Letter to the Editor

DEAR DAD

Editor,

Warm spiritual greetings, I had a great day yesterday. I wrote a five page letter to my father, telling him that I do not want him to send me any more of the Wall Street Journal's propagandistic shit. I told him that I already understand the entire societal derangement of taking tax dollars and using them to promote war, for the sake of supporting materialism. I know this to be a crazy way of life, and I am therefore not interested in participating. I asked my father how it is that he has attended church for the past 80 years, and after all those Lutheran services and (after he married my mother) Catholic masses, his view is that people are fundamentally rotten, and thus it is a waste of time for anybody to do anything good; and secondly, I asked him how it is that he believes that it would be optimal for every American capable of working, to be productively engaged in strengthening the US military-industrial complex, thereby ensuring that America will continue to have the world's strongest democracy, which needs to be exported globally. I pointed out to him that this view which he holds is insane.

After mailing the letter to my father, I went to Ocean Beach and sat meditation from 11am to 5pm. Then, I walked through Golden Gate Park. I got to Haight Street and stopped in at the Bound Together anarchist bookstore. I told all present that I had just had a great day sitting at the beach, without the usual distraction of 1. America's anti-spiritual materialistic failure of an "experiment in freedom and democracy," 2. the madness of the situation in Iraq to get Bechtel jobs and extract the oil, 3. the declining state of the global environment generally, 4. the lying mouth and annoying face of the illegitimately elected moron in the White House, and 5. the mundane dumb consciousness of the unfortunate people who have mindlessly cooperated in creating this absurd, pointless, American treadmill experience, and who are now themselves stuck in it. I exited Bound Together bookstore by saying "Fuck this world."

I then went to the Catholic Mission Dolores basilica for the Holy Thursday mass. It was well attended and the singing was uplifting. It was a needed contrast to the otherwise pointless, meaningless waste of living here. I am going back today for the Good Friday passion play at noon, and mass tonight at 6:30pm.

I am going to close this email account now, because it has served fully its purpose. I am not motivated to send out any further environmental or peace & justice news forwards. I've sent 'em! You got 'em! If people don't cultivate a spiritual life for themselves, and actively participate in the destruction of materialism, then they will most certainly endure shocks until they wake up. That's the way it is.

See you at the holy places.

Craig Stehr
San Francisco