Just like us

(YellowTimes.org) – Listening to all the incendiary rhetoric, accusations and finger pointing by Washington towards other nations these days, I can't help but be constantly reminded of the age-old adage that warns us: Beware of the finger that you point towards others, for indeed, in that very act, three other fingers point directly back at you. Buddhism and other worldly philosophies and religious disciplines teach us to weigh our criticisms of others in light of our own human condition. Truly, how can we pass judgment on someone else's words, behaviors, or character unless we have seen these things somewhere before, namely, in ourselves?

On a personal level, there is a small but significant exercise one is encouraged to perform whenever one finds oneself in judgment of another. After whatever statement you make about someone else, simply add the words, "Just like me."

This practice is based on the principle that none of us is perfect and that the flaws we recognize in others can be found within some aspect of ourselves. The beauty of this technique is that it tears away the veils of illusion of our alleged perfection, superiority and self-righteous vindication over others.

It reminds us of our own fallibility and endows us with a sense of humility, two concepts that seem to be utterly lacking within the hallowed halls of the U.S. government in general, but most noticeably within the ranks of the current Bush administration.

If you listen carefully to what our leaders are telling us about other dangerous, "evil" nations, terrorist groups, and "inferior" systems of government, while keeping in mind and adding the phrase "just like us" to everything they say, you will begin to discern just how all this finger- pointing is being utilized to obscure the sins of our own national inadequacies, guilt, failings, and outright evil transgressions.

Shortly after September 11, Bush went on the offensive against the "axis of evil" and other so-called "rogue" nations claiming they were a threat to the world as they were developing and amassing weapons of mass destruction, "just like us."

In fact, the United States has the largest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, most notably nuclear warheads, in the world. The United States is the only nation in the world to have ever actually used nuclear weapons against civilian populations, not just once, in Hiroshima, but unconscionably a second time in Nagasaki, killing millions of innocent, unarmed people. The U.S. is also guilty of killing millions more in the fire-bombings of Dresden and other major German cities during World War II.