Reflections On the Difference a Passion for Truth Makes

With Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

With Jeremy Scahill, journalist, author, and activist

"The media is absolutely essential to the functioning of a democracy. It's not our job to cozy up to power. Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government. We're supposed to be holding those in power accountable. We're not supposed to be their megaphone. That's what the corporate media have become." — Amy Goodman

"I have chosen to cast my lot with independent media outlets because I believe that only through independent reporting where you are not beholding to the interests of corporations or government are you able to really aggressively pursue the truth." — Jeremy Scahill

“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed.” — Hannah Arendt

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It was September 11th, 2001 that was the turning point for me which ultimately once again changed my life. Gratefully I did not listen to George Bush and just go shopping. And nor did I believe our then President's words when he said that we "were attacked for our freedoms." In my deepest being, I knew that was a lie. It is also true that I had no idea why 9-11 happened. And I had to find out. The profound trauma I felt compelled me to know and understand what I did not know. It compelled me to explore what needed awareness, healing, and transformation within myself and beyond.

Thus began a journey which continues to this day. My passionate quest for truth led me to discover independent journalists, authors, activists, and media resources which were not connected to any political party and did not receive any corporate funding. The books piled up on my bookshelves as I devoured more and more information. I sought to know who was coming to our area and found myself driving into Portland on cold rainy winter nights to hear so many different people speak. My research led me to gradually begin to discern who I could trust as resources of information and who I could not.

This has not been an easy journey. Along the way I was coming face to face with layer upon layer of my own indoctrination, ignorance, and illusions that I had absorbed in our culture. It was humbling and painful. And this process was also incredibly empowering and inspiring and hopeful. Gratefully, I discovered that disillusionment is an antidote to illusion and a necessary part of the journey into greater and greater truths, integrity, courage, wisdom, and an ever expanding circle of caring.

There are many prayers that I hold in my heart and in my deepest being. Among them is that the passion for truth, no matter where it leads, will expand and grow within more and more of us. Otherwise, as Emma Goldman illuminated long ago, ignorance will remain "the most violent element in society." And as Noam Chomsky has wisely and chillingly said, Americans will also remain "a profoundly propagandized people."

Several weeks ago I once again listened to Noam Chomsky on David Barsamian's "Alternative Radio" on KBOO (9am on Tuesdays), a local independent radio program in Portland that receives no corporate funding. I've been listening to the weekly broadcast that David Barsamian hosts with a large and diverse variety of guests for decades now. Most of the voices he features are rarely and or never heard on corporate funded mainstream media. (https://www.alternativeradio.org/barsamian/about-barsamian/)

Another more recent talk that I heard replayed was an excellent one given by Naomi Klein. This is the description of the program: 

Holocaust, derived from the Greek, is a large-scale calamity involving fire. Today, the term is specifically used to describe the German genocide of the Jews. But it has a long history. The European mass murder of Indigenous peoples in North and South America killed 55 million or 90% of the population, between 1492 and 1600, in a little more than one hundred years. More bloodbaths were to follow. In Africa, many millions were killed in the Congo by Belgium. Germany wiped out the Herero and Nama peoples in Southwest Africa. In the Middle East, that was quickly followed by the Turkish slaughter of the Armenians. Then came Auschwitz. Since the end of World War Two, barbarisms and genocides have continued: in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Myanmar and Gaza. Naomi Klein says, “The Nazi Holocaust is finally being placed in history connected to the terrors that came before and after.” (https://www.alternativeradio.org/products/klen009/)

This is what I seek again and again and again — the larger perspective that empowers me and us to see, know, absorb, and act upon the truths which are impacting us all. Because we are all connected, all related, all family. Without awareness of the issues and lived experiences of our planetary sisters and brothers — and very much including what we ourselves have absorbed and carry in our own hearts, minds, and bodies — our circle of caring remains limited. And our capacity for compassion and heartbreak, for healing and transformation, and for conscious and wise beliefs and actions on behalf of a higher good is also impaired.

