rayoflight wrote:If you have issues with Americans, please be frank about it but to judge the 12-Step program and Oprah is not the best way as they have been very helpful to many people and have their place in American society.
OK,
I apologise without reservation for making such a general statement. It was lazy and I should have been more specific. I abhor the level of consciousness that is used to create sentiments of nationalism, as human beings, I believe we are all one and patriotism based on false national identities is most certainly used in a cultic fashion to control and abuse ordinary people ... to the point of mass genocides ... and as a distraction from the more real and pressing issues that we face. I also often do exactly what you have just done, stopping people from reinforcing simplistic negative racial or national stereotypes.
I think this discussion is good but it should be split off into its own topic ...
I think I reacted strongly against the basic equation that "if your family does not believe in God and pray together ... you are sick" supported by the Brahma Kumari like ordination that "if your family ever has an argument or disagreements ... it is also sick" and so on. Very quickly, it read to me far too much like the Brahma Kumari expectations of external perfection and control leading to manipulation.
I would argue that there are plenty of very happy and healthy secular or atheist families ... AND relative to Asia ... very happy and healthy polytheist families that believe in many gods. In fact, I will probably step out of line and say that the healthiest communities or nations ... ARE ... actually secular or polytheist and monotheism has been the harbinger of the most godless and cruel acts on Earth.
There is goodness in what has been written but it needs refined, partly to suit tour BKWSU experience and, partly, to remove the cultural biases present within it.
So, how do I define that part of Middle America ... "A-murika, one national under God" ... that then goes out and drops thousand of tonnes of bombs or chemical agents mainly on women and children? That is incredibly blinkered and nationalist in its vision. Obviously, on the other hand, America has produced some of the greatest modern thinkers and artists (often DESPITE or in reaction AGAINST not BECAUSE of the other A-murika) ... and cheerleaders. So it cannot be all bad.
As the dominant culture in the world, perhaps we ought to discuss American from a spiritual perspective elsewhere ... seen as it is by the Brahma Kumaris, as a "vicious", "fighting monkey" that is going unleash its nuclear arsenal to "purify" the world, ignorant, unself-realised and doomed to sink beneath the oceans within the next few years.
As for Oprah ... yes, in the old days, I thought that she did great work in making people speak and listening. Yes, on an real level, she has probably help hundred of times more people than the Brahma Kumaris but recently I was sorely disappointed by her and is a genuine charitable giver.
But she presents herself, or has been presented as being vegetarian ... but then sells out and does a big national KFC Chicken nuggets promotion. A cynical marketing promotion by a white male dominated corporation targeting a primarily black female market (in American chicken and junk food tends to be the cheap meat that makes up the African-American diet. The people kept as slaves, at least to corporations, through poor nutrition and education).
I thought she had sold out. Do a Google for 'the Oprah Chicken Riots of '09'. I mean, why did she not use her power and influence do a big promotion for veggie burgers, salad or brown rice health food? It is all about the money ...