HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!I hope 2006 is full of all things good for you and yours.
I have made some New Year wishes - humourless I'm afraid but I don't find the world around me a joy-filled place much as I want it to be joyful and creative and compassionate.
In fact, I am fearful for my country and the western and byzantine traditions across the world if we continue on the path we are on. Oh well, empires have risen and fallen across the millennia and the earth has continued to turn on its axis - so why worry. I think of missed opportunities for creativity. I think of those who could live and enjoy life rather than be destroyed by war and avertable famine. I love the biblical image of everyone with their vines, relaxing under the fig trees with their families having sufficient bread and wine to enjoy with one another. I think it is so sad that we do not maintain such an image front and centre in our minds and do not put all our energies towards fostering it and making it real in our own lives and the lives of others.
So when I wish you all that is good for 2006, this is the sort of good I mean.
So when I wish you all that is good for 2006, this is the sort of good I mean.
However, I still have my wishes and here they are:
My wishes for 2006?
Number One on my list are that the actions of Bush, Cheney and Howard become more and more transparent and understood for their nastiness and destruction - and, dare I say it, evil. I don't want Howard to resign but to remain as Prime Minister to bear the fruits of his labour. I don't want Bush impeached - Cheney for President is beyond imagining - and I think it is abhorrent for the most powerful nation in the world to have a lame duck head of state but I want him outed before his nation and the world and for the Democrats - who don't seem in any better shape than the ALP - to win the 2006 Congressional elections.
Number Two that Australia continues to acknowledge, as some have since Cronulla, that it is a racist country
Number Three that Australia begins to look at and discuss its colonizing attitudes in this country since Federation through to to-day and how these attitudes affect our racial attitudes and our attitudes to our neighbours in Africa, the Middle East, the South Pacific and Asia who have been subjected to colonization themselves.
Number Four that Australians as a nation forsake consumerism and stop trying to be the 51st state of the USA and move to a more reflective, considered, and spiritually informed lifestyle.
After those headliners, I wish for love and compassion; peace and creativity; hope and support for one another; joy for life and joy in one another; faith in ourselves and our Creator; and an understanding of ourselves in and of the wonderful creation that is our planet, our environment.
All these things, in my view, would not only be great to establish in 2006 but be a great basis for the nation, the individual, and me.
My wishes for 2006?
Number One on my list are that the actions of Bush, Cheney and Howard become more and more transparent and understood for their nastiness and destruction - and, dare I say it, evil. I don't want Howard to resign but to remain as Prime Minister to bear the fruits of his labour. I don't want Bush impeached - Cheney for President is beyond imagining - and I think it is abhorrent for the most powerful nation in the world to have a lame duck head of state but I want him outed before his nation and the world and for the Democrats - who don't seem in any better shape than the ALP - to win the 2006 Congressional elections.
Number Two that Australia continues to acknowledge, as some have since Cronulla, that it is a racist country
Number Three that Australia begins to look at and discuss its colonizing attitudes in this country since Federation through to to-day and how these attitudes affect our racial attitudes and our attitudes to our neighbours in Africa, the Middle East, the South Pacific and Asia who have been subjected to colonization themselves.
Number Four that Australians as a nation forsake consumerism and stop trying to be the 51st state of the USA and move to a more reflective, considered, and spiritually informed lifestyle.
After those headliners, I wish for love and compassion; peace and creativity; hope and support for one another; joy for life and joy in one another; faith in ourselves and our Creator; and an understanding of ourselves in and of the wonderful creation that is our planet, our environment.
All these things, in my view, would not only be great to establish in 2006 but be a great basis for the nation, the individual, and me.