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Over the past 20+ years, there are many who have helped me to awaken and heal from my long slumber and empowered me to strengthen my connection with truth and with my heart and the hearts of all others. This is a glimpse into some of those who have in some way supported and empowered me in opening to embody and live an increasingly honest and authentic, conscious and Self-led, compassionate and loving life:

Joanna Macy, Jane Goodall, Riane Eisler,  Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman, Arundhati Roy, Isabel Wilkerson, Maria Ressa, Vandana Shiva, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Angela Davis, bell hooks, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Toni Morrison, Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz, Angeles Arrien, the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, Pema Chödrön, Joanne Cacciatore, Joan Borysenko, Rachel Carson, Dorothy Day, Hannah Arendt, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Emma Goldman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Michelle Alexander, Jane Mayer, Rebecca Solnit, Marian Wright Edelman, Frances Moore Lappé, Terry Tempest Williams, Margaret Mead, Mirabai Starr, Melissa Harris-Perry, Christiana Figueres, Malala Yousafzai, Greta Thunberg, Sir David Attenborough, Howard Zinn, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Cornel West, Bernie Sanders, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Gabor Maté, Richard Schwartz, Lissa Rankin, Bessel van der Kolk, Dan Siegel, Henry Giroux, Jeff Sharlet, Jeffrey Sachs, Norman Solomon, Jeremy Scahill, David Sirota, Seymour Hersh, Daniel Ellsberg, Father Daniel Berrigan, Michael Parenti, Paulo Freire, Chalmers Johnson, Timothy Snyder, Jason Stanley, Bill Moyers, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, James Hansen, Bill McKibben, Chris Jordan, Michael E. Mann, Dahr Jamail, David Korten, Bryan Stevenson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Jelani Cobb, Resmaa Menakem, Michael Meade, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Frank Ostaseski, Francis Weller, Fred Rogers, John Welwood, Thích Nhất Hạnh, the Dalai Lama, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Judith Duerk, Rachel Naomi Remen, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Sharon Salzberg, Brené Brown, Tara Brach, Kristin Neff, Charlotte Kasl, Mary Oliver, John O'Donohue, Rumi, Hafiz, William Stafford, Wendell Berry, Peter Levine, Kahlil Gibran, Joy Harjo, Naomi Shihab Nye, Amanda Gorman, Chelan Harkin, Jack Kornfield, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Matthew Fox, Robert Beatty, Doug Pullin, and the list goes on and on... 

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It is not easy to be human. And it is my belief that isolation, rugged individualism, and the "imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" (a quote from bell hooks) that we humans have long lived under has impacted us all, no exceptions. Therefore, connecting with those who embody a passion for truth and everything that entails — integrity and courage, resilience and persistence, consciousness and wisdom, an understanding of trauma and healing and transformation, and an ever evolving and expanding capacity for compassion and love — truly matters. It is my experience that those who inspire and support us in going deeper and deeper into the truths within our own beings also empower us to heal, to awaken and transform, and to experience our interrelatedness with all beings. 

And then who can we harm? And who might we instead inspire to more deeply pursue our inner and outer truths, and to heal and to love? The outer reflects the inner.

May more and more of us grow and expand how it is that we experience and live out of a commitment to truth, to doing no harm, to alleviating the suffering within ourselves and our earthly sisters and brothers. May we increasingly hold all beings with compassion and caring, and beginning with ourselves and expanding out to include all others. May we be inspired to embody a passion for truth — the larger truths which very much include the experience of the Divine as our essential nature and that which is woven through all of life on Earth. 

There is a great need, I believe, for us as both collectively and as individual human beings to awaken to the essence of our true nature. This is the most essential and empowering truth that we can embody — the recognition and experience of the Divine within us all. 

This is no small journey, but one in which we can embark on throughout our lifetimes with greater and greater depth and commitment to ourselves and to one another. We all matter. And under it all, we are all Sacred. This is the greatest truth that I have discovered.

With compassion, love, and blessings... 

💗🙏 Molly

Photo by Molly