Portland Southwest area takes less than ten minutes, even during the
busy holiday rush. The lighting of the Christmas tree brings crowds to
the downtown area. This year the possibility of a bomber put a pale on
an otherwise special event, but still along the sidewalks surrounding
Pioneer Square throngs of folks stood in the nighttime chill just to be
there the moment the Christmas tree lights went on in the tradition of
Portland for years.

Portland celebrates Christmas in many
traditional ways, but it's still a place with a difference.   At the
Christmas season 2009, on several corners near the tree lighting area,
folks gathered with protest signs, declaring their non support of the
Mideast War and the Barack Obama message. Nearby others sat with drums,
beating out some message that had its own code for the faithful. Music
from center stage piped to the audience came in waves, not of wonder and
delight, but of sounds of rap and rock with words so confused or
abused, no Christmas message delivered. The moment came, to set the
stage for the season. A solitary tree laden with lights and little else,
the size one might consider for a local Masonic Lodge but scarcely for
city celebration, seemed somehow intimately linked with drums and
messages less of Christmas than of causes instead. It was clearly a
contrast from celebrations in a small Southern Louisiana town.

Every year thousands of people come from all over the world to

celebrate the Christmas season in Natchitoches, Louisiana. This town,
located in the north central section of the State, puts on a fine
display, so fine that local folks and visitors alike exclaim about its
wonder. Millions of lights line the city streets. Huge, intricate
displays of Christmas scenes, all lit with colors of myriad hues reflect
on the lake that runs through town, then bounce across the sky in a
fashion to rival heaven's own stars.

2010 showed Natchitoches at
its finest, with mild temperatures in the 70's which meant people could
walk along the river and under the Christmas lights with light sweaters
at most.  The magic, however, was the myriad lights in all directions,
on both sides of Cane River Lake, and the fireworks that are like no
other place in the world on this occasion.

The Christmas carols
were the traditional sort, played to the fireworks display and the tree
lighting ceremony too.  Everywhere people had homes lit up for the
holidays, with churches offering the favored nativity scenes at the
entrances announcing Christ's message.

Christmas celebrations
that take place from mid November through the end of the first week in
January in Natchitoches, but they reveal the uniqueness of small town
holiday spirit.  That uniqueness stands in stark contrast to the
Portland opening of the season, as a reminder of the regional
differences in the way Christmas is celebrated in America.